Frames up
All set, land flat.
BRICKS DELIVERED.
Nice Progress in a week. Still doesn't have shape of the house.
Concrete poured and all set for frame to go up.
I am starting a new thread in hope to help folks who would hit this site and search for Mango Hill.
We moved from India to Australia and lived in south side for more than 2 Yrs. We wanted to move out of unit house as our baby finished 1 Yr and we knew we need big space.
With work involving travel to eagle farm, I preferred to come over to north. Searched rented houses at estates in Taigum, Boondall, Chermside. Finally we decided to get onto a train line and with a hope that trains will be early, we moved to Mango Hill.When we came here we felt like we came from a rush to hush ..
Me and my wife instantly fell in love with Mango Hill and a year later decided to build a house. We looked for land and found Capestone estate.
Started budgeting and I have to say I am back in Maths. My wife made her spread sheet and found that we have to wait for few more months to get our deposits and house.
9 Months down the lane, we see that price increased in Carsons release when compared to Timbury release.
Finally ended up in Carsons release with a lot in mind. We dropped into office and asked on pricing, made our calculations. Went into their office to pay deposit and found that our lot was gone.
Looks like there is too much demand for lots in Capestone as this is one of those areas where we still get more than 450 Square metres. I have seen spring field lakes, fitzgibbon, taigum estates and this is way way way better.
Things to note during lot purchase.
1) There are three phases in lot purchase. Even before you go to Urbex, get pre-approval letter from bank with the price of lot you got from developer.
2) Phase 1 is when you pay deposit and sign contract and wait. Get Pre Approval
3) Phase 2 is when you go to bank, talk about purchase, talk to solicitor to review contract and wait for developer to get title changed on to their name. At this stage you should have your loan approval letter solicitor reviewed your contract and ready for settlement.
Finaancial approval date, this is the one you need to have bank approval letter. You can ask for extension here on providing financial approval letter.
4) Phase 3 is when developer says that title is changed on to their name and now they are ready to transfer it to your name. You have 2 weeks to wrap up which is called settlement. Notify solicitor about it and they will deal with bank and developers. Make sure your initial deposits are ready in your bank account.
Once settled you get details of settlements from solicitor. You will not get any extensions on dates as the developers would be firm, but my case was end of financial year, so no changes.
Finally in June we had our land settled. Our hunt for builders started when we settled our land. We had no idea what we are getting into it until we started looking and houses and they never stuck in our mind. As we passed by each house in Capestone, we lost track on what we saw earlier.
We visited 3-4 times before we could finally stick the display houses into our minds.. This is really tricky phase , be aware that all display houses have extra fixture and fittings.. We found that most of them are kept as decorative items rather than practical living ..
We asked plantation homes on how much those extras were and one of the houses they were 120K more than actual house listed in the price booklet.
we finally figured out we would go with plantation or clarendon.. but the big question.. do I need a double storied or single..
Me and my wife had our thoughts ( nice way of telling arguments ).. which was pretty funny feeling...that's beauty of being a family
I started bit of reasearch and this homeone forum is amazon place.. there is lot of information and few times this will influence your decisions .. we ended up with double storeyed house.. Now decision on builder..
After reading a lot and bang for buck on size we went with clarendon wentworth 35. This is a good size house on ground floor and top floor as well. Plantation first floor were pretty small. Plantation homes ground floor plans were awsome.. but didn't like half size 1st floor plans.
They are pricey but I am sure they will get you a nicce house. I compared both quotes for 3 different houses (total 6 house quotes in hand) and I went mad with comparisions..
It took me weeks to finalize a house on both builders and then roam around them to get a good pricing..
Plantation - Not so good response and keep getting a question on what's your budget, you won't get it in this, don't waste time etc.. I was irritated when he asked that don't I have 1500 to pay deposit..
Clarendon - Flexible to show other plans which could fit my budget when he gave me price list. Always approachable.
Metricon - I ran away after seeing price list and the price for the total squares I get in the house..
Ausbuild - Didn't like the size of rooms on the first floor. Changing the design costed a lot.
Stylemaster - Not in my range. Seriously good house but nothing fits into my lot and budget.
I did visit thorn lands and Aura display and colundra to view houses. Liked the decent house of clarendon. No hifi stuff and flexible.
Month 1 - March 2017 - Paid deposit for land.
Month 2- April 2017 - Contract review by solicitor. Changed the financial approval date by exntending the date.
Month 3- June 2017 - Settlement date was issued and we settled with land.
Month 4- July 2017 - House hunt begins. Pricing and quotes. Touring time as well. Visit to Thornlands display house.
Month 5- August 2017- Decided house type, made our changes and gave it back. Price came up well with few inclusions. Final with Clarendon Wentworth 35, traditional facade, Sapphire inclusions. We extended our kitchen by a metre to get a nook just at kitchen and change ensuite to a more modern design.
Finalized the design, signed contract and now selections.
1st things first. The inclusions are crap in the sapphire or ruby in clarendon. Especially bricks, roof tiles, interior tiles and carpets. We realized this when we went to see bricks at PGH bricks in Oxley.
Limited 20 types of bricks with default grey mortar (cement to bind bricks). We ended up with builder range.
Bristile roofing at Rochedale - Picked default roof type concrete tiles. I am not a big fan of colour bond steel roof. Pricing is not discussed here. We wanted flat type roof tiles, but they don't disclose the price as we were with builders.
The lady there helped with roof tiles, gutter and facia as well. Color and theme is very important at this stage this will decide your external house display in street.
Our roof tile selection was easy one in an hour as we already decided the external selections. With enough time in hand we decided to go and check beaumont tiles. We didn't expect what it takes to walk into tile studio and try to select tiles.
We figured out the silver range provided by clarendon were basically a grey white and choco coloured ones. There are too many rules here as what size to select and anything above that is an upgrade.
Upgrading costs include cost of tile, labour involved and percentage of wastage involved. It was too hard to select tiles and upgrade options to choose with price in mind as well. So we literally came out with only living room tiles selected.
Mid of this week was electrical appointment and we were given 4 Hrs to work on. Note that this office is being refurnished and there is no water to drink nor place to relieve.. What we didn't expect was the time it takes to document the details.
We decided to take everything the lady tries to sell to us and decide later on what to keep after getting to know the price. They don't reveal the price that easy until you make selection and only at the end I got price for each item.
Like a down light is 98 bucks and external light is 74 but a column light is 184 which I don't know the difference. We ended up with 12K dollars extra.
Next step is studio for colour and tiles selection with consultant on same day.
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Now that we pretty much what the ride is going to be we did set aside some money to spend in studio.
Sept 12th Studio.. Drove all the way to Logan to reach there at 9. My wife and I took a break for breakfast as we knew we will be having late lunch or I would say no lunch
We were there at 9 and I have to appreciate the colour consultant who was almost ready with out details. One thing I would suggest at this point is to take tile selection first before going to studio. We had samples from our exterior roof tiles, gutter and facia which helped her to do our exterior colours to match with mortor. We did go with upgrade mortor as the default grey was not good on white bricks that we selected. Costed us around $ 2700.
3 Hrs is not enough when you have modification. We did upgrade our tapware and type of internal doors and external door.
The way sales painted the picture of studio was not what we saw there. Few things were not available to see which we had to deal with.
Ground floor upgrades
1) Main door - upgraded the door which has translucent glass - $ 250.
2) Upgrade handle and lock with Chrome finish - $485
3) Upgraded internal doors with translucent glass - $495 each
4) Added extra dark colour paint in theatre - $500
5) Kitchen - Upgraded sink type and tap - $500
6) Kitchen - Added pot drawers - There are no default pot drawers.
7) Cabinets - Only matt finish is default. Rest is all upgrade. Just the over head upgrade to gloss costs around $2000. We dropped the idea to upgrade.
8 ) Bench stone - Upgrade to designer range costs $200, but upgrade to natural stone like calacatta is around $7000. Default ones provided are the ones you see regularly. We upgraded to designer range and selected black one. Remmber that full white or black are not available in Sapphire range. When I say this, it includes paint colours, cabinet colours, bench stone, tap ware, sink, shower heads etc.
With all this, it came up to 13K and we signed off with delay by an hour. Went for lunch to grab something as we stepped out at 1:30 and our tiles appointment was at 2.
Tiles :- There are lot of conditions here. like the default silver range doesn't have porcelain tiles. No whites or black. Can't go beyond 450x450 size for living. Size issues for wet and dry area in ensuite and bath and powder room. No floor to ceiling tiles anywhere etc.. list is huge but deal with it.
At this point my wife was dead tired even to go around.
We upgraded floor tiles to porcelain and size to 600x600 white tiles. Upgraded splash back tiles. Calculation is based on the area they need to fix tiles.We went for porcelain upgraded tiles for splash back and just that tiny portion costs us around $3000. Yes it's 3 Grand for the tiny portion.
You can see the cost difference based on tiles when we upgraded laundry splashback with non-porcelain that tiny portion costed us just 6 dollars but if we did porcelain it was around $ 1300.
Basically the tiles in Silver Range are the ones which are end of shelf life or standard ones you see in houses which are either for investment or rentals. At times you will not find tiles they have asked to select in certain size. Like in shower you need to go with max 400x400 but we didn't have wall tiles to that size. Tiles lady didn't charge us because we were forced to change the size.
Get ready for a ride here as upgrades means you are adding labour cost as well and of course the grout.
We came out of tiles halfway through as it was closure time. We were so tired that I missed an exit on motorway thinking that I am going to logan instead of home. Made a round and reached home late night..
Next day again to tiles and my wife didn't come over as we were left with grout selection and final pricing. We upgraded the option of floor to ceiling in shower only. Raised the tiles in dry areas to 1200 mm instead of default skirting only. If you are wondering, then skirting tiles are just one tile at bottom in entire dry area. Back and forth on selections and cost variations ended up $8000 for us. I took the print outs and the lady ordered for samples to pick up in 2 Hrs at their Rochedale office which is off motorway.
Picked those samples and went home to compare current house (I live in ex-display) and see how it works. We didn't do bad on it.
Next was carpet. Spoke to guy at Carpet call and arranged to meet at Fortitude Valley home maker centre rather than logan.
Between I went to carpet call to take a look and the one in Aspley home maker centre was really nice.
Finally the day arrived during lunch and the quick look at default ones were crappy with just 5mm underlay. Put them together and the moment I put my feet it was hard block. Looked around and selected 9mm underlay with an upgraded carpet which was listed as $43 per square. Final price around $9000
At this point we were a week away from our flight for a month holiday. We signed off all the documents, got them counter signed, submitted to bank 2 days before we fly.
Start date still in tact - October 29th. Bank has sent for valuation and we have to sign the loan form when we get it back to give a letter to commence build.
Picture looks good but the movie doesn't end here..
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October - Vacation time, all holidays we were in our home time meeting guests and relatives. We were having gala time and telling our parents on how the house will come through and start dreaming. At times we were scary on the risk we took and time we felt happy that we were in budget.
Week 2 into vacation, we got a notice from builders that the final variation stands more than what we expected. Reason, tiles. Builder has charged whole 8K for the TILES we selected onto us. We asked why did you do when we have 6K PROVISIONED for TILES in the contract. It should be 2K extras only. It should be just like electrical selection which we ended up 1500 extra because we had 6K ALLOWANCE in contract.
Email chain started and I got explain that 6K for tiles and 4K for carpet were only PROVISIONING for STANDARD type of tiles. They were not ALLOWANCE like electrical.
Now the confusion starts and I had to make an international call to understand. Explanation given to me was that there is no default tiles or carpet. It means we get a house with out tiles or carpet, so they add a PROVISION to pick tiles from SILVER RANGE and carpet from DEFAULT range. Anything above that is our cost. The reason we get the full price is that the pricing given to us at these two selections are ON TOP of what was PROVISIONED but not INCLUDED in the PROVISION.
Week 3 - We decided not to go back on tiles as we knew the ones we selected were good. Silver range were not what we expected. I asked on why this was not informed before. Neither the sales person did, nor the consultant at beaumont tiles did it, nor any representative from Clarendon did it.
Builder admitted that it was their fault for not explaining and I would discuss this upon my return.
At this point instead of having fun on holiday we started calculating our budgets and we went way beyond what bank would give us as loan.
Last week of October - We are back into Aussie and next thing was to make a call to builder and escalate. We received a call from manager and they explained us the situation. We had two choices 1) take up full cost, 2) change tile selection.
I informed that we have to go back to Beaumont who will charge us $500 as we signed off our paper work. She confirmed that they will make it as exception and we will have to go through tile selection again.We can do studio variation as well with your builder representative but there will not be a colour consultant. We were OK with this as it was agreement between us and we pretty much knew what to knock off to get it back into our budget bucket.
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Wait for November part...
I am back with more frustration to add here.
Tiles again and again I keep running and this was the time I knew what I need to knock off. I left my main floor tiles to 600x600 porcelain and changed kitchen splash back tiles from designer to mid range. Price came down from 8K to 5K, Changed a bit of other tiles to keep it in our budget control.
Signed papers sent back to Beaumont, missus happy, me happy and thought it is going to be smooth ride, but hell NO.
Clarendon comes back asking to get commencement to construction letter from bank. We chased bank to close out our loan file and we rushed them. I keep getting emails that if we do not submit by Nov 25th house price will increase and blah blah blah. We kept mounting pressure on bank and finally they gave us unconditional loan approval which kept clarendon a bit off for some time.
Last week of Nov 2017 and they come back asking for commencement letter to submit if not our house will be further delayed which might be Feb.
We chased bank and they gave us letter after finalizing everything and we submitted it 2nd week of Dec. Felt relaxed waited for drafting thing to finalize to give us start date. Time is running out as we know clarendon closes out 2 weeks during December. No words yet, no responses from CSR and finally I sent email to manager asking what's going on. She replied that it will start in Jan but not sure about date.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.
Come Jan, still no clue and our CSR is back from vacation. I get a bitter news that tradies are off till 15th and noting will start.
Wow, awsome isn't it. You close shop while tradies are still working and you open when they take off, basically 2 weeks of holiday listed in contract is 5 weeks. I didn't want to argue again nor drag it as it's us the customers who will have to bear the cost of delays.
With no fault of mine, house delayed by 2 months and bearing the burden and cost.Funny thing is that I get survey email asking how the journey was from start till the stage of house construction day to start. I gave pretty honest opnion and gave comment that this is so funny that your automated system tells me I know my start date where your CSR doesn't know when it starts.
2 hrs after submitting my feed back I get email that I have been assigned site supervisor and details with follow and even at this stage, first thing I get is a flow chart telling what will happen at what stages and when payments to be made. End of day 13th Jan, I got letter that my house construction start Jan 19th.
Site Supervisor (SS) called up and said nothing is being done till concrete is poured and no point in meeting for any discussion. We finalised appointment to meet.
As said, I went morning Jan 19th super excited but no work is being done. Waited for an hour and returned disappointed that there was no action that day.
Being Indian by heart, my wife and I went together on an auspicious day, prayed god to bless us and prayed mother earth with a thank you for giving us a piece of land for our shelter.
Friday 2nd Feb, I met SS and saw how the base is layed with padding, termite barrier etc and got a fair idea on how it's going to be.
Monday 5th Feb - Cement is poured and we are pretty happy it's going on. 2 hrs into office I got a call and it was from Zurcorp.
They missed something to complete in the smart home appointment. TV Cables termination was not determined and she wanted to sign paper. I said OK to it, but at the same time Clarendon sent email that your smart home variation was pending and I need to sign paper for 1200 dollars.
Wow, hold on lady. I can't go running searching for that amount. I kept telling that I do not want to pay out of pocket and give me option. All I get email from Clarendon is that you made the appointment, you added all stuff and now if you don't sign it this will be deemed.
This was a breaking point for me and I was so frustrated that I wrote a nasty reply asking that I know what I opted for and I have planned my budgets as well. Now you come back after all documents are signed, loan account is closed for modification asking to pay at the end of construction.
I asked a simple question on why it was delayed which I never got answer. I now replied to Zurcorp not to modify anything at this stage and leave it as it is.
Fight began here and I finally replied to Clarendon manager that I do not want the CSR who threatned me of deeming my zurcorp document and tell that CSR that the payment date doesn't matter as this has to be paid UPFRONT from my pocket than coming in loan on installment basis. I even wrote that I am removing CSR from this chain mail.
BUT I LEFT her in the chain and I am sure she wouldn't have liked it at all.
I read through bank contract and I have clause that if I amend it before final construction happens, there is a fee involved. That's pretty steep as well.
Now ZURCORP comes back telling me that they received updated plans pretty late and started telling me it's pressure that it has to be finalized if not things won't move blah blah blah and asked me if I couldn't arrange 1000 dollars in next 5 months.
I kept dragging it to a point that she said OK, if I have to leave it I am going to do less cabling but you have to pay for rest.
I gave a second thought that if I have to amend loan and pay fees, why not take this as an opportunity to add couple of more things and submit. I have to bear the cost of changes though
Meanwhile today, I got my first invoice for concrete poured. I asked for 3 things which are written in the Clarendon document as part of construction 1) Pier Inspection, 2) Drainage Inspection , 3) Slab preparation inspection. for which I didn't get response yet. Did I ask something that I shouldn't be asking ?
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This will be my final write up and concluding with picture.
First payment came through and second as well. From here on I kept asking my SS for a visit every 2 weeks.
Week 5 and 10 went in like wizz and we were already on week 20.
Now the halt comes in as tiles were not arriving and other things kept postponing pushing it further delays.
I have my reports that came through and I kept clearing payments. However was my SS allowed me to visit couple of time to meet tradies.
I got black tapware and shower fitted in ensuite. I got it for way cheaper than Clarendon and much better brand ones as well.
I paid the guys for network points and the box in garage to fit in all my equipment. It was priced at 800 by ZURCORP and these guys did it for 235.
I paid a bit for electrical as well to fit fans as well and I have to say they are way cheaper to do but pre-wiring to be done by clarendon.
Any PRE WIRING is pretty hard to do later on. Easier and keep adding as you never know what you might fit later.
Now week 23 arrives and we are pretty much at Practical Completion. Wohooooo
Mean while I drove past and see that portaloo is gone, fence down as well.. me and my wife were pretty excited to walk around the house..
Week 24 - I can see appliances fitted inside, our black tap has arrived and all looks clean with tiles and fresh coat of paint.
Week 25 and this Friday 27th I got my keys. if you are asian reading this post you know the happiness of taking keys on guru pournima. Change of month and it was an awsome feel.
I gifted a costly wine to my SS than his $ 22 Towels and Body wash kit from Sheridan
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What I missed in my house design.
1) I should have made front living as combined study room.
2) Make actual study room as part storage and half to WIP.
3) Missed the stair case timber colour
4) I should have removed the sliding door in Theatre and left it for later additions.
5) I thought 600*600 tiles are really big, but I feel I should have made it bit bigger.
6) I should have moved the water tank to other side of the house.
7) Forgot to change Ensuite main entrance to middle so that I could open door to see the big mirror straight.
8 ) I should have made it bit height on first floor.
9) lot of finer details which I couldn't figure out earlier.