Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 15, 2009 9:01 am Hi I asked the M3tr!con sales rep at The Ponds to give me the list and price of the upgrades that are in one of their display house. They told me they can't give me that until I pay a deposit for a tender but they are happy to walk me through the display house and explain what is not standard. I know it is a typical project home builder's tactic to request money as soon as they can so that you are less willing to pull out. But a tender request deposit should be to pay the cost of a site survey and soil test. I don't see why I should have to pay to know the price of any non standard item in a display house. Is it legal for them to do that? DKP. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 2Dec 15, 2009 9:07 am heh, metricon displays remind me of how the McDonalds burgers look on TV... they way overdo it with all kind of ridiculous upgrades, many of which I bet if you asked for they'd be scratching their heads as to which crazy marketing/designer employee at head office got it done at the display. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 3Dec 15, 2009 10:55 am Makes you wonder what they have to hide. They have no right to request a deposit if they're not prepared to tell you the price of what you're buying. We spent quite a bit of time with our sales rep (different builder), going through the display and confirming what was and wasn't included, and then getting a written quote including everything we wanted, with individual prices. There was nothing signed and no deposit paid until we'd made up our minds about exactly what we wanted and whether we could afford it. Of course we changed our minds about optional extras a million times anyway.... Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 4Dec 15, 2009 11:15 am This part is so confusing. We went looking at display homes on the weekend. We walked through one and the salesman said 'The price of this house comes with everything see you here, apart from flooring, window coverings and downlights. Everything else is standard' Then we walked next door to a different builder and he spent 5minutes having to tell us everything that was in that display home that wasn't standard. And the price kept going up and up. Building in Perth. Celebration homes Oasis. Pre-start complete 25th March 2010 Titles due April 2010 Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 6Dec 15, 2009 11:36 am We had the same experience with M3tr!con @ The Ponds. The response triggered alarm bells. What are they hiding? Why would you want to deal with a company using these tactics? It is not as though they don't know the cost of the display homes all tricked up in their finery. They do know. (if they didn't know - that would be another good reason to steer clear of 'em) Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 7Dec 15, 2009 12:40 pm I had similar issues with PD, which ultimately ended up in me getting to contract signing and then walking away from it all. The builder I'm with now is a smaller builder and they gave me a complete breakdown of all my costs in a spreadsheet before I paid/signed anything. In fact, they did about six versions of this as I added and removed stuff once I knew the cost of it. P. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 8Dec 15, 2009 12:42 pm We had a totally different experiance with M3tr!con SC's at Tarnet and Williams Landing. They openly gave us copies of the extras and did several quotes well before any deposits were talked about. So far our experiance has been great. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 9Dec 15, 2009 12:53 pm Piper+1 I had similar issues with PD, which ultimately ended up in me getting to contract signing and then walking away from it all. The builder I'm with now is a smaller builder and they gave me a complete breakdown of all my costs in a spreadsheet before I paid/signed anything. In fact, they did about six versions of this as I added and removed stuff once I knew the cost of it. P. That's bizarre, since when we were doing the rounds, they were giving every visitor to their display homes a sheet listing all the extras and how much they cost.... Perhaps regardless of the builder, it depends on the sales consultant? I just figure it's like going shopping for a new car and being told that you have to sign the order form and pay a deposit before they'll tell you how much the upgraded model is or what you're up for in dealer and on-road costs. Seriously? Who's going to agree to that? It isn't even legal. You have to disclose the price of your product and all the inclusions/conditions before you can ask for payment. This reminds me of that land developer in Sydney a while back who wouldn't give out a copy of the estate covenants unless you'd signed a contract of sale. I'd like to see that stand up in a court of law.... Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 10Dec 15, 2009 1:33 pm I was out at the Ponds the other day having a look thru M3tr!cons houses for a friend. I ran into a bloke who was just about to build with them and he was scoping out his electrical plan. I causually asked him "how much for how much?" Wow! is all I can say. The list of items that are upgrades in those display homes is huge. After he had finished unloading all of life's little troubles on me I felt as though the only things that are standard inclusions were the slab and the frame. I'm not a fan of those display homes. The layout and the feel of them is too busy for me. Lots of wasted space and the dark feature walls and over-use of fireplaces screams "Try-hard" Each to their own though. Some people like that sort of stuff. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 11Dec 15, 2009 2:11 pm The M display houses at the Ponds have around $150K+ extras in each ones. Those display houses sold a few mths ago for an average of $750K with a lease back offer on them. They will tell you the prices as you do the walk through and you can write down the things you like but they will never give you the full list. You dont need to make a deposit to do a walk through but they won't do a walk through till you tell them you have land, as they want to make sure the house you like will fit. Some of the facades alone are $30K +. The timber "floating" stair case was around $12K. Air con was quoted at $25K. Site costs for H class were $25K. Some people must have deep pockets though as there are 4 X M houses in DA for my street at the moment out of 20 blocks. I know 2 of them are R1va and there is a price difference of $80k between the 2 houses on their cost listing for their DA details. So someone has added $80K of extras. We liked them but would still need to make structural changes for our block and even the basic versions were way to many $$$$ for us. Min Building at The Ponds Land reg 3/12/09, Land settled 18/12/09 Approved by Design Panel 16/11/09, Submitted to council 24/11/09, Approved by Council 21/1/10 Site Start 21/5/10 http://andyminpondsbuild.blogspot.com/ https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=19800 Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 12Dec 15, 2009 2:23 pm Thats crap.... We got one for the santorini house in ballarat no worries and we weren't signed up and still thinking about it...It was good to see what was upgrades and how much extra things were Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 14Dec 15, 2009 3:25 pm elemist Put it too them this way... Tell me the price or i'll go to a builder that will. Spot on! Always go in with the mindset that they want your $$$ more than you want their house. Plus, if this is the service they have to offer then you have to question how bad the service will be after you do hand over your hard earned. I would be walking away. We had a similar thing with the simonds sales staff at innisfail estate, the sales reps have put me off dealing with them regardless of my thoughts of the house Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 15Dec 15, 2009 3:49 pm This sort of cr*p was why I gave up on building second time around...couldn't get a straight answer on what things cost...seemed like the game had changed a lot in the period when I first built (2001) to when I thought about it second time around (2008-ish). mmm....donuts Homer Simpson 1956- Links: Site Costs Ready Reckoner | H1 Addiction Medical Advice | Château TDL: The Backyard Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 16Dec 15, 2009 3:50 pm Another option, and one that i used was to go to a different display home and deal with a different sales rep. I'm not sure, but suspect they would be on a commission based income, so chances are they're not going to refer you back to the specific home, they'll want to keep your business to themselves. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 17Dec 15, 2009 8:27 pm We were told that they don't give out prices because supplier prices are always changing and they don't want to quote incorrectly then have the buyer be upset (or I suppose surprised) at time of signing. In our experience, nothing was more expensive when it came time to sign contracts, but a few things ended up being cheaper from when we were first given prices to when we signed contracts. Whether we were just lucky, I'm not sure, but their reasoning behind it makes sense to me. I agree though, it did cause me to wonder what they were hiding - at least at first. Stefan Building the M3tr!con Liberty 42 at Stonecutters Ridge. The New Build Blog - "Life, In Progress." Stonecutters Ridge Community Website | My photos Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 18Dec 15, 2009 9:26 pm Thanks all for your feedback. I asked for a walk through later this week. Let's see if the sales rep will then provide a price on specific items in the display home... I initially received a quote that includes some extra options that I knew we want, so it's not that they hide stuff. When asked they provide the info. But it is not very transparent comparing to some other builders. DKP Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 19Dec 18, 2009 8:17 pm Update: I had a walk-through of the display house. The sales rep explained all the items in the house, pointing at what is standard and what is not. He gave the price of any item we asked. Overall it was a rather positive experience. Re: Builder won't give display house option price list 20Dec 18, 2009 8:52 pm That is very odd - we are building with M and went via display centre at Middleton Grange (so still in Sydney, and essentially from the same head office) and the staff were SO helpful! We rang them from the land developer just as we were about to put a deposit on land, and asked them if we could build the house we wanted, with all the inclusions we asked for for under $X and the lady went through it on the phone with me, told me we could easily do it for that.... so we went to visit them, on a saturday mind you (busy day) and we got a 'draft quote' done that day!! Before we even outlayed the deposit money! And I think M is actually quite good with their inclusions. I was shocked to find so much actually WAS included. Their momentum package is awesome, getting caesarstone benchtops to kitchen and bathrooms, high ceilings, pivot front door, feature windows etc. for pretty much nothing..... i actually think compared to others they are brilliant. We were also prepared before we went house shopping that we would have to pay around $100k more than the basic price to get all the nice inclusions we wanted.... so we actually came out ahead!!!! Hi, I'd like some advice on the best option please on the estimate options we've been provided from our builder. This is for the… 0 4066 Newbie question for flooring options. We are thinking of changing the flooring for bedrooms and passage area. Last time we looked at flooring options was almost 8years… 0 3519 Would also like an opinion from anyone that has used xcem over hebel for floors. Thanks 1 14228 |