Anyone Building with Inspired Homes/Strive Homes?

Ceddy83 · Oct 01, 2020 1:05 pm

Hi Everyone,

Is anyone building with Inspired Homes/Strive Homes/Evolve Living? Looking forward to sharing experiences and any lessons or things to watch out for?

Ceddy83 · Oct 30, 2020 11:56 am

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Ozshaz · Oct 31, 2020 9:25 am

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Do they still use Strive & Arden homes for their build ? I think they are operating as Franchisee business if I am not mistaken ?

Ceddy83 · Oct 31, 2020 2:44 pm

Ozshaz

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Do they still use Strive & Arden homes for their build ? I think they are operating as Franchisee business if I am not mistaken ?

They use Strive Homes and Como Homes for their build, just dealing with them is a nightmare. You find yourself dealing with 3 companies, so confusing. Nothing like standard pricing or even price booklet. Everything single thing you request, they have to source out a quote. And most above 30 to 40% more than other volume builders. They are extremely slow in returning calls or emails. If you can avoid them, please do...some of us are already too late...

NX2020 · Nov 25, 2020 10:58 am

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Hi Ceddy83,
We have similar experience from COMO homes at the moment. Just finish color selection and Electric appointment. C......y is our admin. Do you have any idea how to escalate things?

Ozshaz · Nov 25, 2020 12:57 pm

NX2020

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Hi Ceddy83,
We have similar experience from COMO homes at the moment. Just finish color selection and Electric appointment. C......y is our admin. Do you have any idea how to escalate things?

How was your colours and Electrical appointment with them? Any major price issues ?

NX2020 · Nov 25, 2020 5:46 pm

Ozshaz

NX2020

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Hi Ceddy83,
We have similar experience from COMO homes at the moment. Just finish color selection and Electric appointment. C......y is our admin. Do you have any idea how to escalate things?

How was your colours and Electrical appointment with them? Any major price issues ?

Electrical appointment is in Carrum down with Paul. Very straight forward, experienced, a lot of helpful recommendations from him. Pricing is reasonable, ~$55 per power point, ~$175 per Led down light. We got pricing live from the screen.

Color selection in Berwick office. Most of upgrade items are reasonable. But if the upgrade is not from their current supplier, it could be a challenging case. Patience, patience and patience. Especially close to the holiday season, they are very busy.

Ceddy83 · Dec 14, 2020 1:51 pm

Ozshaz

NX2020

Ceddy83

Dealing with them requires so much patience and understanding...I am just wondering whether I am just alone?

Hi Ceddy83,
We have similar experience from COMO homes at the moment. Just finish color selection and Electric appointment. C......y is our admin. Do you have any idea how to escalate things?

How was your colours and Electrical appointment with them? Any major price issues ?

Haven't done mine, still waiting for my internal and electrical appointment.

Ceddy83 · Dec 14, 2020 1:54 pm

NX2020

Electrical appointment is in Carrum down with Paul. Very straight forward, experienced, a lot of helpful recommendations from him. Pricing is reasonable, ~$55 per power point, ~$175 per Led down light. We got pricing live from the screen.

Color selection in Berwick office. Most of upgrade items are reasonable. But if the upgrade is not from their current supplier, it could be a challenging case. Patience, patience and patience. Especially close to the holiday season, they are very busy

I think $175 per Down-lights is just insanely high!!

Seanbe · Dec 16, 2020 3:15 pm

Strive Homes, Como Homes and Inspired Homes are not home builders. They work as a design sales agents with "custom" designs that earn a commission and pass you to Evolve Living Pty Ltd - which is the builder you sign up for. Nothing wrong with that. that's just a different way of doing things..

Note all the Special Conditions in the MBA Contract they make you sign. Also they try to sign you on Method B payment method. Note Method A is the industry standard and that Method B makes you pay more upfront.

The Special Conditions in their building contract they try to get you to sign off is a long long list... I'll recommend you make friends with someone who is building with the Big 5 and compare SC. You'll notice a lot of "extras" and responsibility in Evolve Living SC. - such as electricity, water and gas usage and connection is at your expense. (and you need to do the connection for them), or if you want an independent inspector.. they might have SC for that too. Something people might not know is SC are written by the builder themselves and are additional to Industry accepted General Conditions.
These tend to be in the favour of the builder and you can cross them off - as long as you're wiling to walk away or negotiate.

I believe this is for Como, Inspired and Strive homes as these guys actually just palm you off to Evolve Living Pty Ltd.
You'll also notice that there isn't any reviews of Evolve Living after being in the market for more than 3 decades... One needs to wonder the reason for this.

Ceddy_83 · Jan 13, 2021 6:43 pm

Guys be aware, you are not dealing with least friendly builder. if you have signed a contractor better engage an independent inspector to get your monies worth.

Ozshaz · Jan 14, 2021 6:34 pm

Ceddy_83

Guys be aware, you are not dealing with least friendly builder. if you have signed a contractor better engage an independent inspector to get your monies worth.

What happened ? How is the experience so far ? Is it inspired or evolve living ?

Ceddy_83 · Jan 14, 2021 6:42 pm

[quote="Ozshaz":1fkccjgk][quote="Ceddy_83":1fkccjgk]Guys be aware, you are not dealing with least friendly builder. if you have signed a contractor better engage an independent inspector to get your monies worth.[/quote:1fkccjgk]

What happened ? How is the experience so far ? Is it inspired or evolve living ?[/quote:1fkccjgk]

The stages are being signed off despite the actual job not being actually completed properly.

Ozshaz are you building with Evolve Living?

Ceddy_83 · Jan 24, 2021 5:56 pm

They are snail slow in getting approvals or even application. I don't think they are geared up for quick builds. It is really sad being stuck with them !!

NX2020 · Jan 25, 2021 7:02 am

Ceddy_83

They are snail slow in getting approvals or even application. I don't think they are geared up for quick builds. It is really sad being stuck with them !!

We are waiting more than 2 months for tender appointment, not done yet.
Ceddy_83
Are you building with Comos Homes?

Ceddy_83 · Jan 25, 2021 8:06 am

Evolve Living..

NX2020 · Jan 25, 2021 9:13 am

We are with Como homes. They are slow as well at the moment.

Ceddy_83 · Jan 25, 2021 9:56 am

NX2020

We are with Como homes. They are slow as well at the moment.

The problem is that we are not dealing with one organisation, but multiple organisations. They are not clearly geared up for a quicker delivery. I tend to think there is a lot of mateship culture.

Whereabouts are you building?

NX2020 · Jan 25, 2021 1:36 pm

We are not up to that stage yet. Expecting they have a lot in backlog due to the government vivid stimula package.
Builing in Inner eastern surburd.

Annoyedcustomer · Jan 27, 2021 10:29 pm

Sadly we went through Inspired Homes and ended up with Evolve Living as our builders. Nothing but trouble communicating with them, everything is too much trouble, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting our dream home built with the inclusions we wanted because everything is a battle.
I wish there had been more reviews available before we went with them to warn me off!
Sorry to hear you are going through similar issues.