Has anyone built with Sterling Homes?

Hi, has anyone built with Sterling Homes in South Australia?
I am finding the customer service really bad. We signed a contract to build in January, and it is now September and we haven't even had final sign off.
If we ring Sterling, we can never get through to someone to talk to us, they are always "at lunch" and then never return our calls.
Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with Sterling HOmes or another builder you have built with?

Hi Lisa

We wanted to get a quote from Sterling and it took the guy nearly a week (which I suppose isn't too bad) to get back to us, but he made the house 100sqm smaller than all the other builders. He said he was going off my numbers, but everyone else got it right!! Needless to say, I don't think we will be building with them.

Needless to say, a friend of a friend built with them a couple of years ago and apart from a few minor things everything went well for them.

Other than that I don't know anyone sorry!

Hope it all starts to go well for you.

Hi
Sorry for the bad news, but
The salesman was great, helped us all the way, once we were past him and had to deal with anyone else, there was no and i mean no customer service, have even been abused by them. I think the building inspector is a figment of there imagination. Have phoned and he has never got back to us. At lunch on the other line And will call us back, Never does. They dont like phone calls, especialy if there is a problem that is when the abuse starts.

Hi all,

Yes we are currently building with Sterling homes and despite their assurances prior to our signing I would have to say it is developing in one of the worst experiences: after being lulled by their friendly and sincere sales consultant we have had to endure a constant battle to get anything near what we wanted/thought we had paid for. The main problem seems to be the imprecise wording of their contract we have had to accepted their word for certain items which have not been forthcoming even though we believed we had ordered and paid for them . They have no mechanism to speak to someone in authority about our problems and any one we can speak to is either so far down the food chain, or so ignorant it is a waste of time, and yes I have yet to have a phone call returned!!
Needless to say I would never use them again nor in all conscience recommend them to anyone else.

Tom

Hi, I know this message was nearly a month ago.. . but if you can avoid building with Sterling I would.... We signed our contract with them in March 07... the house still isn’t even locked up.... and at the rate they’re going it'll be march 09 before we're in the house. Its been the worst building experience I’ve ever had, and I’ve had alot of experience. They’re slow, incompetent and just rude in general. I think its worth paying someone like Hickinbotham (who we've also built with) a little bit extra to do it well and do it fast. Hickinbotham were a pleasure to deal with. I'll never be building with Sterling again.

Doesn't sound like they are doing the right thing by their customers.

We considered them and even paid the deposit but decided we didn't like the finish and went with a more expensive builder.

However our building experience has also been dreadful, particularly the finish and communication is pretty bad as well so maybe it is SA builders in general .

A house up the road on our development was built by Sterling. The slab went down several months after ours and the owners were in before us, so the builders can obviously pull their finger out when they need to. Keep phoning and emailing ... squeaky wheel ! Try being polite and understanding first and then escalate if you need to.

Good luck.

Hi all

I've just received my key's for my Sterling home.
I found this forum by googling "Sterling Homes" because I'm so discusted with them that I wanted to see if anyone else was feeling my pain.... It appears I'm not alone.
Yes I got put on hold for well over 5 min on a number of occasions only to then leave a message which NEVER gets returned.
Yes they are now becoming rude to me because I'm starting to not take no for an answer anymore.
Things that were in the contract from day one are still not finished and appears will simply never get finished.

The only reason I paid up was because they already had 90% progress payments and was not going to wait another 3 months for them to do 2 days work, while I pay interest on nearly the full amount. Will work out cheaper for me to do it myself or even hire my own contractor to finish the job than to wait for them to finish.

Hopefully word of mouth is powerful. Because there is definately nothing good coming from mine in regards to Sterling Homes.

It's been 15 months, and our slab has only just gone down now.
I would not recommend anyone build with Sterling, as I have never heard anyone say anything good about them.
I wonder if building companies read these forums, because they bloody well should!

like I've always said lisa, they read em' but they don't speaka the english!!!

lol

I was wondering where I could vent my frustration with Sterling Homes as I was searching for an email address and I cam across these old postings. I signed for a house in Dec 2007, I eventually got it incomplete in May 2009. Since then I have been chasing them to repair the damage to the house interior because they didn't finish the roof before the interior and it rained inside. Our septic system has been installed too low and floods when it rains. The plumbing in the house does not drain properly and the smell from the drains is sickening. We now have a problem with both shower recesses leaking into the adjorning walls. Customer service is non existent and we will never build with them again. When ringing the HIA they asked what do you what us to do about it. Are Sterling management on the board of HIA?

Hello sorry to revive and old thread by i am building through sterling homes at the moment in Adelaide and so far the experience has been very good communication wise although they don't connect you directly to the site supervisor but you have to go though an admin staff at the office which seems unnecessary a long way to do it but she has been great so far! If anybody has any question about sterling id be happy to answer them i am up to roofing stage so far.

In the very early stages with Sterling homes, up to the selections phase now. So far very happy with the Communication, I see they have got some poor reviews, however I take them the with a grain of salt as who knows the people they would have to deal with! All you can go on is the display homes, price and quality of salesperson, which were all very good!! Cant wait for the build to start!!

I have just been given the keys to my home however I have been left with a feeling of regret and anxiety. Building with Sterling has been a complete nightmare, every discussion and meeting just left me feeling insecure. It felt like it was all business and no customer care at all. Although the house has been handed to us, none of the defects we mention has been fixed or even a mention that they would be. appliance still has not been installed. this is the worse decision I have made in my life and I do warn others