Greetings,
After a loooooong period of weighing whether we should enter the real estate market or not, my wife and I have finally decided to jump on board. We have paid and signed for a small tiny block of land - 10.5x30m in a new estate in South East Victoria, titling next year 2nd-3rd quarter. However, we have heard that they are always delayed due to countless reasons so we are not putting too much thoughts into this yet.
We have approached a numbers of builders and being on a tiny frontage, our choices are limited as we aim to build with a double garage at least 3 bedrooms plus a study room. Carlisle, Simonds and Australian Building Co. do have these floorplans but they are not to our likings. Carlisle being inflexible in changing structural designs, no moving in anything, same as ABC meanwhile we find Simonds the easier builder. Be that as it may, all of the reviews and words of mouth from family and friends pull us away from Simonds. All of these leads to us to source for a builder who is willing to mix and match the things that we like and custom build a home for us.
SJD Homes ticks all of the boxes for us so paperwork is signed - waiting for soil test, drawings/draftings, etc to be done which we've been advised that it can take up to 4 weeks. So far so good at the moment, SJD Homes representatives have been the most accommodating and less pushy compared to the others but let's see how it goes from now on as deposit is paid and paperwork has been signed today. Hope they keep the momentum going and continue to build the strong relationship with us.
Very excited but pretty sure the adrenaline will fade shortly as it may take close to a year before we can see some slab and frames on our land.
Congrats on your build. We have just begun the build phase with SJD in SE Vic. Civil works in our estate and council's planning department took a MUCH longer time frame than anticipated. Safe to say, that once everything was ticked off, SJD were rearing to go- we have been impressed thus far on what has been completed on the build in such a short time.
Congrats on your build. We have just begun the build phase with SJD in SE Vic. Civil works in our estate and council's planning department took a MUCH longer time frame than anticipated. Safe to say, that once everything was ticked off, SJD were rearing to go- we have been impressed thus far on what has been completed on the build in such a short time.
Thank you!
I've heard that the estate we're in is always behind the schedule but I believe most of them are usually hit by the same reasons. We're excited about it but a bit of extra time to save more is also a plus as we're not in the rush anyway.
How's your experience with SJD? Which floorplan are you building?
Cheers.
Great thus far. Only ~4wks into the 'build' of the house. It's all happening so quickly. We have a custom home- so good to see it come to life after years of planning the floorplan! Are you building a custom design?
Great thus far. Only ~4wks into the 'build' of the house. It's all happening so quickly. We have a custom home- so good to see it come to life after years of planning the floorplan! Are you building a custom design?
Yes, same. Ours is a custom design as well.
Really exciting journey, I can tell. Have you got a thread or blog that I can follow?
Cheers.
No, am interested in figuring out how to set one up but not sure where to start.
No, am interested in figuring out how to set one up but not sure where to start.
It's fairly easy. I'll follow your thread once you have started one.
So I've recently paid the initial deposit for preliminary contract. The communication was brilliant throughout but came to a halt after the payment was made - they stopped replying to my questions. I felt as if they've now secured the sales and could move on to service the others.
A bit disappointed...
That's disappointing. Who are you dealing with in the office? Have you tried to contact their head office in Officer?
All good now, finally got our first initial sitting and elevation. Here is the floor plan.
We noticed a few changes that are missed and some we wanted to add on:
1. We are going to move the ensuite door slightly further away from shower to allow wider towel rail.
2. Smaller skylight and moving it to the center between linen and garage internal door.
3. Adding pantry door
Still thinking whether we should get them to do our cooling or do it after.
Looks great, is it a custom or one of their standard designs?
Up to you on the cooling, they do have a builders margin, but then if anything goes wrong or there are leaks etc etc, it's all covered under the builders insurance. We went with them doing it, for the convenience factor just in case and they need to organise contractors etc etc.
It is a custom build as they don’t have one that suits my block for my tiny block of land.
I was thinking of getting them to do it but they quoted us $4.5-5k to do it. Quotation from other places are like $3k-3.5k?