Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA?

Hey guys,,, Been very quite just a update

Building Jasper 17 and have put a little timeline together (sorry for the spelling mistakes it past my bed time )

Hoping I'm in the next 8 weeks

Timeline
Week 1
30.1 water installed, two taps
31.1 bin and toilet arrived
1.2 fence site scrape
2.2 site cut

Week 2
5.2 electrical box installed
6.2 sand delivered
7.2 pipes and plumbing in
8.2 sand laid over cut and pipes/ house boxed
9.2 foam layed and wire
11.2 slab poured
12.2 slab clean

Week 3
17.2 frame delivered

Week 4
20.2 frame is up, roof delivered
21.2 windows delivered, roof up
22.2 windows in
23.2 gutters delivered
24.2 gutters up

Week 5
27.2 tiles delivered
28.2 tiles up
1.3 sand for bricks arrived
2.3 plumbers did rough in
3.3 heating installed

4.3 walls wrapped
5.3 bricks arrived

Week 6
6.3 brickie started
7.3 electrical rough in, bathtub box in.
8.3 garage door in, sliders in for doors.
9.3 brick finished, installation arrived with plaster
10. 3 installation installed

week 7
14.3 Plaster started
15.3 plaster finished
16.3 plaster putty done for gaps

You've been very busy T. Do you have any photos to share?

Here is a couple so far

Looks nice! Which colour scheme is this?

Beautiful and exciting for you no doubt. I can't wait for mine to start. HBC is dragging their feet applying for one thing at a time and not starting the other until they finish, can't multi task. 7 houses in my block hv already started ??

Yeah I can relate.

Ditto, the night of our colors apt, we got an email from the land developer, our settlement has been pushed back until October... it's already been 9 months since we signed, what's another 9 months right?

I'm starting to lose patience. We signed our land contracts last march and were told that our land was expected to title in November 2016. Then in November we are told it was March/April 2017 and nothing has started. Our house price starts going up next month. I'm never buying a block of land that's not titled again.

I got my conveyancer to email the developers lawyers last week and they stated the title would be July 2017 which is unbelievable as the developer hasn't even touched the dirt yet!

Sorry to hear that its taking so long. This is the reason why I won't buy a block of land until I at least know its been lodged in the titles office.

The block of land I'm looking at they building the roads at the moment, then I believe it goes to council for compliance certificate and then onto the titles office.

Have you gotten an explanation on why they haven't started work on the land yet?

Yeah I don't blame you it's really unsettling and makes me nervous.

The first explanation I got (December 2016) was that there was water upgrades pushing back the starting date. However, we don't have any further correspondence on the delay

Yeah I don't blame you it's really unsettling and makes me nervous.

The first explanation I got (December 2016) was that there was water upgrades pushing back the starting date. However, we don't have any further correspondence on the delay

Ditto, the night of our colors apt, we got an email from the land developer, our settlement has been pushed back until October... it's already been 9 months since we signed, what's another 9 months right? /quote]
We signed in Feb 2015 and land was supposed to title in that Dec.It settled in July '16 and started construction in Sept '16.Im only at start of fixing stage now.By the looks of it I'll be in by Christmas.

Hi all

Just dropping into this thread since I'll be building with Homebuyers. Going to be building the Retreat 22 in Lollipop Hill @ Manor Lakes. I have my custom color appointment next Wednesday....

Kinda been thrown into the deep end since I'm taking over this build from my younger brother and his ex girlfriend..... it's good that I get to skip a lot of stuff and time waiting but stressful as well since it's been pretty much GOGOGO from the time I started to take over.

I'm really liking the Alpine and Basalt themes so I'll probably stick very closely to one of them. I have a 5k in up allowances to play around with during the custom color....

Does anyone know the price of Cat 3 and Cat 4 Kitchen benchtops? Mine's already @ Cat 2 level if that helps....

And are we able to get a price list for upgrades from our custom color rep?

TIA.

I was able to get some pricing before hand, they don't have a pricelist per se, while I was in there they kept refereeing to their computer for prices, but even these can fluctuate, I know that downlights went up twice between us signing and doing our colours app, 9 moths later.

Hi RWes,

If you can get hold of the sales person who your brother signed the Pre Works Contract (PWC) with, they should be able to provide you with a price list for changes such as this. Our sales guy in Craigieburn was able to provide a list that ran for about 8 pages and covered the cost of all the different structural and category changes available for the particular design. When reading this list make sure to realise that the prices are always Cat 1 -> Cat X upgrade.

The list I mention won't cover the small things like power points, down lights, ethernet and such but will give you the bigger items like upgrading the carpet, benchtops and tiles.

I asked for all upgrade options and prices before pre-start and they happily obliged ! We knew which changes we wanted to make by the time we got into the consultation!

This is our first build and never done anything like this before ! But as with any major financial investment! Do the research and know your options ! [/quote]
They could've at least given the options and guide first home buyers through the whole process.That's just good customer service [/quote]

This is such great advice, just yesterday I had a word with finance, we are using HBCs finance, and was told for the most part that the majority of options selected within the colours appointment are to be paid for on the day of the appointment by us, this is contrary to our last visit where we were told otherwise. has anyone had any experience in putting options into their finance contract? I'm also getting sick of getting the run around in terms of one person saying one thing, another saying something different. If it wasn't for having gone unconditional on the land, I would have told HBC to go jump already. Its is definitely hard to make sure cash is on hand when we're told things aren't available, but then are, an there no way to know prices until the appointment to plan before hand.[/quote]

I am super keen to find this out as well!! How much of the upgrades can be included in your finance/mortgage? Because i'm doing this on my own, i know after the house is done and i have bills and the mortgage, i will struggle to get those little extras!!

And i'm scared come the colour appointments, i won't have the cash to spare to pay for the upgrades on the day!

Any help on this is appreciated!!

we have used HBC finance too, we were told we could put upgrades into our finance package, leading up to our colours appt. we were told otherwise. so what upgrades we did make we paid for about a week after with direct transfer out of our own savings. we couldn't put anything into our finance. we spent about 7.6k all up on upgrades.
Ours is also a house and land package so the floor plan and façade are set for us, we did manage to get most our kitchen upgrades into the PWC at the start.

Oh man, that sucks!! So things like down lights, extra electrical points, etc, had to be paid out of your savings?

If that's the case, I'm screwed!!! Cos I would then want to hold off as long as I can on that appointment so I can save as much as I can!! I'll have 17k ready as a deposit but I won't have that much more saved if I wanted extras!!

we paid for all our power points, TV points, we only put in batten lights, but got 1 everywhere we wanted to replace with a down-light later