Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jul 19, 2010 11:42 am hi everybody, My husband and i have recently purchased a block of land in drouin. And we have been looking at display homes to decide on what to build. This will be our first home for us and we have 2 young children too so any advice would be appreciated. We keep coming back to a building company called Homes Now. Has anyone had any experience with them? We are wary as they are a smaller company. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Re: homes now? 2Jul 19, 2010 11:55 am sdunston hi everybody, My husband and i have recently purchased a block of land in drouin. And we have been looking at display homes to decide on what to build. This will be our first home for us and we have 2 young children too so any advice would be appreciated. We keep coming back to a building company called Homes Now. Has anyone had any experience with them? We are wary as they are a smaller company. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Homes Now is a subsidiary of National Builders who have been around for about 10 yrs. They market the homes which are built through a bunch of franchise builders. Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 Re: homes now? 3Jul 19, 2010 11:55 am Hi sdunston and welcome to the forum, I'm building about half an hour away from Drouin (I'm assuming you mean the one in Victoria, I dunno if there's one elsewhere in Australia!) but with a large volume builder. Sorry I'm not much help but I have never heard of Homes Now. My advice to you is to do your research; make sure they are a registered building practitioner, maybe do a google search of their name (although most online reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt), and perhaps ask the builder if they can give you details of houses they have built in the past or that are currently under construction so that you can get an idea of their workmanship/build time etc. Remember you are putting a lot of money and hard work into this so you want the end result to be something you are very happy with. Good luck! Re: homes now? 4Jul 19, 2010 4:03 pm I only have bad feedback on them. Sorry We got up to the signing contract stage and we pulled out. When they first did our soil test the class came back as M which was good. But when they came back with the final amount (which wasn't fixed) WOW! We all most feel off our chairs We got quotes for slab and stumps and both were very very expensive!!! So when we called them to tell them that we have decided not to build with them, they got their sales manager in to try and convince us to sign the contract. And all that he could tell us was what we couldn't do, what to council won't let us do because of the new fire regulations that were going to come in. So he was pretty much full of it. Because we ended up building through a local builder for thousands cheaper and all the things that HN said that the council would not let us do WE DID!!. So sorry no positive comments from me.... Re: homes now? 6Jul 20, 2010 4:28 pm One of the reasons their site costs come back so high is that they don't have M class slab as a standard inclusion. Most of the builders in Melbourne do M as standard and anything on top of that is extra, but Homes Now have S class as standard. As far as I know nowhere in Melbourne is S class so you are always going to get a fair whack on your site costs. With this in made, their base prices are not quite as good value as they first appear. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: homes now? 7Jul 21, 2010 9:17 am Each to their own in the end but that was just my bad experience. I don't think difference should have been $70,000 worth extra site costs They must not of wanted the job Customer service put us off mainly... the sales manager was very rude and a know it all. I have lived in the area that I built in for all my life do I found it very offensive that we he was telling me the rules of building in my area (which was a load of bull). I also know of someone who built through them. HN gave them a good price at contract stage but once they start building works they had the nerve to ask for another $25,000. I suppose they should have got fixed site costs but still it doesn't seem right to me. sdunston, If you decide to build through this company be sure to get your own soil test done as they one they did for us was way off!! But I am sure other people have had better experiences. Good luck with the build Re: homes now? 8Jul 21, 2010 3:15 pm Have a look at Aaron J Homes. We are currently building with them and we have found them to be good. Might not be the cheapest base price but they include a lot of standard inclusions which are extras with other companies, like carpet, dishwasher, etc. Re: homes now? 9Jul 21, 2010 11:00 pm Try fairhaven homes as well, we are building with them and they are great value for money, only build in the s.e melbs and build a certain amount of homes per year. Their quality and finish of their work is what also made me go with them. If you want a job done properly... Do it yourself! Re: homes now? 10Aug 25, 2011 3:13 pm FYI - Homes Now include in our pricing up to an "H" Class Slab. Please see note below from our New Home Builder Blog “A” is the best class that can be achieved and the soil is usually very sandy. Other classes included “S” “M” “H” and “P” Homes Now includes in our pricing everything up to and including an “H” Class Slab as it is the most common soil type in Melbourne and Victoria. “P” Class is the worst classification and this is usually caused by landfill on the site or trees around the site. Hope this helps and best of luck finding a home builder that meets your requirements Re: homes now? 11Aug 25, 2011 9:43 pm joles One of the reasons their site costs come back so high is that they don't have M class slab as a standard inclusion. Most of the builders in Melbourne do M as standard and anything on top of that is extra, but Homes Now have S class as standard. As far as I know nowhere in Melbourne is S class so you are always going to get a fair whack on your site costs. <cut> Actually I'm getting an S class in Melbourne, you have to have hard soil...which is rare 9 24757 This is one of the reasons I decided to go overseas for my double glazed windows. As the builder indicated, he's worked on many upmarket builds, these were the most well… 13 19080 2 15459 |