Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 21Mar 11, 2009 9:58 pm hi juljas, which design did you end up deciding on? and where are you building? coral have done some interesting price changes recently...I am building in fernvale and we have now been moved into corals brisbane price list thus base price dropped approx $12000 (all of the lists have just been increased though by $3000 due to the new government energy efficiency legislation) there will still be a location surcharge of $6500 for fernvale but all in all my price should come in $2500 less than the original base price quoted, so I am happy with that at this stage including alot of changes to my brampton 186 my price (not including, driveway, air con or fencing) has come in at about $176,000.00. I have found that most of their alteration prices are quite reasonable (eg. i changed some of my existing hinged doors to cavity sliding doors - only cost $99.00 extra p/door ) so i am quite happy thus far...best to ask lots of questions though, and allow for any design changes that you could possibly want when you get your prelim estimate so that you have a pretty acurate quote - are you dealing with S or J at fernbrooke? 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 22Mar 12, 2009 9:11 am juljas Gosh Annielies, You have scared the living daylights out of me! We have decided to go with Coral in the end and have paid our deposit to get soil test etc done. Haven't got our results yet so please cross your fingers for us. We have managed to keep the base price under $200K but have decided to do a lot of things ourselves. Sorry, it was not my intention, juljas and you've done very well with that price, I think. We always regarded the $1850 for the tests, drawings e.a. as a write off so if you don't like the way it is going, don't feel hooked to this builder. Overall Coral seems to be a reasonably good builder if you read all the reviews on the Product Review sites on the Internet. Sorry, for my more formal English, it is my second language. We came to Australia 3 years ago and dealing with Coral is a learning curve for my husband and myself, so maybe you guys are quite used to a treatment like this in QLD. We belief that the Government should do more to protect the consumer in general. As I mentioned before, we went with Coral because of the low starting price, leaving money for the Goodies. At the end we discovered that they end in the same price range as Grandview, Perry Homes and other middle class priced builders. At the moment we are not ruling out to go with Coral anyway if we can not get the price right with other builders. At the moment Perry Homes is costing our favorite design and we'll here from them at the end of this week as a sort of last resort. Then we have to decided what to do. I would love to follow your progress so keep writing, please and we'll keep our fingers crossed for you. cheers Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 23Mar 12, 2009 8:05 pm We have decided to go with the Baroness 274 as we are on acreage with quite wide frontage. We are building out towards Greenbank, south of Brisbane. It also suits the lay of the land with all the right rooms at the back to get the morning sun.
Despite my earlier concerns we are feeling a bit more confident with Coral. We are just asking as many questions as possible so there will be no surprises later. What we are trying to focus on is getting the things we want e.g. high ceilings, that we can't do later. It is so easy to get caught up in all the lovely things that you want, but do we really NEED them?! Yes Annielies, Corals starting price is very low, but like you said they came in about the same cost as many other builders. I think, for first home buyers, their inclusions are great especially the upgrade to deluxe inclusions. My advice to you would be to consider which way your land faces and get a design that you LOVE without too many major changes. There are sooooooo many builders out there and I am sure you will find the right one for you. Just be persistent!!! What worries me is that building a house has totally taken over our lives - and we haven't even laid a brick yet!!! Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 24Mar 12, 2009 9:01 pm Hi Juljas
Love the Baronesse, our neighbours got one, built 6 years ago and the house is aging beautifully. Not a crack in the slab on the low reactive clay soil we've got here. It sits at the back of two hectares, overlooking an enormous dam. Their block is broader than ours, and the house is facing East. Our block of two hectares is more narrow, has a front of 68 meters, facing East, while walking towards the back of the block, first comes the dam, then our 12 x 16 mtr shed built in colourbond Jasper and 40 meters behind the shed will the house be build. The front (in case of the Hayman: Bed 1 and Games Room) will face North-East. The Entry and Garage will be at the East-side and the bed rooms at the rear (South). You are right, there are so many builders out there and even more floorplans. As said before, we give it another go but we feel that it is taken over our live too. and then there is the closing date of the FHB grant. So, we hope to solve this problem as soon as possible Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 25Mar 12, 2009 10:22 pm good luck annielies, your block sounds lovely! i hope you find the perfect house and builder for you...(coral or not!)
juljas - i am feeling pretty good about coral too...hope the good feeling continues! 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 26Mar 19, 2009 9:32 am Thanks Jess, we are hanging in there. Have been back to Coral last Monday and had a sort of fall out with the salesguy.
In the last meeting we discussed Tender Letter 1 and in the week after that we decided on the position of the three watertanks, changed our minds a couple of times on cooking on gas or not and some other small things. Furthermore we did not agree on the quote of the Electrician and a e-mail was forwarded to Head Office. As we sent email after e-mail without any answer (I red that e-mails between you and the sales man give a good paper trail in case something goes wrong and the guy had never responded in writing so far)) I decided to prepare the meeting with a sort of discussion paper, summarizing everything already discussed, decisions made and changes requested. I sent the e-mail a couple of hours before the actual meeting and had him on the phone 10 minutes later, shouting and accusing us of attacking and blaming him for things that were Head Office Policy. He had enough of our e-mails and questions We immediately rang Head Office and asked if they still wanted our business, if yes we did not wanted to be bullied for just doing what everybody would do. They called the Sales man but we have not heard back from them so far. Customer Service ??? Anyway, we went to our appointment with the Sales Man, talked the whole situation through and eventually he seemed to understand some of our ideas about communication. As we both had jobs as Project Managers in the past, we felt as we needed all our experience and skills to keep this process floating. At the end of the day a request for Tender Letter 2 is on its way. Unfortunately it will take another 3 weeks to come back. A little bit strange as nr. 1 took two weeks and we we only added a quote for a Glass Splashback and for Boral Roof Tiles BLUE DUSK as PGH does not manufacture BLUE OYSTER anymore. We love a blue roof on the RICE brick with Off White mortar. Can anybody give an idea about the Time Line after Tender 2? Will it take much more time before the contract can be signed and drawings can go to Council? Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 27Apr 01, 2009 4:30 pm hi annilies - just wondering how you went with your other builder appointment this other day? keep us updated! 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 28Apr 04, 2009 9:36 am Hi Jess, it's me again after I just replied to your topic. Sorry for this late reply but I have been very busy on our land as we had 480mm of rain in just 7 hours last Thursday. Around 11 am our shed was surrounded by yellow rivers partly draining in our dam while the other half was quickly destroying the first part of our driveway near the cross over. Great living on clay, YEAH. Luckily we've got a huge slab around the shed where the caravan is sitting, so we still had some dry beds to go back to at night. Have been busy since 5 am this morning to restore the storm water drainage as much as possible and now we are waiting for another downpour. Yeah, I think everything went okay with builder 2. They have a floorplan quite similar to the Hayman and are happy to change that to our likings. Their Basic Price came out 20K higher but after comparing our Tender with their Inclusions we managed to bring that down to 10K. Still too high for us because with the Hayman we are already 15K over our budget. Sunday we hope to get a response from builder 2's HO and if they want the job the news has to be good. After that there are other things to consider like quality of build and building time. If we stay with Coral (we are waiting for the contract at the moment) we'll have a home at the end of October and with builder 2 somewhere Januari / Februari next year. SOOOOOoooo cheers Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 29Apr 04, 2009 11:46 am oh no annelies!!! i hope you whole block is not a dam now - apparently you guys got about 400ml in 3 hours or something crazy like that - my little bro had a bit of an adventure down your way on thursday, he was one of the group of school kids who were on a hiking camp and had to be rescued! keep us updated with the house thing - if you don't mind me asking who is the other builder? are they a custom builder? 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 30Apr 05, 2009 9:50 am Yeah, heard about that, they were at Harry's Hut, weren't they? Great place to be when it is not raining. Hope he's okay? Builder2 is Perry Homes. Just got the Contract date from Coral: May 7, which means that they will not finish the house before the end of November. Closing the gap with PH in that regard. We hope to hear from PH today !!! Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 31Apr 13, 2009 8:51 am Can anybody who went with Coral tell me the specification of their frame. I can't find anything in their Inclusions and Classic Specifications other than that the frame is in accordance with the AS for Pine. Thanks Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 32May 21, 2009 11:20 am Jee, we don it, we signed the contract with Coral Homes at the 19th of May 2009. We still got the dispute about the messed up Site Plan and it will probably cost money again to solve it. The Sales Guy doesn't want to take any responsibility for it, but moneywise we couldn't close the gap between Coral and the second builder enough to walk away. As I read good things about Coral on this Forum we might as well take the risk. So there we go and hopefully everything goes well. The next step will be the colour selections, the Electrical Plan and we also have to put in the Plumbing and Drainage application with the Council as Coral does not want to do it. Also we have to Road Base the second driveway that will run on the other side of the dam, behind the shed and up to the House Site. We just had an Excavator in to undo the mess after we had 500 mm of rain a month ago as we had another 120mm the day before yesterday and more to come tomorrow. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 33May 21, 2009 1:53 pm Congratulations Annelies, I hope your experience with Coral is as good as ours has been. My only feed back for them would be to improve communication. I'm quite confident they're all organised and know what they're doing, but I like to be regularly kept informed of what's going on. I'm sure I was a pain in the butt for my SS, I probably phoned him every week, but I think we're paying SO much money for these things, you need to be aware of what's going on. No complaints about him at all though, he was always easy to reach though and answered all my questions, but it would be nice to meet regularly on site to have that peace of mind. Just me being fussy. Are you going to start a thread? It would be great to see it all come together. Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 34May 21, 2009 2:58 pm congrats annelies! my contract is due 10/06/09, so hopefully that date hurries up! i hope you whole block is not a dam again - this rain is crazy! i also hope everything gets sorted for you in regards to the house siting, start a thread to keep us updated! please! have you rung to book in your finishes appointment yet? 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 35May 21, 2009 7:50 pm Honestly, Coral have been fine for me (so far). We have had a week of wet weather in Brisbane and our SS immediately offered to claim this under wet weather delays in our contract (15 days allowed). Coral won't fuss over you but if you don't need that sort of reassurance, you'll be happy. It did annoy us when they wanted to change something via variation (hinging the front door instead of pivoting and UPVC downpipes instead of Colorbond), they just sent a variation in the mail, not even a phone call to explain. Regarding price Annelies - being a M/P site: What is causing your site to be classified a P? Our site was classified a P (M soil though) because of low ****** rock which increased the cost of services being installed and the screw piers for the slab. Unlike 99% of builders out there, Coral use a screw pier slab compared to the very common waffle void (polystyrene) slab which is much cheaper and much more prone to movement resulting in cracking. Al & Caitie- Building the Hamilton 278 (Coral) at Narangba Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 36May 21, 2009 9:55 pm Hi Jellylegs Thanks, honestly your experience and that of another couple of people here at the Forum has given me the idea that Coral might be the best to go with regarding speed of building. We already met our SS months ago and he made the impression to be right at the ball. On the negative side we've experienced the black and white attitude in several occasions but hope that it will turn out positive for us too. I can be quite fussy to and worked as a project manager in building overseas, so I expect a certain level of professional behaviour, I'm afraid. I'll certainly start a threat the moment I can find the time to set it all up. Looking forward to share my experience on this Forum. Hi J. Lovely to hear that you got a contract date. Exciting isn't it? I reckon that you've already have your total colour selection done? Hubby and I made a serious start yesterday by looking at Tiles and Laminate colours, so it will take some more time before we are ready to book in the finishes appointment. Good to know Alk, that most things go as you want them to go. We are not expecting too much of them, I'm sure. The P stands for disturbed soil as we were told. In our case the soil will be disturbed when we are going to remove two mature gums from the proposed slab site. Coral is slightly more expensive regarding the slab but we compared their costs with another builder who had a M slab included in their price and the difference was about 4K. That builder didn't do the waffle foid either. Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 37Mar 03, 2010 1:30 pm Hi there, I noticed that some of these posts were from Jan 2009. I am wondering how you went with building with Coral now that it is 12 months on and if you would still refer them? They seem to have no where near the amount of negative feedback that a lot of their competitors have. I am particularly interested in the finish....thanks! Chantelle Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 38Mar 03, 2010 1:35 pm hey chantelle - absolutely 100% would reccomend them there are always a few hiccups along the way, but I found my coral build to be quality, REALLY fast (2.5 months) and so hassle free - SS was awesome, head office was great etc etc check out my blog for pics, i'll have to load some more recent ones now that i have furniture etc 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 39Mar 03, 2010 3:07 pm Cob79 Hi there, I noticed that some of these posts were from Jan 2009. I am wondering how you went with building with Coral now that it is 12 months on and if you would still refer them? They seem to have no where near the amount of negative feedback that a lot of their competitors have. I am particularly interested in the finish....thanks! Chantelle I'm with Jess and you'll find most of the people on this forum who've built with Coral will give them the thumbs up too. Our build has just started and up to this point they have been terrific. If you go back over some of the people who originally posted in this topic and check out their own threads, you'll get a great idea of how things went for them. If you have the time to read them from start to finish you'll learn sooo much from other peoples experiences. Where abouts are you by the way, Brisbane? Good Luck Jess09 i'll have to load some more recent ones now that i have furniture etc Jess, where have you been, we've all missed you? I've noticed you've popped back a few times. Can we pleeeeeease have an update? I hope everything is going well for you and N Re: Coral Homes mixed feedback 40Mar 03, 2010 3:17 pm sure sure So crazy, I promise I'll post some pics soon...I now have a full house of furniture, and am working on the decorating/picture hanging bit - had N's 3rd b'day at the new house a couple of weeks ago, was a great success i'm trying to grow grass, and I'm getting a quote today on having a sandstone rock retaining wall put down the corner side of the house, all the way along. I think I will cry when I get the quote 2014 - Prepping to build the Soho 4 with Plantation homes, industrial style 2009 - Built the Brampton with Coral Homes viewtopic.php?f=31&t=15399&start=280 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 7214 Hi, I am looking into doing a KDR in Melbourne and am contemplating using Kialla Homes. I am looking for feedback on them from others who have built with them. 0 8186 |