Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 14, 2010 10:29 pm Hi all, We just received our 'fixed price quote' and were a bit shocked as to how much more expensive things were than was quoted in the 'price guide'. After meeting with our consultant and going through the quote it became apparent that in our initial meeting he underquoted our alfresco area by over 40% ("oops, I quoted a verandah price. Sorry"). This was not the only thing we were underquoted on. Added to this we were told we had to pay and extra $200 for a larger front door even though the house design is designed with a 920 wide front door and they don't offer alternatives. This is what it came down to ($100 to upgrade the door frame, $55 to paint the larger door, and the rest was the cost of the larger front door). We're not amateurs and have built before so we covered most things in our initial quote. It really came down to the mistakes and underquoting. In fact we may not have plonked down our deposit if we had been given the right sums in the first place. Since, imo, the alfresco was a key part of our design we were extremely disappointed. Without it the house just seems ordinary. So at this point we're considering going back to the drawing board and looking at other designs and builders. I wonder if builders somehow think that they have you once you've paid your $3000 deposit and you wont go elsewhere? $3000 is a drop in the bucket when you look at the overall cost of your home. I hate being 'nickeled and dimed' to death and I'm very disappointed. Handover February 2011 Happy with our home Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 2Mar 14, 2010 10:59 pm I think I would be saying... 'well since you made a few errors, how about we go back to square one and you give me the deposit back. Then we can start again and no one is the 'LOSER'. Soon as you have your money back... run for the hills and find someone else, as there are a few to choose from. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 3Mar 14, 2010 11:02 pm Built 7 years ago with a prominent builder, for the 1st time. I was inexperienced and got hood-winked in too many areas. About to sign up for my second build, have owned 5 house now. At 37, I'd like to think I know what I'm doing this time around. Certainly, I want everything (bar tile colours and door handles) tied down before I put down my $3K deposit. Everything tied down, even down to brick selection, roof tiles, even the specific oven & rangehood models. Because once they have my $3K, I've lost all bargaining power because at prestarts it's, "that's our price, I don't give a rats if it's overpriced". Sorry to go on a rant, In your situation, I'd be thinking of cutting my loses and movng on. It's not a good start and I'd be constantly worried as to where else I'm about to get stung. I've fallen in love with a house plan, which I've extended by 65m2 and added $80K to their top of the range price because I want the next house to be it until I'm ready for a retirement village. If I had not found the builder / house plan, I would have seriously considered owning a set of plans through architect / draftsman and then tendering the plans out to 5 builders to make them compete. Which ever way you go, good luck, but if it was me, I'd be giving them the bird. Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 4Mar 14, 2010 11:26 pm I had signed with a builder who quoted me around 16K for the sit costs and it took them 4 months to come up with the real cost which was 40K I siad to them keep your thousand dollars and found someone who did it for about 28K. Site costs are hard to determine accurately up front but they should not have takn soooooo long to come up with the real cost. Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 5Mar 15, 2010 8:17 am onc_artisan I think I would be saying... 'well since you made a few errors, how about we go back to square one and you give me the deposit back. Then we can start again and no one is the 'LOSER'. Soon as you have your money back... run for the hills and find someone else, as there are a few to choose from. I like this advice. Except, after I got my money back I'd let the builder know that they are now one in three builders quoting for the job. Get two other builders to quote. This way you are no longer at the mercy of the builder. Also, make sure you negotiate a suitable liquidated damages amount before you pay a cent. Builders like to take a little bit of money at a time and each time they do they know you are more committed and "mistakes" surface. Has anyone ever had a, "oops, we over quoted something, you're house will be $3,000 cheaper than we initially said". It's all designed to extract more money from you. In summary, your only protection is to have three builders quote and only pay anything more than $1000 once you have a firm price and everything is to your satisfaction. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 6Mar 15, 2010 11:32 am Thank you all so much for your replies. I had a very poor nights sleep over this. Every piece of advice given is worth considering. We will get quotes from 2 other builders. I doubt we'd get much back of our $3000 because of soil and engineers reports but we will asked for the invoices for all these to justify the $3000 and at least we know our soil type now. Makes it easier for other quotes. I understand the building game fairly well so I know how things get padded out and we were prepared for that but not for the mistakes of a sales consultant who just didn't do the right thing and then has no power to go back and negotiate with the company. We would never have handed over our deposit based on the present quotes and I wonder if this is all part of the game in 'underquoting'. In the end we may end up going with this builder minus the alfresco area but I will be getting other builders quotes in the meantime. Thank you again for the time you took in replying. Handover February 2011 Happy with our home Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 7Mar 15, 2010 11:51 am We did go back to the drawing board. Our initial tender was $200K above what we had expected it to be - and we weren't naive. We redesigned, relocated the house on the block and have a much better house for us, our block and our budget - however it took more than 6 months to get to that stage again. We have had a couple of other issues since then so our DA is still not ready but the actual redesign and tender took 6 months. If I had my time over I would've lost the deposit and started fresh with another builder. Good Luck with your build! Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 8Mar 15, 2010 12:00 pm I had the same issue.... Everything was can do and the agreed price was great... We then paid and guess what everything changed...... We couldnt get the money back and overall the 3k was really not worth it. So we advised we would now be getting another 3 quotes and guess what they reduced the quote BUT we did get another 3 quotes and found a builder that we were a lot more happy with so we signed him on instead. Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 9Mar 15, 2010 12:10 pm I don't see the point in getting quotes if they go and change them. That's their stuff up, not yours. How many smaller businesses would go broke if they kept underquoting? Make sure you get the reports that have been done, seeing as you have paid for them. Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 10Mar 15, 2010 3:36 pm We are building our owner designed home in Adelaide with Adelaide Designer Homes. We would only consider a builder that would offer us a true fixed price contract. We got everything (except footings) all sorted out and fixed and then agreed to pay $850 to have the engineering done (their cost price, so they said) so we could fix the footing cost. Once everything came back ok we paid the remaining $2150 to make up the full $3000 deposit. I could never part with $3000 based on a loose quote from a sales consultant. And yes it is only a drop in the ocean compared to a quarter of a million dollar contract but a drop all the same. Every drop counts as they say Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 11Mar 15, 2010 5:30 pm seals I had the same issue.... Everything was can do and the agreed price was great... We then paid and guess what everything changed...... We couldnt get the money back and overall the 3k was really not worth it. So we advised we would now be getting another 3 quotes and guess what they reduced the quote BUT we did get another 3 quotes and found a builder that we were a lot more happy with so we signed him on instead. Now that's the right approach. Power to owners. Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 12Mar 15, 2010 6:06 pm It seems like the concensus is to go back to the drawing board. I'm just working in which builders to see this week. Hubby is in Perth this week and I don't want to waste anymore time on this. Thank you again everyone and I'll let you know what we've come up with. Handover February 2011 Happy with our home Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 14Mar 15, 2010 6:33 pm This is a really hard one, I am building with the same builder and know exactly what you mean. They are the second builder we went to after being shafted by the first, who we did walk away from and lost $2500 but it was a small amount to lose in the overall scheme of things. With our current builder our sales consultant assured us our footings would be no more than $18000 dollars despite the previous dealer quoting $32000. He said I have no idea how your other builder got that, yet when their footings quote came back it was the same $32000, We were lucky that a lot of other things came in cheaper than what was quoted and in the end a lot of things balanced out, so we were happy with that. Robinred, we walked away from our first builder and it was the best decision we ever made, and we will never go to them ever again, so it is worth considering if you feel you have not received the best service. Everyones service from the same builder is different and just because my experience has been good, does not mean yours will be. Its a tough call, there is also your time to consider and how long it has taken to get to this point. Re: Would you go back to the drawing board? 15Mar 26, 2010 1:03 pm the same thing happened to me, i walked away i thought if they are being that careless at this stage can you imagine what they are going to be like with me through the building process. It turns out it was the best decision i could make and i havent regretted it a bit, losing the deposit was worth the peace of mind i got from ending that contract. (most of the time you can get your new builder to knock that off your new contract to make it worth you while!!) Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 6694 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 30522 Hi It came to my attention after the handover that - The facade cladding on the face and the side are not straight. -The face tapers down by 50mm from left to right and… 0 888 |