Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 401Apr 12, 2018 10:56 am firsthomehopeful Hi Firstylers, me again wanting to pick your brains! Just going through the building contract and was wondering if it's worth the bother to ask them to change some of the terms of the contract? Not sure if anyone has had any luck in changing anything in the contract, say for example the offer of $1 a day for liquidated damages to a price closer to covering rent. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole if they don't budge on their contracts. Thanks everyone! Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 402Apr 12, 2018 10:57 am BrendanH firsthomehopeful Hi Firstylers, me again wanting to pick your brains! Just going through the building contract and was wondering if it's worth the bother to ask them to change some of the terms of the contract? Not sure if anyone has had any luck in changing anything in the contract, say for example the offer of $1 a day for liquidated damages to a price closer to covering rent. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole if they don't budge on their contracts. Thanks everyone! A friend of mine got $50 a day, however, they added 4 weeks onto the build. Thanks for the reply Brendan, so to accept the $50 a day it went to a 38 week build? Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 403Apr 12, 2018 10:58 am firsthomehopeful BrendanH firsthomehopeful Hi Firstylers, me again wanting to pick your brains! Just going through the building contract and was wondering if it's worth the bother to ask them to change some of the terms of the contract? Not sure if anyone has had any luck in changing anything in the contract, say for example the offer of $1 a day for liquidated damages to a price closer to covering rent. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole if they don't budge on their contracts. Thanks everyone! A friend of mine got $50 a day, however, they added 4 weeks onto the build. Thanks for the reply Brendan, so to accept the $50 a day it went to a 38 week build? Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 404Apr 12, 2018 11:04 am firsthomehopeful ravsingh21 firsthomehopeful Hi Firstylers, me again wanting to pick your brains! Just going through the building contract and was wondering if it's worth the bother to ask them to change some of the terms of the contract? Not sure if anyone has had any luck in changing anything in the contract, say for example the offer of $1 a day for liquidated damages to a price closer to covering rent. I just don't want to go down the rabbit hole if they don't budge on their contracts. Thanks everyone! We changed our progress payment schedule in the contract which they accommodated and while we didn't change the liquidated damages (we should have but didn't even realise you could at that stage) I've seen posts from others who have negotiated a damages rate of $50/day. Its certainly worth asking about in the very least. thanks for the reply! Did you negotiate that through your solicitor or directly with Firstyle and can I ask why you changed your payment schedule? Sometimes I feel like every time I think I've got a handle on what I'm doing they throw something else at me haha. What stage are you in your build? We just talked directly to FS about changing the schedule. We changed it because the schedule was weighted with too much $$$ going out early in the build rather than toward the end, which ultimately will result in more interest on your mortgage while your home is still under construction (and at times without an end in sight). Just something to consider. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 405May 04, 2018 9:22 pm Hi everyone, hope your homes are all going well. I was just wondering if anyone had experience with choosing their kitchen and bathroom cupboards outside of the standard range given in their colour packs? I want to upgrade to a wood veneer with a textured finish that I saw at the laminex display centre. I asked the consultants at Firstyle and she mentioned we would discuss this in our colour selection meetings and that a variation would need to be raised. Does anyone know if this would mean that we have to pay the $1,100 fee or would that just be an additional variation in the same way as flooring and tiles variations? I don't want to be slugged with another fee... Feels great to be at this stage, external colour selection meeting is tomorrow! Thanks everyone, enjoy your weekend. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 406May 06, 2018 1:34 pm hi firsthomehopefuly once the final contract is signed all variations attract a fee based on our experience however prior to the final tender being signed most things are negotiable. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 408Jun 07, 2018 8:23 pm Hi everyone, we have our colour selection meeting tomorrow. I was wondering if we are expected to pick bathroom and splashback tiles at this appointment? And if so do they have other tiles there other than what is the standard range? Interested to hear anyone's experience. Also is it normal to have this meeting before our electricals meeting? Thanks very much. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 409Jun 07, 2018 9:59 pm firsthomehopeful Hi everyone, we have our colour selection meeting tomorrow. I was wondering if we are expected to pick bathroom and splashback tiles at this appointment? And if so do they have other tiles there other than what is the standard range? Interested to hear anyone's experience. Also is it normal to have this meeting before our electricals meeting? Thanks very much. Hi. No yout select your tiles closer to the time they will go in (as stock levels can't be guaranteed). You can take a look at the tiles in advance if you wanted to maybe try to co -ordinate coordinate your kitchen colours etc... The supplier is abruzzi tiles in wetherill park. They have a pretty decent range of tile for the standard selection. Upgrading to porcelain was soo expensive we were glad there was a variety in standard range. We had our electricals first. I think it just depends on when you can get all the bookings lined up but it doesn't affect either process. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 410Jun 07, 2018 10:04 pm le_le firsthomehopeful Hi everyone, we have our colour selection meeting tomorrow. I was wondering if we are expected to pick bathroom and splashback tiles at this appointment? And if so do they have other tiles there other than what is the standard range? Interested to hear anyone's experience. Also is it normal to have this meeting before our electricals meeting? Thanks very much. Hi. No yout select your tiles closer to the time they will go in (as stock levels can't be guaranteed). You can take a look at the tiles in advance if you wanted to maybe try to co -ordinate coordinate your kitchen colours etc... The supplier is abruzzi tiles in wetherill park. They have a pretty decent range of tile for the standard selection. Upgrading to porcelain was soo expensive we were glad there was a variety in standard range. We had our electricals first. I think it just depends on when you can get all the bookings lined up but it doesn't affect either process. Ps re your post above about kitchen cupboards ... you will select that tomorrow. The price difference will depend on what style you upgrade to and of course how many cupboards. We changed ours to the limed ash in the formica range and only paid about $500 from memory. Our kitchen layout is the grantham design which i think has your average number of cupboards. You pay extra for the upgrade only not admin fee as you haven't picked your colours yet. If after your colours appt you sign off and then change your mind that's when you will have to pay admin fee. Have fun tomorrow Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 411Sep 04, 2018 12:32 pm We are building the Grantham design with Firstyle. Construction started in early June 18. Slab and frame was completed in no time. However, bricking is taking a long time with weeks of inactivity in between. Any idea how long bricking and subsequent stages roughly takes? It's annoying because they started another double storey house near us just a week before ours and that had already roof completed in mid August. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 412Sep 04, 2018 12:45 pm we started a single story the same time, first week in June 2018. Gyprocking is almost done and should be locked up by the end of the week, if not early next week. We are in Oran Park. The build has flown along, and my wife and I are super happy with our site supervisor, and the process so far. The selections seem a little immature compared to bigger builders, but besides that we have been super happy. Not too many issues along the way either. Site supervisor did say that tiling has been holding a lot of his builds up, so we are hoping this will not be the case for us so we can be in by early November 600 porcelain came back a lot less that some doom mongers put in my head, was expecting a 20k quote from some of the feedback I had received, however, it was about 7k to upgrade to 600x600 porcelain. Mind you - the majority of that came from labour, $60 a m2 Just thought I would add the tile part in so people have an idea for tiles. it does suck that they put that process near the end with financing etc, i think they will probably lose potential money doing it this way because people cannot build it into their mortgage. We knew (from here) before hand so kept money aside from the sale of our house. Funny thing was, the same tiles that we look at in March were still there 2 weeks ago when we had to pick haha. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 415Sep 14, 2018 2:49 pm kazihoque We are building the Grantham design with Firstyle. Construction started in early June 18. Slab and frame was completed in no time. However, bricking is taking a long time with weeks of inactivity in between. Any idea how long bricking and subsequent stages roughly takes? It's annoying because they started another double storey house near us just a week before ours and that had already roof completed in mid August. hi kazihouque there is a shortage of bricklayers it took firstyle 4 months to brick our two story we started in Jan 18 only just up to gyp rocking now .our house was meant to be complete in October now looking at early next year or Christmas if we are lucky . we are building in riverstone nsw firstyle are incredibly slow with two storeys Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 416Sep 14, 2018 2:55 pm Ouch, it took roughly a week I think from frame being finished to being completely bricked. We are in Oran Park and there are soooooooo many Firstyle homes in here. markandsam kazihoque We are building the Grantham design with Firstyle. Construction started in early June 18. Slab and frame was completed in no time. However, bricking is taking a long time with weeks of inactivity in between. Any idea how long bricking and subsequent stages roughly takes? It's annoying because they started another double storey house near us just a week before ours and that had already roof completed in mid August. hi kazihouque there is a shortage of bricklayers it took firstyle 4 months to brick our two story we started in Jan 18 only just up to gyp rocking now .our house was meant to be complete in October now looking at early next year or Christmas if we are lucky . we are building in riverstone nsw firstyle are incredibly slow with two storeys Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 417Sep 16, 2018 10:03 am Hello All, We are new to this forum and about to put down a holding deposit for a H & L package with Firstyle in Edmondson Park (EP), we choose Keswick 19.5. We spoke to different builders at EP, but found Firstyle package fit our budget most, also found Warren to be more accommodating with our request. Land is said to be registered in October, but builder cannot confirm the timeframe in Oct 2018. Does anyone have delay in land registration in EP and how long is the delay? What is your overall experience with Firstyle? How is their communication and how quick do they resolve any issues occurred? How much do you have to upgrade from the basic inclusion? We do have the $32,000 style upgrade from Firstyle. It's great we found this forum, for sure I will have a lot more questions from now on, thanks Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 418Sep 16, 2018 4:03 pm Hi MaxAT, your situation is similar to ours, we signed in June 2017 with the land waiting to be registered. The firstyle sales told us it would register soon, finally late sept it registered. Previously to this we asked them about the increase in build costs clause, something like 2% if you dont start building within 6 minths or so, they told us this wouldnt be a problem and they would waive a few weeks if the build was delayed. Surprise surprise they charged us for the delay even though it was not our fault, even threatened us for delaying the build by arguing with them about it. If you can get this clause removed or something in writing that they wont charge for delays with the land registration. Apart from that our build has gone ok I guess, a couple of little things needed fixing with our frame and slab, we have housespect doing our stage inspections and so glad we had them as firstyle tried to fob us off on a couple of things that needed fixing as they werent to aus standard. Good luck with your build anyway. Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 419Sep 18, 2018 7:26 pm MaxAT Hello All, We are new to this forum and about to put down a holding deposit for a H & L package with Firstyle in Edmondson Park (EP), we choose Keswick 19.5. We spoke to different builders at EP, but found Firstyle package fit our budget most, also found Warren to be more accommodating with our request. Land is said to be registered in October, but builder cannot confirm the timeframe in Oct 2018. Does anyone have delay in land registration in EP and how long is the delay? What is your overall experience with Firstyle? How is their communication and how quick do they resolve any issues occurred? How much do you have to upgrade from the basic inclusion? We do have the $32,000 style upgrade from Firstyle. It's great we found this forum, for sure I will have a lot more questions from now on, thanks Hi Max, Congrats on your build and welcome! Suggestion would be to talk to your sales consultant and request your sunset clause be extended out of courtesy for 3 additional months, taking it to 6 months total. I was able to do this and Head Office approved. This will help you in regards to having to pay as little as possible if your land doesnt selttle in time. With all developers it will differ, mine settled on time so no issues and didn't need the extra 3 months. I'm around 20 days away from we earth works. My overall experience thus far has been good to date, however you need to stay ontop of everything and keep good records (tip record dates of all key actions) and you won't lose track. In relation to upgrades you could spend anywhere from 30-100k, it really depends the overall finish you are after. If you are after a quality finish, you should budget 50-80k colours and 10k electricals. All the best! Re: Any experiences with Firstyle homes 420Oct 12, 2018 7:15 pm Hi All, Just starting my home building Journey with FS, on the verge of signing the contract with the appointments for color selection and electrical to come. I'm going through some late variations and was wondering if anyone went with the standard offering for the bathroom and then upgraded to floor to ceiling tiling after handover. Is it worth it doing at a a later time? Thank you in Advance. Hi Kaiser85, We are building with Firstyle Homes. Our build has just started, slab pour is on Saturday (hopefully!). Their standard range is pretty good. We did our… 1 6471 You have mandatory building inspections and privately engaged building inspections. The difference between the two comes down to inspecting the building so it's safe and… 3 18023 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74220 |