Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Aug 08, 2022 5:37 pm Hi Friends, We have bought a land in Manor Lakes and would like to build our first home. We initially went with porterdavis but with recent increase in building costs, we are looking at other builders too. We really liked a floorplan of Arden homes (Verona 40). They are accommodating the changes that we asked for. Can anyone advise on how good Arden homes during the build phase and their after build support. Thanks in advance. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 4Aug 09, 2022 9:07 am hi2guru Yes dear. But the floorplan which we saw from porterdavis is now priced above our limit. (40k higher than last year). Thats why we are looking at Ardenhomes. Ive build a couple homes and Arden’s homes and upgrades are pricer from my experience. If you've found a floor plan you like, that's great. But don't expect to be paying less than you would have for the Porter Davis home. It sounds like you’re hoping to build a beautiful home based on the sticker price of the house? If so, one aspect that people forget about is that while there have been price increases on base prices of homes, the cost of upgrades has increased exponentially too. You don’t see that until you get to colours selection well after contract signing. Spoiler – its pretty effing high too. In any case, I live in manor lakes and straight up can tell you the entire place is H2 clay. Your site costs will be your first unexpected cost as all the builders (including Arden) supply up to an M class slab. I see this time and time again – people look at the sticker price and pick the largest home they can and then end up with a home that’s half of what they were hoping for. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 6Aug 09, 2022 3:06 pm Is it reasonable enough to have 100-150k (incl site cost) above the base price of the house. Also, as you have built with Arden, how is your experience so far - mainly on build quality, after build support etc.. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 7Aug 09, 2022 3:49 pm I've not built with Arden but have been through their process and pulled out for a different builder. Personally at the time i didn't feel the value was there. I’m assuming this is your first build, if not then the following you probably already know, if so, then the following insights might be valuable to you. For more context around this , builders marketing materials and glossy brochures about all the inclusions will always look and sound great. They have this down to a science now. The devil is in the detail. For example Arden will include a reverse cycle ducted heating and cooling as part of your package. Most builders only include ducted gas heating and if you’re lucky, evaporative cooling as standard. From there you need to spend to upgrade to any decent refrigerated cooling – you will either upgrade the gas system to include a bigger gas system to have the required addon cooling unit installed or you will pay through the nose to get the electric reverse cycle cooling and heating. So when you look at Arden and that they include this already, its seems like a sweet deal. BUT, only includes two zones and the brand is Haier. Youre not getting it free, its baked into the higher base prices. 1. Haier is one of, if not THE largest appliance manufacturer in the world. Couple issues with this IMO – Chinese brand and broad scope of appliances. Not dissing Chinese manufacturing, but when you make fridges, washers, dishwashers, fans, heaters, aircon, tvs etc, in my opinion, you’re not focused on making the best of a product. E.g. Daikin and Actron solely make aircon/heating units. ALL of their R&D and effort is spent is on making these the best they can be and end up being better products because of it. Haier have economies of scale (read – production is cheap so Arden make huge margins by ramping upfront cost with the promise of “premium inclusions” that other builders don’t have that actually cost them very little to make these claims). 2. Two zones means that the system they are including is likely zoned Living/sleeping areas (night/day) and the system is sized to only do one of those at a time. It is standard to size a system this way for an unknowledgeable consumer. And for some that’s enough. But depending on how you live in your home or intend to live in it in the future, how many people are there etc, your needs may not be so easily split. You may have teenage kids upstairs that want cooling while you are downstairs cooking and also need cooling. For this you need a system that has the capability to do whole home heating and cooling and ideally have more than two zones, so that if only one area upstairs needs cooling, you’re not cooling the whole top floor. For a 40sq home this is going to be expensive with whatever builder you go with, its just that at Arden on the face of it you feel you’re getting it “included” but really you’re not. You will likely upgrade it and you will be paying for it. What’s not clear is whether you will be locked into using Haier or they will give you a choice. Cooling and heating are one of the biggest cost items builders price gouge on. Do your research an present your builder with external quotes for supply and install, you might get lucky and get a serious discount if they know you know. 100-150k is a reasonable amount to spend on upgrades for a double 40sq home. But to put it in perspective, we are doing a single 32sq home that has 150k upgrades and we didn’t do all the things we would have liked to and are still putting in around 30k post hand over for stuff that can be done after (stone work on fireplace, alarms, custom joinery etc.) It really depends on what is important to you and what items you end up liking or find acceptable in the builders range. When we built in manor lakes 10 years ago, the site cost was fixed at 7K. The house we are building now, site cost came in 20K. I can tell you now with the clay, 20-25k doesn’t sound unreasonable. There is a tone of rock out there too. Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 8Aug 12, 2022 9:28 am A couple of my neighbours are building with Arden. One poor neighbour is onto their 6th site supervisor (they haven't reached lock up yet), and each time a supervisor leaves, they seem to take their tradie connections with them. They've now got only 2/3 of their house bricked, and new supervisor can't find any brickies to take on only 1/3 of a job. They've had nothing but delays and issues (well above and beyond what's expected). Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 9Aug 15, 2022 11:04 am Noname I've not built with Arden but have been through their process and pulled out for a different builder. Personally at the time i didn't feel the value was there. I’m assuming this is your first build, if not then the following you probably already know, if so, then the following insights might be valuable to you. For more context around this , builders marketing materials and glossy brochures about all the inclusions will always look and sound great. They have this down to a science now. The devil is in the detail. For example Arden will include a reverse cycle ducted heating and cooling as part of your package. Most builders only include ducted gas heating and if you’re lucky, evaporative cooling as standard. From there you need to spend to upgrade to any decent refrigerated cooling – you will either upgrade the gas system to include a bigger gas system to have the required addon cooling unit installed or you will pay through the nose to get the electric reverse cycle cooling and heating. So when you look at Arden and that they include this already, its seems like a sweet deal. BUT, only includes two zones and the brand is Haier. Youre not getting it free, its baked into the higher base prices. 1. Haier is one of, if not THE largest appliance manufacturer in the world. Couple issues with this IMO – Chinese brand and broad scope of appliances. Not dissing Chinese manufacturing, but when you make fridges, washers, dishwashers, fans, heaters, aircon, tvs etc, in my opinion, you’re not focused on making the best of a product. E.g. Daikin and Actron solely make aircon/heating units. ALL of their R&D and effort is spent is on making these the best they can be and end up being better products because of it. Haier have economies of scale (read – production is cheap so Arden make huge margins by ramping upfront cost with the promise of “premium inclusions” that other builders don’t have that actually cost them very little to make these claims). 2. Two zones means that the system they are including is likely zoned Living/sleeping areas (night/day) and the system is sized to only do one of those at a time. It is standard to size a system this way for an unknowledgeable consumer. And for some that’s enough. But depending on how you live in your home or intend to live in it in the future, how many people are there etc, your needs may not be so easily split. You may have teenage kids upstairs that want cooling while you are downstairs cooking and also need cooling. For this you need a system that has the capability to do whole home heating and cooling and ideally have more than two zones, so that if only one area upstairs needs cooling, you’re not cooling the whole top floor. For a 40sq home this is going to be expensive with whatever builder you go with, its just that at Arden on the face of it you feel you’re getting it “included” but really you’re not. You will likely upgrade it and you will be paying for it. What’s not clear is whether you will be locked into using Haier or they will give you a choice. Cooling and heating are one of the biggest cost items builders price gouge on. Do your research an present your builder with external quotes for supply and install, you might get lucky and get a serious discount if they know you know. 100-150k is a reasonable amount to spend on upgrades for a double 40sq home. But to put it in perspective, we are doing a single 32sq home that has 150k upgrades and we didn’t do all the things we would have liked to and are still putting in around 30k post hand over for stuff that can be done after (stone work on fireplace, alarms, custom joinery etc.) It really depends on what is important to you and what items you end up liking or find acceptable in the builders range. When we built in manor lakes 10 years ago, the site cost was fixed at 7K. The house we are building now, site cost came in 20K. I can tell you now with the clay, 20-25k doesn’t sound unreasonable. There is a tone of rock out there too. Hi friend, Thanks for the very detailed reply. Yes I agree with you on some builders having cheap appliances as standard and would like to upgrade. We will get caught if we don't do research on the brand we get as standard. I checked with another builder (Orbit homes) who is offering iLve brand as standard but are flexible to change too. Also, unlike porterdavis, who are fixing the site cost, Orbit homes are ready to fix the site cost (around 14k + corner block treatment 5k). One thing I am unable to understand is Fixed price Rock removal and excavation(1k) Shouldn't this be the site cost? For refrigerated cooling, 3 phase(they mentioned 3 zone) is quoted as $15k (mentioned that one one zone can run at a time). I will have to do more homework on this. Are you currently building in "The village"? we might be neighbours. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 10Aug 15, 2022 11:07 am mcbks A couple of my neighbours are building with Arden. One poor neighbour is onto their 6th site supervisor (they haven't reached lock up yet), and each time a supervisor leaves, they seem to take their tradie connections with them. They've now got only 2/3 of their house bricked, and new supervisor can't find any brickies to take on only 1/3 of a job. They've had nothing but delays and issues (well above and beyond what's expected). Thank you mcbks. Its the same response from another friend too. I will stay away from Arden. We visited Orbit homes recently and the product reviews look decent too (barring few bad ones). I am researching on them too. Let me know if you have an idea on Orbit homes. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 12Aug 15, 2022 2:01 pm hi2guru Noname I've not built with Arden but have been through their process and pulled out for a different builder. Personally at the time i didn't feel the value was there. I’m assuming this is your first build, if not then the following you probably already know, if so, then the following insights might be valuable to you. For more context around this , builders marketing materials and glossy brochures about all the inclusions will always look and sound great. They have this down to a science now. The devil is in the detail. For example Arden will include a reverse cycle ducted heating and cooling as part of your package. Most builders only include ducted gas heating and if you’re lucky, evaporative cooling as standard. From there you need to spend to upgrade to any decent refrigerated cooling – you will either upgrade the gas system to include a bigger gas system to have the required addon cooling unit installed or you will pay through the nose to get the electric reverse cycle cooling and heating. So when you look at Arden and that they include this already, its seems like a sweet deal. BUT, only includes two zones and the brand is Haier. Youre not getting it free, its baked into the higher base prices. 1. Haier is one of, if not THE largest appliance manufacturer in the world. Couple issues with this IMO – Chinese brand and broad scope of appliances. Not dissing Chinese manufacturing, but when you make fridges, washers, dishwashers, fans, heaters, aircon, tvs etc, in my opinion, you’re not focused on making the best of a product. E.g. Daikin and Actron solely make aircon/heating units. ALL of their R&D and effort is spent is on making these the best they can be and end up being better products because of it. Haier have economies of scale (read – production is cheap so Arden make huge margins by ramping upfront cost with the promise of “premium inclusions” that other builders don’t have that actually cost them very little to make these claims). 2. Two zones means that the system they are including is likely zoned Living/sleeping areas (night/day) and the system is sized to only do one of those at a time. It is standard to size a system this way for an unknowledgeable consumer. And for some that’s enough. But depending on how you live in your home or intend to live in it in the future, how many people are there etc, your needs may not be so easily split. You may have teenage kids upstairs that want cooling while you are downstairs cooking and also need cooling. For this you need a system that has the capability to do whole home heating and cooling and ideally have more than two zones, so that if only one area upstairs needs cooling, you’re not cooling the whole top floor. For a 40sq home this is going to be expensive with whatever builder you go with, its just that at Arden on the face of it you feel you’re getting it “included” but really you’re not. You will likely upgrade it and you will be paying for it. What’s not clear is whether you will be locked into using Haier or they will give you a choice. Cooling and heating are one of the biggest cost items builders price gouge on. Do your research an present your builder with external quotes for supply and install, you might get lucky and get a serious discount if they know you know. 100-150k is a reasonable amount to spend on upgrades for a double 40sq home. But to put it in perspective, we are doing a single 32sq home that has 150k upgrades and we didn’t do all the things we would have liked to and are still putting in around 30k post hand over for stuff that can be done after (stone work on fireplace, alarms, custom joinery etc.) It really depends on what is important to you and what items you end up liking or find acceptable in the builders range. When we built in manor lakes 10 years ago, the site cost was fixed at 7K. The house we are building now, site cost came in 20K. I can tell you now with the clay, 20-25k doesn’t sound unreasonable. There is a tone of rock out there too. Hi friend, Thanks for the very detailed reply. Yes I agree with you on some builders having cheap appliances as standard and would like to upgrade. We will get caught if we don't do research on the brand we get as standard. I checked with another builder (Orbit homes) who is offering iLve brand as standard but are flexible to change too. Also, unlike porterdavis, who are fixing the site cost, Orbit homes are ready to fix the site cost (around 14k + corner block treatment 5k). One thing I am unable to understand is Fixed price Rock removal and excavation(1k) Shouldn't this be the site cost? For refrigerated cooling, 3 phase(they mentioned 3 zone) is quoted as $15k (mentioned that one one zone can run at a time). I will have to do more homework on this. Are you currently building in "The village"? we might be neighbours. ive been here 8 years already. The village is just up the road. I'm moving elsewhere in the next month. 3 phase is not the same as 3 zones. 3 phase relates to the electricity input. The larger systems require 3 phase to run. But a larger systems wouldn't only be able to do one zone. SO make sur eyou understand what you are getting. 3 phase electrical is another separate cost generally and will ultimately depend on how large your home is and houw many lights/appliances, power points and buffer for expected load is. If youre building 40sq, chances are it will be 3 phase. Ilve is a quite good Italian brand, but they have a range of price points. The standard will be their cheapest. Another lovely trick the builders play "oh you get designer italian appliances (but the cheapest entry level ones they make)" be prepared. Rock removal should be priced in the site cost. seperatingh them out and charging an extra 1k to fix them is just another way for them to guarantee an extra 1k lol Dark matter scientist, can breathe underwater, mind reader and can freeze matter just by willing it. Trust me, its in my sig. Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 13Aug 15, 2022 5:22 pm mcbks We've actually just built with Orbit Homes. Have had a great experience, happy to answer any questions. Hi mcbks. Very happy to see your reply about Orbit homes. Congrats on your new home. We are about to build our new home. My land is getting titled in October. Since its first time and none of my friends have really built a house, I am only dependent of fellow member from homeone. Long stroy short: Initially we went to porterdavis, but they recently increased the building costs around 40k, so t went out of our budget.. We just went to Orbit homes last week as we really liked a floorplan(Bolton 362). This suits our needs with very minimal structural changes. Sales consultant was really good and I received a very detailed price quote. I would say the best detailed quote I have received so far. We are ok with the price too. Only concern is the sales consultant is very pushy to make a deposit ($1.5k) so that he can check with his tradesmen if they could do the structural change we asked for. We wanted to check the reviews of Orbit homes before we could lock-in with them. We have few queries. would be great to have your inputs on below points 1. Build quality 2. After build support 3. Any surprise cost after the initial price quote? 4. are they flexible to allow individual building inspector and fix if anything wrong? Re: Any Experience with Arden homes 14Aug 15, 2022 5:23 pm Noname hi2guru Noname I've not built with Arden but have been through their process and pulled out for a different builder. Personally at the time i didn't feel the value was there. I’m assuming this is your first build, if not then the following you probably already know, if so, then the following insights might be valuable to you. For more context around this , builders marketing materials and glossy brochures about all the inclusions will always look and sound great. They have this down to a science now. The devil is in the detail. For example Arden will include a reverse cycle ducted heating and cooling as part of your package. Most builders only include ducted gas heating and if you’re lucky, evaporative cooling as standard. From there you need to spend to upgrade to any decent refrigerated cooling – you will either upgrade the gas system to include a bigger gas system to have the required addon cooling unit installed or you will pay through the nose to get the electric reverse cycle cooling and heating. So when you look at Arden and that they include this already, its seems like a sweet deal. BUT, only includes two zones and the brand is Haier. Youre not getting it free, its baked into the higher base prices. 1. Haier is one of, if not THE largest appliance manufacturer in the world. Couple issues with this IMO – Chinese brand and broad scope of appliances. Not dissing Chinese manufacturing, but when you make fridges, washers, dishwashers, fans, heaters, aircon, tvs etc, in my opinion, you’re not focused on making the best of a product. E.g. Daikin and Actron solely make aircon/heating units. ALL of their R&D and effort is spent is on making these the best they can be and end up being better products because of it. Haier have economies of scale (read – production is cheap so Arden make huge margins by ramping upfront cost with the promise of “premium inclusions” that other builders don’t have that actually cost them very little to make these claims). 2. Two zones means that the system they are including is likely zoned Living/sleeping areas (night/day) and the system is sized to only do one of those at a time. It is standard to size a system this way for an unknowledgeable consumer. And for some that’s enough. But depending on how you live in your home or intend to live in it in the future, how many people are there etc, your needs may not be so easily split. You may have teenage kids upstairs that want cooling while you are downstairs cooking and also need cooling. For this you need a system that has the capability to do whole home heating and cooling and ideally have more than two zones, so that if only one area upstairs needs cooling, you’re not cooling the whole top floor. For a 40sq home this is going to be expensive with whatever builder you go with, its just that at Arden on the face of it you feel you’re getting it “included” but really you’re not. You will likely upgrade it and you will be paying for it. What’s not clear is whether you will be locked into using Haier or they will give you a choice. Cooling and heating are one of the biggest cost items builders price gouge on. Do your research an present your builder with external quotes for supply and install, you might get lucky and get a serious discount if they know you know. 100-150k is a reasonable amount to spend on upgrades for a double 40sq home. But to put it in perspective, we are doing a single 32sq home that has 150k upgrades and we didn’t do all the things we would have liked to and are still putting in around 30k post hand over for stuff that can be done after (stone work on fireplace, alarms, custom joinery etc.) It really depends on what is important to you and what items you end up liking or find acceptable in the builders range. When we built in manor lakes 10 years ago, the site cost was fixed at 7K. The house we are building now, site cost came in 20K. I can tell you now with the clay, 20-25k doesn’t sound unreasonable. There is a tone of rock out there too. Hi friend, Thanks for the very detailed reply. Yes I agree with you on some builders having cheap appliances as standard and would like to upgrade. We will get caught if we don't do research on the brand we get as standard. I checked with another builder (Orbit homes) who is offering iLve brand as standard but are flexible to change too. Also, unlike porterdavis, who are fixing the site cost, Orbit homes are ready to fix the site cost (around 14k + corner block treatment 5k). One thing I am unable to understand is Fixed price Rock removal and excavation(1k) Shouldn't this be the site cost? For refrigerated cooling, 3 phase(they mentioned 3 zone) is quoted as $15k (mentioned that one one zone can run at a time). I will have to do more homework on this. Are you currently building in "The village"? we might be neighbours. ive been here 8 years already. The village is just up the road. I'm moving elsewhere in the next month. 3 phase is not the same as 3 zones. 3 phase relates to the electricity input. The larger systems require 3 phase to run. But a larger systems wouldn't only be able to do one zone. SO make sur eyou understand what you are getting. 3 phase electrical is another separate cost generally and will ultimately depend on how large your home is and houw many lights/appliances, power points and buffer for expected load is. If youre building 40sq, chances are it will be 3 phase. Ilve is a quite good Italian brand, but they have a range of price points. The standard will be their cheapest. Another lovely trick the builders play "oh you get designer italian appliances (but the cheapest entry level ones they make)" be prepared. Rock removal should be priced in the site cost. seperatingh them out and charging an extra 1k to fix them is just another way for them to guarantee an extra 1k lol Yes sure. I will check these points with them. Hi All, I have been dealing with icare for insurance in completing our house after our original builder went bust. We have gotten to tender stage and one of the companies… 0 20852 11 41894 3 50058 |