Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 27, 2010 9:36 am Hi everyone, Not sure if this is the right section to post this in, but since it's relate to building a home I figure it makes the most sense here. Here is my question: Henley have recently announced on their site that the are cutting house prices by quite a bit. I'm building a Cooper and when we signed on the dotted line our price was $186,000. But, they will only be starting the build of the house in April 2011. Therefore Henley had a neat little "Future Pricing Matrix" and they said that because of that we would end up paying an extra 4G for the house. This was good because we would only pay 4G extra even if the price of the house went up say 10G. Awesome! But now that they have reduced their prices substantially, a 7G saving in our specific case, should I be getting this saving calculated into our contracts? It seems only fair right? I'm going to get in touch with our Admin about this as soon as Henley re-open on the 4th of Jan, but just wanted some opinions if people think my thinking if fair enough. Cheers! Re: Henley Price Cuts 2Dec 27, 2010 10:28 am Without breaking the contract, and the costs that involves, I don't see how you can get this price reduction. The building market in Victoria is slowing down with the first home buyers accounting for less and less of the buying market. [reduced Gov grants, higher interest, harder to source finance with tighter lending criterior] Investors have come back to a fair degree but not like 2 years ago. Some builders are starting to do "deals" to get the contracts signed and are looking for any edge over their competition. [ie: free cars] I"d like to know if this reduction is based on exactly the same house, built with exactly the same materials? A house price reduction with increasing material costs [upcoming carbon tax, transports costs, wages] would only squeeze the profit to the builder so a change of materials could be a way of achieveing this saving. I assume you are getting just a house, not a house and land package. If it is H&L the land development arm can wear the margin to allow construction to advertise the "sale price" reduction. FYI - A little over a year ago Henley Homes sold half of their business to the Japanese industrial business, Sumitomo Forestry. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines ... 5783110677 With a wood material company owning half of this building company a change of materials could perhaps be on the cards Good luck with your enquiry. Being a builder is more than just having once held a hammer. It's about the trades you hire and ensuring that they give a result that meets the industry standard and the home owners expectations. Re: Henley Price Cuts 3Dec 27, 2010 10:52 am Thanks for the reply. It is a House and Land package though the House is a Henley and the Land is @ the Hunt Club so they are not related as such. Yeah, I'll chase is up but that's what I thought in regards to having signed the contract. The reduction is entirely on the house going on the Henley website so it is interesting how they are manageing to reduce the price so much. I guess I can look at the positive of this. 1. I won't be paying the extra 4G since the house price has dropped. 2. We had about 6G worth of inclusions that they are not charging extra for so technically we are only losing out 1G. I'll have to look into this Sumitomo Forestry though, thanks for the information! Re: Henley Price Cuts 4Dec 27, 2010 2:10 pm I would say ask the question anyway when they reopen, because they may pleasently surprise you by adding some free inclusions to make up the price or do a downwards variation on your contract to cover the change to help with customer relations (A happy customer is more likely to tell other people to build with that builder). But at the end of the day it was a risk you took when you were using the "Future Pricing Matrix" where it limited how much extra you would have to pay if prices went up, but on the flip side it looks like you may of had to sacrifice your chance of price drop benefits for it. But the price could also go up again say in late Feb after these price cuts to get some business. But it would be interesting to know how they are managing to cut the prices with so many things going up in price, have you checked the inclusions you are getting compared to current ones, because they may of changed some of them. If I was to win Lotto, I would build with a different builder, now to win lotto Re: Henley Price Cuts 6Dec 27, 2010 8:28 pm you can bet where they give with one hand they take with another. I bet the new house wont have as many inclusions in the package and suddenly these items will now be upgrades. I could be wrong, but I feel the inclusions is where they fiddle things around to appear to show value Re: Henley Price Cuts 7Dec 29, 2010 4:16 pm Interesting to know about the change of reinforcing and waffle pod supplier. Also glad to hear they will be of a high quality! In regards to the Future Pricing Index I mentioned, I'm fairly confident that it was an "upto" type arrangement. As in if the house price rose 10G the most I would pay extra would be 4G. But if say the price increased by 1G then I would pay 1G extra. I'm 90% confident on this but I'll have to get confirmation once they re-open! It's going to be a long weeks wait! Re: Henley Price Cuts 8Dec 29, 2010 4:26 pm *MrsG* They have changed their reinforcing supplier and waffle pod supplier also. But I can confirm that both products will now be better quality than before. What is your source on this and how are they different from the previous supplier? I too am stuck paying the future price factor matrix thingamajig, and noticed the price drop. I doubt they would drop the price without taking out any inclusions or making standard items now optional.... I might give them a buzz next week and see what they say too... Re: Henley Price Cuts 9Dec 30, 2010 1:30 pm Yeah... I think that would be the case if they dropped the price inclusions would become extra's. Which is fair enough. Just hoping they aren't going to increase the price using their future pricing matrix. As I said, the way it was said to me indicated it was basically as cap on the maximum I wwould pay extra IF the prices rose by more in the future. Anyway, We'll see what they say next week, but have been very accomodating for us so far so I imagine they will work something out for us. *Fingers Crossed* Re: Henley Price Cuts 10Dec 30, 2010 1:48 pm Alright... just got off the phone with Henley. Only talked to a Sales Consultant but the general situation is that the Future Pricing Matrix was a "locked in" type deal. He said he wasn't 100% sure until the office opens but basically irrelevant of what their prices do the price indexing will increment. Not quite the answer I was after, but we'll see what the final word is from their office. I know that if our price was incremented we would have been 1G worse off with the new prices after taking promotions into consideration. But in light of the fact price on our contract will still increase 4G it may pay to see what works out better. Old price with inclusions or new price any paying extra for the stuff that was inclusions originally. Re: Henley Price Cuts 11Jan 01, 2011 4:26 am Curious to take a peep at a display house next week when they open up again and see what's in/out promotion and inclusions wise. The price of our house has dropped back down to what we locked it in at about 4 or 5 months ago so it'll be interesting to compare at any rate Land Deposit - 18/12/2009 Became a land Baron - 21/12/2010 Site Start - 27/1/2011 All moved in!! Re: Henley Price Cuts 12Jan 01, 2011 10:06 am I wonder if the promotion structure will further reduce "valuations" by banks and lenders? Re: Henley Price Cuts 13Jan 02, 2011 11:52 am I can't imagine that Henley cutting prices will influence bank and lender valuations. They do their own valuations based on the market rather than what the builder is pricing at. But yeah, I'll be interested to get a more definate answer from Henley come Tuesday. I've also forwarded the details on the updates prices to my finance guy so I'll see what he says. At this point, I don't even care so much about the prices, the price I originally locked in was a price I was happy with and now I just want them to build the dam thing! Just waiting on the land to title now... Re: Henley Price Cuts 14Jan 02, 2011 7:52 pm I've had a quick look at the new pricing and inclusions as I've just signed the tender 2 weeks ago. The inclusions all seem the same for Clendonvale, however the promo I have allows for timber floors, which isn't on this new list. I'd be interested to know what exactly has changed, before I sign the contract........ H's Emperor Q1 on acreage Site cut 16/6/11 Slab 2/8 Frame 29/8 Tiles 9/9 Bricks 13/10 Plaster 2/11 Fittings 28/11 PCI 19/3 Re: Henley Price Cuts 16Jan 03, 2011 8:56 am In our case I've notice that the inclusions we had are now 3G extra, the Solar system we're getting is not listed and the flooring promo we had (12mm floating for $990) is also not going. Plus we received a promo where we had 3G of interior upgrades for free like carpet category, brick category, etc. But yeah, the biggest thing that seems to be missing is the solar system as Twiggy mentioned. Those will keep on saving money of us on each bill so definately glad we have them included. Re: Henley Price Cuts 17Jan 03, 2011 2:14 pm Jesterarts In our case I've notice that the inclusions we had are now 3G extra, the Solar system we're getting is not listed and the flooring promo we had (12mm floating for $990) is also not going. Plus we received a promo where we had 3G of interior upgrades for free like carpet category, brick category, etc. But yeah, the biggest thing that seems to be missing is the solar system as Twiggy mentioned. Those will keep on saving money of us on each bill so definately glad we have them included. Yeah I have the solar inclusion too. Too bad it will probably only make enough power to run my TV and alarm clock! I've asked about beefing up the solar capacity but haven't had any info back from Henley.. Has anyone else enquired about increasing the solar system to a higher capacity unit?? Re: Henley Price Cuts 18Jan 05, 2011 7:43 am Ok, at this point I'm getting mixed messages. My administrator got back to me and said that with the Future Pricing index, if the price of the house does no increase then I won't pay anything extra to what the price was when I signed the contract. Hmmm... anyone else get an answer from Henley? Re: Henley Price Cuts 19Jan 05, 2011 1:02 pm FYI -> Just received this response from Henley about the price change/s.. There has been a change in the base price of our homes keeping in mind that some of the promotions are not available on the new base price. i.e. no PV Cells included, No promotional pricing on laminate flooring and the heating on is no longer 5 star rated. Re: Henley Price Cuts 20Jan 05, 2011 2:47 pm That's weird that they have decided to make the houses no longer be 5 star rated. I thought it was a building requirement these days for a house to be 5 star or above? Or will buyers not be forced to buy upgrades? Very interesting. This should not happen, when the timber arrives on site, bent studs should be separated to be cut for noggings and blocks. The studs should never be bad enough to… 4 11824 Hi, If you give a set of criteria as to what means 'good' to you, it'll give others prompts to respond. We considered Henley early on but there were two factors that… 1 10503 Wow I hadn't realised things had gotten that pricey in just a couple of years since I built, that is crazy with how much land is now costing if you aren't lucky enough to… 3 7105 |