Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 28, 2009 11:20 am Hi everyone, Just wondering if anyone has had any experiences building with Homestead Homes SA? I can't seem to find much about them online, yet they've been around the industry since around 1980. Just looking at building our double-storey home with them, and close to signing on the contract. So far the sales person has been very accommodating, and communication has been good. But I just wanted to make sure before I sign. Thanks very much. Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 2May 28, 2009 2:28 pm Heya.... I am in the pre-lim and pre-signing stage with them now..... heres what i think so far... I was corresponding with a consul since about jan...she was excellent.... they allowed us to do any changes to the plans as we wanted, and before i had even given them a cent, we had about 5 ameneded quotes and countless plans sent through.... millions of email questions answered and priced up.... We eventually gave our 2K deposit to them about 4-5 weeks ago...in that time, we had working plans and elevations through and tweaked to perfection.... now just waiting on footing report which should be anyday now apparently.... Next step is another 1k for full plans drawn up and contract signing..... Hopefully the next stages are just as good... Their pricing does seem a little on the high side though....but i have no doubt your paying a little for the service and a slightly better product (hoping).... they give you your site supervisors direct phone number which is good....others may not.,... My sister built a very large home with them and she said they were excellent....they use raft footings.....also my supervisor at work used them and had nothing but good reports also.... That was enough for me to pay around an extra 10k for them.....as apposed to some of the problems i heard of more mainstream budget builders.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 3May 28, 2009 3:30 pm Thanks for that Medsy. That was my initial concern, that they seemed a little bit more pricey, but our sales guy is a real top bloke. He was up till 4am in the morning re-doing up plans, and then still sending me emails in the middle of night. Although what I understand is that they are putting nothing in the variations column and fixing all the prices with their suppliers in advance. He's also had to put up with our countless number of changes to the floorplan. So I agree their service so far has been top notch. Got a blog medsy that I can follow, maybe we can be benchmarks partners ? Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 4May 28, 2009 6:29 pm I dont have a blog per se... but i am documenting privately everything i am going through... If you like, put a fav link on this page and we can benchmark each other here.... We are building a modified windarra design....with an added 53sqm alfresco umr ( 5.5x9.5 w/slab) costs about 18k!!!! ouch..... total 338sqm.... 9ft high ceilings....full face render... They are on the expensive side....but my sisters footings came in at 18k for a site with retaining walls and fill.... so i am hoping where cheaper builders slug more for footings later, homestead slug more included now and less footings surprises... We are building at munno para west...620sqm block...dead flat, and our consultant swears that would should be fine with a 15k allowance....i begged her to give us an HONEST footing cost now, and not to sugar coat it so i am praying the footings will be 15k ish... So far up to now, feel like she has been very upfront with costs.... but i think within a week or two we will have engineers report and maybe the final pricing guide....i can let you know how far out we are from our final quote... Good luck with your decisions.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 5Jun 05, 2009 10:54 pm For future reference if anyone intends to build with Homestead SA.... Footings engineers reports came in....took 33 days from prelim signing...... Originally quoted 15k.... came in at just under $14,200.... So far....very happy....were about to sign full contracts and sign off on plans, then off to council i guess... Stay tuned... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 6Jun 05, 2009 11:03 pm Thanks for that Medsy. Hope all goes well for you, please keep me up to date with your progress! Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 7Jun 10, 2009 7:11 pm Signed CONTRACTS today - 10/06/09... YAH!!! Next point of contact is expected in 6 - 8 weeks....i believe to start selection proceedings.... Have been advised slab down should be around 4 months from here.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 8Jun 10, 2009 8:03 pm Nice one medsy! grats! By the way, do you know if homestead use an independent building inspector? Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 9Jun 11, 2009 3:22 pm When i mentioned the ind building inspector i will use, the sales rep tried to talk me out of it saying to not waste my money....would this be part of her job you reckon...??? She then went on to say to say to ring my local council and see how much they inspect....i think the council inspect the footings but maybe thats it.... My supervisor didnt have an ind. inspector and he said his house is great and i wont have any problems.... So im stuck in my decision now..... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 10Jun 11, 2009 3:33 pm Ah no worries, just thinking about it.. but it's around 400 per inspection for my place, so all up i'd be up for around $1500 to get an IBI in. Anyhow, i'm pretty anal about stuff, so is my dad so i'm sure between the two of us we'll spot most things that will need fixing. Btw, what sort of a/c are you getting on your system? Are you doing any structured cabling (networking, tv etc)? Downlights etc? And was the homestead able to get you a good price on them? Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 11Jun 11, 2009 4:21 pm lol...no my house will be a bit more stock and basic than that.... Downlights they charge around the $120 each....ill probably end up getting 7 though...as we have 4 niche cutouts and 3 wall voids....best to get em now.... No cabling...i will just run the ethernet cables through my self once i move in... not too hard if u dont mind gettin in the roof....Although i will need to get the ss to allow me or get a tradie to place a large conduit in the lounge room wall through some beams so i can run cables down it later on... My consult said to ask the ss for quite a few things down the track off the record....so ill be keen to see how i go.... im trying for the wall conduits, different paint colour for the doors and render to the alfresco off the record... But achieving them is another story...we will see.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 12Jun 11, 2009 4:25 pm ac.... im doing most things i can after h/o... Ive allowed 10k for heating/cooling..... we want ducted gas heating and evaporative cooling.....i much prefer the fresh air of evap, and its a better breeze when a r/c would be too cold but you need to push some moist air around... Ive had both types before.... evap for me... cheaper to run too... Though doubling up on air ducts may be unsightly.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 13Jun 11, 2009 5:03 pm Medsy lol...no my house will be a bit more stock and basic than that.... Downlights they charge around the $120 each....ill probably end up getting 7 though...as we have 4 niche cutouts and 3 wall voids....best to get em now.... You can probably buy cfl downlights yourself for around $30, and going rate by sparkies to install them are $30 each. So you'll save yourself 60 bucks per fitting if you go down that path. I've got evap cooling at my current place at the moment, and it works great. But we haven't got anything in terms of heating.. so hence we're going refrigerated reverse cycle a/c for the new place. It's more expensive to run, but we're hoping with more insulation, upgrading to double glazed windows and some curtains we won't have to be running it all day long. Btw, do you know what's better for asthma sufferers? rrac or evap? Oh can I ask how much they quoted you for the ducted gas and evap? Will it be run off the one remote? Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 14Jul 03, 2009 9:37 pm Homestead's progress so far... amazingly quick....must be very slow in adelaide.... Sun 3rd May: Signed with $2000 deposit for pre-lim agreements. Fri 05th June: Recieved final plans, final schedule and prelim engineering costs. Wed 10th June: Signed final contracts for build Wed 01st July: Recieved FULL engineers reports and bank pack. CSC contacted and introduced himself and assured us plans have been sent to council. Selections to start in a few weeks time ( my assumption ) So within 8 weeks its at council... maybe its the fact we spent 4 months prior nutting out the plan so once we signed it was already finished...and most was already checked with council for their pre-lim approvals.. Stay tuned....i feel ok to start date will not be far away.... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 15Jul 03, 2009 9:49 pm Wow that is awesome stuff, let me know how you get on! We paid our deposit, and the soil report is underway, had the first draft from the draftsperson back and there's a few things that need to be changed. Other than that our experience has been pretty smooth to date. Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 16Sep 08, 2009 9:00 pm interested to see how this thread progresses, ive put my plans into 7x builders so far, few more to go. homestead seam to be the ones in front, they offer the most diversity in building allowing us to do this during and after handover! which is quite interesting for a big builder. friend of ours has a homestead home, and its finished quite well and we were very impressed with the construction of his house in comparison to his neighbors (also under-construction) its just a shame they only build from bricks 2nd-Fix | Blog Building with Desyn Homes previously with the insolvent [url=https://www.facebook.com/7NewsAdelaide/videos/1162546323776021/]Endeavour Homes[/url] Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 17Sep 08, 2009 9:20 pm We were in and out of council in about 4 weeks..... would of been quicker if there wasnt a slight delay in 1 form.... We have just spent 4 weeks locking in final selections.... some was due to errors in the schedule, plans etc....some due to us changing our mind on a few things and adding stuff etc.... It was all done via email so that slowed things up a little too....but overall everything was done on a daily basis so they didnt delay any more than it had too.... we could always speak directly with our csc when we rang...no holds, no ring backs...and he was quite helpful.... Up to now its been smoooooth.... were looking for slab down in about 6 weeks from here i guess.... def no hiccups.... The only thing is they do seem to be a bit pricey on everything.... but heres hoping you get what you pay for... ie....just to paint skirts/arctraves and reveals in a dif colour than walls.... $855 ( We have watched a few houses go up in our street...it seems the homestead ones are done the quickest..... Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 18Sep 08, 2009 10:51 pm Heya Medsy, I probably a few weeks behind you.. our plans were submitted to the land estate for encumbrance approval, i'm told that was done pretty much immediately as it's just a rubber stamp, it's been in the council for a couple weeks now awaiting approval. Went down to beaumont tiles for pre-selections... what I did notice was that Homestead did charge quite a bit for the labour component, we swapped to larger tiles just to see what it did to the numbers and it was higher than expected. So we decided to tile the pantry, living area, and laundry after handover. Our salesperson has been helpful in sorting some issues out so far, and we're just waiting for him to sort out an issue with something that was left off the pricing schedule for our balcony. All in all, so far so good with them. And I agree, for a large builder the homes we've seen so far built by homestead have been finished quite well. Will let you all know how we get on. Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 19Sep 28, 2009 1:48 pm Hi Just thought I would post a reply on this thread. We too are building with Homestead Homes. For majority of this year we have been working our way through council, engineering, selections etc etc and last week, site preparation started on the block. Hopefully if we continue to have some better weather, the slab will be poured very soon So far, Homestead have been very good. Everyone that we have dealt with there have been excellent and very knowledgeable. We have designed our own home, mainly due to the block that we had bought. It is on a bit of a slope, so we have designed a split level home with a 1.9m split through the middle of the whole thing to minimise the amount of retaining we would need. We will continue to make posts as the house progresses (and hopefully continues as smooth as it has been) and we are keen to watch how other Homestead homes are progressing. Re: Homestead Homes (SA)? Any opinion? 20Sep 28, 2009 2:13 pm Thanks danandmel, hope to hear how yours goes. Just received word that council approval has been held up by encumbrance approval (which I wrote above should've been a rubber stamp but wasn't). Just out of curiousity how long was it before you got planning approval from the time the council received the plan? And when did they call you in for the selections interview? Blog : http://ournewhaven.blogspot.com/ (Modified Newhaven - Homestead Homes) Status : DA - Dec 09. Slabbed - Jan 10. Handover - Aug 10 Thanks for the suggestion. The space between shower and sinks was too tight. I agree about the toilet location. So I have tried two other options: The lower one is… 3 6139 these look like missing batts. Go up and take a look. But yeah moisure meter is a completely different tool 4 9457 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74702 |