Big M / Metr!con Homes: - Studio M & Upgrade Prices!

My partner asked Metr!con for a copy of the building surveyor report and they just emailed it to us.

I have to say we must been lucky as our build to date has been really good compaired to the stories on this site.

I do agree 100% that is comes down to your SS on how your build goes. We are lucky as our SS has been gr8 and very promte with answering our questions.

Lock Up looks like it's going to be completed before Xmas

This is a brilliant idea, Thanks so much for posting this!

my two cents -- if you have the option, upgrade the towel rails and toilet roll holders from the standard provided by M. we just moved into our M*con home and the fixtures didn't last even a day, they are stuck on with suction cups and fall off almost immediately (I think the ones in the showroom are slightly different). M*con refuses to replace/change them (along with a few other things) despite the defects liability period, so we have to work it out ourselves.

erm... I don't think we've even got any towel rails or toilet roll holders in our contract! They certainly weren't pointed out at our studio M visit. Perhaps when you started building they were included and now they're just another thing that "goes missing" from a new house build!

I guess it's not a big deal though, we've already got ideas for massive towel rail ladders for the ensuite, and toilet roll holders, hand towel holders etc aren't that expensive.

T&T

I believe that towel rails and toilet rolls holders are not provided.

Unless you got some upgraded package, these are not provided. I dont remember seeing them at Mstudio either. I suppose if you ask they can provide them.

yeah i think you are right, we queried this at our studio m appointment and they said they pulled towel rails and toliet roll holders from their lines as no-one decided to take them up as they were not the best quailty. Although we asked that if we supply them prior to hand over whether there tradies can install them and our SS informed us that it could be possible, otherwise i suppose it will be a saturday job for me once hand over is completed in 2010!

It's been often asked in this forum why M don't say how much the upgrades on their display homes are - I've stood in the M sales office in Caroline Springs and someone asked how much the upgrades were in a particular display home, and the salesperson said "Oh, we don't know how much the upgrades are.." - what a blatant lie! They clearly know how much the upgrades are, they'll give you a list of display home upgrades - but only after you've left a $1000 deposit.

On this topic, there's an article on domain (http://www.domain.com.au/Public/fhbgarticle.aspx?id=1252001233129&index=ToDIYFor) for first home buyers talking about display homes, and these paragraphs in particular caught my eye:



Anyway, while my partner and I were pretty cluey about how much was nonstandard in the M display home, clearly it's not a transparent process and that's why this thread was started - if anyone else wants to contribute prices of nonstandard options to this thread I'll continue to update the first few posts as a summary to other potential M builders.

This thread isn't to bash M about upgrade pricing, but just to raise awareness prior to laying down any money with M. My personal opinion is that M are fairly good value for money (and we've spent about $100k over the base price), but it should be up to the consumer to be fully informed before leaving a deposit, and that's what I find poor form by M. If you read the Domain article it talks about how Henley and other builders are more upfront in the display home pricing, and here is where M could improve their performance.

T&T

Im down here in warrnambool and our sales guy happily gave us the cost of upgrades for a display home in Ballarat which we are going to build....the sheet told us what was standard and how much extra an upgrade was....He even arranged for us to go to studio M in Geelong to have a look at the standard lines and we havent even signed with them yet.I think it depends on your sales person and where you are.

When we went down to Berwick to look at the display house, we were given the floor plan of the house on display and were also give the list of upgrades done to the display house and that also had the cost. But when we went to Caroline Springs like yourself slknv, they weren't so forth coming with the information. It depends on the sales person, like emilygirl posted

We have just received our pricing from our colour selection appointment and we were horrified about the cost of a few things. We are builing the Grandview 36 in QLD.

Our biggest surprise is the cost of gloss vinyl wrap doors to the kitchen - $17,265 . The off-white mortar was also a bit of a shock at $1,440. We feel like M is trying to rip us off mercilessly. We are already spending in the vicinity of $120K on upgrades.

They are also not very good at knowing the difference between a credit and a debit. On several occasions they have charged us twice for an item should was supposed to be removed. Luckily I check everything and am not an idiot!

Check and recheck your contracts carefully as they get so many things wrong.

That seems like a hell of a lot for the vinyl wrap in the kitchen, we did the same upgrade in our Denver kitchen and it was a flat upgrade cost of $3950 plus $200 for the upgraded handles, if we wanted the built in pantry in vinyl wrap it was to be a additional $2050 but we ended up putting in a butlers pantry anyway. I would ask them to reconfirm the costing, we did on items that seemed far too much and found that they came back with other cost options.

Good luck.

omg that is an outrageous price for the kitchen doors! I really hope ours dont come in at that price or I might choke!

i agree with Fitzy5, our cost was only 3950, so i would double check.

I was nearly in tears talking with my SC this morning over the cost of the vinyl wrap. A few hours later our CSC called to tell me that it was a "computer calculation error" and that they will have the revised pricing to me this afternoon. Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight!!

YAY!!!!


That's great as I said it pays to ask the question.

Yup, our vinyl wrap kitchen was also $4k. We were thinking of having vinyl wrap to lower cupboards and a regular laminate to the overheads, but there was no discount on the vinyl wrap price - ultimately we just put the vinyl wrap to lower & upper cabinets anyway.

Our offwhite mortar was about $1100 (41sq double storey), but that was back in August 09 and in Melbourne.

We also wanted to swap our toilet/shower position in the ensuite (so we would have a double sized shower) and the sales consultant quoted $5k - at prelim contract though it costed about $500. Turns out the sales consultant was using the price of a spa ensuite redesign upgrade - since we didn't want the spa the redesign was much better value!

T&T

I hope posing these links/pics are OK, someone let me know if it's not! But just in case anyone out there is thinking of building or buying a Wingrove 28, here's one open for inspection.

http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-S ... 2008285690



There's also this Liberty going to auction in a couple of hours which we'll be attending.

http://www.domain.com.au/Property/For-S ... hortlist=1



T&T

Hi All

I have really enjoyed reading all your posts and information.

We are looking to build the Nolan 41 in Sydney's North West and would love to join this thread and share information we have obtained thus far and perhaps offer a NSW point of view.

Firstly, we found that the SC was very upfront of the upgrade prices in the pre-tender process. We redid our pre-tender several times removing and adding things to get an overall view of prices for nearly everything. During this stage we hadn't paid any money and compared to some other build companies got a heap of information. Some other companies we visited wanted $1-1.5K to get info on what it would cost to make changes to the floor plan.

Here are some of the prices for NSW upgrades for the periods of July '09 and March '10 - I believe there was a price increase during this time.

Front Elevation Render - $9,900
Internal Door - Garage - $326
Rear Garage Roller door ilo b/work - $505
Upgraded ensuite as per display - $2050
Upgraded kitchen as per display - $10,190
(incl in this price - 2 x 3 pot drawers ilo cupboard -$430, Microwave tower $1390, servery $2,200)
Butlers Pantry - $5950
Daikin 15kw air conditioning - $12,950
Grand Outdoor Room - $3600
Eaves to first floor - $1980
Entry Columns and Bulkhead - $860
Increased height to robe sliding doors - $110 and $190
Guest room option - $2990
2 hinged doors to rumpus - $720
2 CSD to ensuite - $568
Turn space understairs into cupboard - $350
2 exhaust fans - $228
Intercom - $1564
Alarm - $1500
Extra recycled tap - $120

I think in my papers somewhere I have the complete upgrade prices of the display home - which we got after paying the $1K deposit but to be honest I found that if you enter into the pre-tender process (which costs you nothing) then most of this information will be made readily available to you if you ask).

Hope this has helped some.

Look forward to sharing stories with you all.

Cool, check out my blog for the build process on my nolan 41 http://tim-and-tina.blogspot.com

Have added your info to the first few posts about prices, thanks for that.

As for the houses I listed above, the Liberty sold for over $1.6m, and the Wingrove has apparently had offers around 950k-$1m

Thanks slknv

Loving your blogspot at the mo - just wish the kids would give me more time to read. I was particularly interested in your change of facade. We too are currently looking a the Kingston. Mind if I pick your brain about it. I can either continue under this thread, add a new one or PM - what would you prefer?