Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 07, 2021 12:14 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Though we would start a thread to blog our new home build. This is our first time building, it's certainly much harder than buying an already established home! Even though we are building on a 2.5 acre lot we didn't want to build a big house as its only myself, my wife and our son living there. The Montrose 20mkII was a good size for us and the price meant we could spend money on lifestyle additions outdoors as that is where we prefer to spend our time / entertain. Our journey so far: May 2019: Contacted Coral Homes via their display home in Port Macquarie and picked a design. Mark the salesman is really good at his job. Patient, lots of practical knowledge and not pushy at all. June 2019: Initial $1650 deposit paid for soil and contour testing. June 2019: $2000 paid for bushfire and septic assessments (rural block - no sewer) September 2019: Plans returned, deposit paid, load approved, land settled October 2019: Colour, Clipsal and Tile selections completed - really easy as the staff knew their stuff December 2019: DA approved by council in just 22 days, can start building January 2020: Final plans due today (07/01) February 2020: Hoping for building to start Our modifications were: - Moved the Bed 2 wall out in line with the other rooms (deleted rear garage door) - Removed Laundry and repurposed as a butlers pantry minus the sink. Laundry now in garage. - Added a large window in the family room and the garage - Added a 5000lt rainwater tank - Removed built ins to Bed 3 (home office) - 2550mm ceilings - South Hamptons facade - Designer package - Upgraded all tapware to black, upgraded carpets and various other finishings like rainwater shower heads etc - Kitchen upgrade (900mm appliances) plus bin drawer, sunken sink, range hood, dishwasher and tiles to the ceiling (splash back) - Ceiling fans throughout, upgraded exhaust fans to bathrooms and garage above dryer mount - Added eaves to right hand side wall (none included in plan) which removed internal bulkhead - Widened hallway walls at entrance Our budget over-runs were: - Selections appointment - $3500 - Tiling appointment - $500 - Electrical appointment - $6000 After handover we plan to add: - 4m x 8m timber deck to rear patio - Outdoor bar / gazebo to end of deck (included bbq area) - 6 person spa (electrical points added at clipsal appointment) - 2 bay carport next to existing garage - Driveway and fencing - Vege gardens and chicken pen - Split system aircon - Combustion fireplace - Swimming pool & landscaping - Solar power - Security system / cameras / sensor light package - Crimsafe doors One thing though, Admin seems to be really slow. We feel like we have to be on to them just to get information which in turn makes us feel like pests. An update once every 2 weeks even by email would be fine by us. Hopefully today we will have our final plans and a build start date. From what we have read on other forums, the process from here is much faster and easier. If the end product is a beautiful house then all the issues in pre-build admin will be a distant memory. We will come back and update this thread as things progress Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 2Jan 26, 2021 6:52 am Update 24/01/21 Site has been prepped and plumber + concreting has been booked Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ They’re apparently really busy at the moment, we hadn’t heard anything and didn’t even know they had started until we drove past the block to see if we needed to mow again. Should pick up pace now! Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 3Feb 05, 2021 12:42 pm Update 05/02/2021: Temporary fencing has gone up, portable toilet on site. Concrete piers went down today. We haven’t had our site visit, met our site supervisor, site administrator or been given a date of expected completion. Not sure if this is normal or not. Patience I guess, at least the build is progressing. Plumbing & slab next week and then frame up 22th of February. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 4Feb 12, 2021 3:32 pm Update 12/02/2021: Plumbing is in, power is in and pods have been delivered ready for the slab to go down next week. Our site supervisor has been calling us weekly with updates which is great! Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 5Feb 19, 2021 6:54 pm Update 19/02/2021: Slab frame up but due to the rain no further action. Rain is set for the next 5 days, unlikely to see a slab until the end of next week.
Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 6Feb 25, 2021 6:40 pm Update 25/02/2021: Slab was poured today at 7am which is awesome considering the weather leading up to today. Unfortunately we’ve had thunderstorms and about 15mm of rain this evening with water pooling beside the slab. Hoping it’s cured enough to not be an issue. One thing we noticed is the house has been squared off the the side boundary 45 meters away and not the road so it looks “crooked” from the street. We will have to screen it in with some gardens so it’s not so obvious. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 7Mar 18, 2021 12:33 pm Update 10/03/21: Frame is 90% up. Just been advised it’s likely to be 6 more months until completion making it a 16 month build from deposit to completion. That’s about $23k out of pocket for us in rent and mortgage replacements over what we were sold as a 6 month process Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 8Mar 18, 2021 1:13 pm Are you able to offset an amount of liquidated damages to your final payment to compensate for your extra rent and finance costs? What does your contact allow for delays per working day, or week? Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 9Mar 18, 2021 1:35 pm Kippers01 Are you able to offset an amount of liquidated damages to your final payment to compensate for your extra rent and finance costs? What does your contact allow for delays per working day, or week? Good questions. The contract says 150 days from start date in Jan. We are supposed to get $50 a day for every day over that but there’s a lot of ‘get out of jail free’ cards in the contract. It doesn’t account for the 7 months to get to build start even though we paid for “express contracts”. It’s disappointing because our friends building with Pycon Homes and Better Homes that started after us and are either already in their house or moving in this month. Not to be too negative but they also poured our slab crooked to the street frontage which looks ridiculous. The original plan has the house square to the road but it changed somewhere along the track and we didn’t pick up on it because no one went through plans with us at at any of the sign off stages. We basically had to review everything on our mobile phone under pressure to approve/progress so we didn’t “fall to the back of the queue” in construction due to the home builder wave. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 10Apr 06, 2021 8:35 pm S+C_MidNorthCoast Kippers01 Are you able to offset an amount of liquidated damages to your final payment to compensate for your extra rent and finance costs? What does your contact allow for delays per working day, or week? Good questions. The contract says 150 days from start date in Jan. We are supposed to get $50 a day for every day over that but there’s a lot of ‘get out of jail free’ cards in the contract. It doesn’t account for the 7 months to get to build start even though we paid for “express contracts”. It’s disappointing because our friends building with Pycon Homes and Better Homes that started after us and are either already in their house or moving in this month. Not to be too negative but they also poured our slab crooked to the street frontage which looks ridiculous. The original plan has the house square to the road but it changed somewhere along the track and we didn’t pick up on it because no one went through plans with us at at any of the sign off stages. We basically had to review everything on our mobile phone under pressure to approve/progress so we didn’t “fall to the back of the queue” in construction due to the home builder wave. Hi S+C_MidNorthCoast , Any new pics? I'm planning to embark on a home build journey pretty soon. I like the Coral Homes display at Port. I also like a few designs from Pycon. I hope the prices are in my budget range. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 11Apr 07, 2021 1:04 pm Update 07/04/2021: We’ve had a lot of rain! Still just an incomplete frame even though we’ve paid the invoice for completion of that stage. Unfortunately we got the the point of making a complaint to Coral re the estimated October completion date considering we were sold a 26 week process at the start back in May 2020. The weather delays are an added frustration as we should already be in the home. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 12Apr 07, 2021 1:07 pm S+C_MidNorthCoast , Any new pics? I'm planning to embark on a home build journey pretty soon. I like the Coral Homes display at Port. I also like a few designs from Pycon. I hope the prices are in my budget range.[/quote] Hey mate, yep they both build good houses. The in-laws build with Pycon in 2020. From start to handover it was 7 months. Beautiful house too! All the best with your build! Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 13Apr 30, 2021 9:43 pm Update 30/04/2021: Roof on, house wrapped and plumbing/electrical in. We have a new manager and SS that are clued in and have tripled the build speed. Going to be a wait on bricks due to a trade shortage but should be able to get plaster and windows in. Looking like an August finish at this stage, so 14 months total if on time.
Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 14May 01, 2021 8:31 am Glad to see that the roof is on. I thought I have a solid top 3 builders to make my final "objective" selection based on design features, value for money (inclusions), and builder's project management practices. Thank you for your blog for making me realise that I need to do a bit more research on build completion rates from the 3 builders on my shortlist. I was not aware of the other builder until your last post, Now I can also look at their designs and costs to see if they're a better fit for me. Thanks again. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 15May 01, 2021 1:21 pm Handiong I need to do a bit more research on build completion rates from the 3 builders on my shortlist. I was not aware of the other builder until your last post, Now I can also look at their designs and costs to see if they're a better fit for me. Thanks again. No problems. There’s a building with coral homes Facebook pages that will give you others experience. Ours doesn’t appear to be typical but it is becoming more common sadly. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 16May 04, 2021 10:45 am Update 04/05/2021: looking great this week. Windows and doors in. Bricks, plaster and insulation on site. Sites been cleaned up too. The new SS is definitely on the ball. The electrical mistakes have been sorted out as far as I can see from outside the fence. Hoping the brick layer is available soon because that’s the only thing slowing us up now. Like ⋅ 1 comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 17May 23, 2021 8:44 pm hey mate just wondering what SS you have? I Have just started a build not farm from you, in the crescent head area. Glad to see the build finally getting some traction now! also come close to buying in that estate you are building in Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 18May 24, 2021 3:57 pm MNC Build hey mate just wondering what SS you have? I Have just started a build not farm from you, in the crescent head area. Glad to see the build finally getting some traction now! also come close to buying in that estate you are building in Hey mate we have Callum, he’s really good. What design did you end up going with? Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 19May 24, 2021 5:05 pm went with the Winton26 with a few changes to a couple of things! We just had our piers poured last week so hoping the rain stays away now for the slab pour haha! did they have a reasonable price for running power in your quote? they tried to sting us 3x the price of other quotes we got. Re: Building a modified Montrose 20mkII through Coral Homes 20May 24, 2021 5:34 pm MNC Build went with the Winton26 with a few changes to a couple of things! We just had our piers poured last week so hoping the rain stays away now for the slab pour haha! did they have a reasonable price for running power in your quote? they tried to sting us 3x the price of other quotes we got. Great house design! We looked at the Winton 24 but our block faces west so no escaping the summer arvo sun on the bedrooms. Pretty sure we have mostly clear weather ahead for a while so you should be good to go with the slab. Yeah the power was costs for us was a bit excessive too. Then we moved the house closer to the mains and the bill went up but we fought it for 6 weeks and had the extra charges removed, but no discount though for the less trench/cables. The neighbours building opposite us got 10m for free from their builder after they recommended to move the house further back for street appeal so I don't think it’s an expensive job. Ask the council if there is a chance of getting build over easement exemption. Sometimes easements are unused and 24cm is not all that much. Good luck. And yes any builder… 2 13781 In Qld it is a requirement that a builder must have a cost breakdown, for building a home to the same specification, with the same inclusions and the same finish. So ask… 1 4355 yep sounds good make the footing bigger to to allow for the pipe in the middle 3 7326 |