Cottage block - SOR build with FHBD

Marshmallow · Feb 03, 2013 6:05 pm

Finally I have my own thread after months of lurking the forum ::lol::

This is our first build. After months of looking for a house to buy and found nothing we like, we decided to build.
I notice that nobody has posted their experience building with First Home Buyers Direct (FHBD), so I want to share my experience here as well.

So far I am not impressed with FHBD. The first reasons we go with FHBD is because they have very reasonable package and from their name of course we expect they are mostly dealing with first home buyers and they would provide "insights" for first home buyers. Unfortunately, it isn't so ::frown::

big mistake ::cry::

When we first met our sales rep, he was really helpful. He helped us to find our land and connect us with the developer. Turns out the land is at a very convenient location with a perfect size. So, we were happy and went ahead with FHBD. But many things after that quite disappointing. They and did so many mistakes (once the sales rep even sent us wrong quotes for our neighbor who turns out building with FHBD too). But so far most can be rectified. We still have to rectified some in prestart. (Like our sales rep motto "that can be done in prestart!") So fingers crossed it would turns out well at the end.

Finance is approved and land is settled 2 days ago :z:

We did the finance with FHBD too, the guy is nice, but if you can do with your own morgage broker it would be better. We were led to believe that he would lodge 2 applications, one for the land so it can settle first and another one is for the building with a preapproved amount. Turns out that he waited for our building contract and we had to hurry with signing the building contract otherwise we gonna lose our land ::cry::

.

We got our pre start booked next Wednesday, hopefully it will be OK. Excited but also dreading "what else could go wrong" since there were so many mistakes done and we spent hours checking and checking.

Enough ranting now.

Will post my plan once I learn how to insert image ::lol::

1rocky · Feb 03, 2013 7:08 pm

welcome looking forward to seeing your plans.
all the best for prestart

fmac · Feb 03, 2013 9:53 pm

Welcome. Hope it all goes well for you! If you post your plans there are many people here who can help with prestart advice.

We ended up in the same position. Could have added stuff prior to prestart but didn't k ow we could! But we do realise now if will come off our slab down payment which will reduce our mortgage payments for a short time!

Good luck! Just make sure you know what you want s you can ask for the cost? Worst thing is to not ask and realise it would have been a cheap upgrade!

Marshmallow · Feb 04, 2013 8:09 pm

Thanks 1rocky and Fmac,

Here's the original plan
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and here's the final one
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We are quite happy with the final plan, but still need to rectify the kitchen bench length, we quoted for 3 m long bench but when I measure the plan it short by 15 cm ::sad::

MACCATTACK · Feb 04, 2013 8:35 pm

Plans look great, congrats and good luck with the build. Looking forward to following.

1rocky · Feb 04, 2013 8:37 pm

plan is fantastic are you able to lengthen the bench

Marshmallow · Feb 13, 2013 12:27 am

Prestart done last week!!

It was quite different from what I expected (well I didn't really know what to expect though). But reading this forum many people build with bigger builders who has nice big showroom can choose from the showroom or run around with prestart girl from one shop to another, with us, the prestart lady just ask us what we want to upgrade and write down for costing later, see a little sample here and there, they also have an interior designer to help us with colour selection and that's all, took only 2.5 hrs. and they send us to choose the exact tile ourselves and later send the form to them.

Would be helpful if they let us know to go and select our tiles and all before prestart, but prestart lady was nice so it's all okay ::smile::

I'm also pretty happy with the inclusion they give for the tiles, all the 200*400 tiles and most nice border tiles are included for supply and only need to pay extra for labour. We just hope the costing come back ok ::kiss::

So we did the tile selection last Saturday in crosby tiles in Osborne Park, the lady was so sour ::angry::

Kinda regret didn't do with other staff members who seem very nice ::cry::

I was ok coz I was happy with the builders inclusion but DH was very upset.

Turns out we also can extend the benchtop as per original plan :z:

so that's good. Can't wait for costing now ::hyst::

buildingwithfhbd0 · Feb 28, 2013 2:16 pm

Hi, I have prestart with FHBD next week - could you please post you upgrade costing when you get them?

Love your plans, was it expensive to change the thearte room ceiling?

Any tips you have would be great!

Marshmallow · Mar 06, 2013 10:29 pm

buildingwithfhbd0

Hi, I have prestart with FHBD next week - could you please post you upgrade costing when you get them?

Love your plans, was it expensive to change the thearte room ceiling?

Any tips you have would be great!

Oh!!! Nice to know someone building with them too ::kiss::

I would love to update you on our prestart costing but guess what we are still waiting until now!! how frustating ::angry::

I called them last week they said it's gonna be be ready last friday but apparently it wasn't. Yesterday their office phone line was broken and can't be connected. It's funny how the prestart lady never answer email ::cry::

Today I called again and they said the prestart lady was busy and they are trying to track our file (hopefully they don't lose it!!) and call me later but until now no call ::angry::

Very frustating

For prestart tip if you haven't done them: go to the tile shop yourself, if you tell them who you are building with, they will explain the inclusion. Make your selection and get the tile selection written down (crosby tile ppl very helpful except one lady who took down our selection). Do the same for the carpet and laminate floor. Then bring those selection forms for the prestart. I think it will cut down some time. Also arrange NBN with intelligent home before prestart. ::smile::

Hope that helps ::kiss::

Let me know how yours goes too ::smile::

firsttimers · May 01, 2013 3:39 am

Hi,

Have just read your thread and thought I would add to it. I am also building with First Home Buyers Direct (Inception) and am very unhappy at this stage.
It seems to be the agreement that the consultants there are great, we really got on well with ours and we were very happy to begin with.

Then we moved on to pre-start. The person we went with for this is a disaster! We had our pre-start meeting in February, it is now the 1st of May and it has still not been finalised! Every time she has sent us out an updated quote for the pre-start variations she has forgotten something major. She never replies to emails, we waited three weeks for her to get back to us with a cost for getting our tiles mitered, something she had forgotten after we asked for it to be included at our meeting. Mistakes were made so frequently to the point where we have removed certain elements such as feature tiles as it was just becoming to difficult to constantly remind her about them. She also left out all the inclusions that we had gotten included in our contract price, which was another two weeks of arguing and me having to dig up proof that certain things were included as she was too lazy to find out on her end.

Conveniently she is never there when we call so we can't chase her up on anything. Now she has gone on leave for 6 weeks and today we received an email from the person who has taken over from her saying they have no record of our laminate choices! Something we chose before our pre-start meeting and that we had discussed with them on more than one occasion. Of course at the meeting they took our selection sheet so we have no record of our colour choices, this means we have to go back to Crosby tiles and re-select our entire laminate range!

Honestly feel like we have put down our deposit, signed a contract and that is where any customer service and care ended. We have been purposely given misleading information, had calls and emails ignored and certainly not treated like someone who is spending $250,000 on a product. I couldn't be more disappointed.

All in all her mistakes and laziness have set back our build back by around 3 months. We were told our slab would be down mid April, which obviously never happened and have still not had our pre-start finalised. If I were to do this again I would avoid FHBD at all costs.

Marshmallow · May 31, 2013 4:14 pm

Hi Firsttimers,

I can feel your pain, we experienced the same thing here. We had our pre-start on 6th Feb and until now it has not been finalised. They changed our prestart ladies twice and these 3 ladies are not communicating with one another and they didn't realize what have been included previously.

Same as you I have to dig out emails to prove that variations have been included. They even send me out an email now saying that this is my last request for variations and after that we have to pay $350,- if we request more variations, which is really annoying since all we have asked were to fix those that they have not done correctly. Why would we pay for their incompetency?

I also found their estimating department is incompetent and inconsistent. We asked to lengthen 2 of our robes from 90 cm to 120 cm and the charged us $231,- for extra a total of 60 cm extension of shelf and rail and this is before the prestart. During prestart we asked them to remove the shelf and rail since we decide to fit them out ourselves. Funnily, they only gave us back $83,- . After arguing about these, they admitted that they overcharged us by $200,- at the beginning.

Should we not decided to fit out the robes ourselves, we wouldn't find this out and overcharged $200,-! This get us to question how honest or competent they are? Are the other quotes really correct? And this is only one of the problems, I could write all day if i want to mention all the bad things we experienced so far.

And yes, it is true, they never at their table and never call back as promised. I think I know your first prestart girl who never reply email as well. At least the last 2 reply emails.

I regret going with them to be honest. It's all crap when they say they are dedicated to help first home buyers. Homeone is my most reliable source of information. We plan to build again next year. But DEFINITELY will stay away from them!

Belle22 · May 31, 2013 5:02 pm

Hi Marshmallow and firsttimers,

Omg, I feel for you both so much. I really don't get these builders who don't tell you the costings on the day of prestart!! I was reading another thread before and that builder did the same...like what the?? How do you know if you want to go ahead with a variation or an upgrade if they can't tell you how much it will be? Or did they tell you and your just waiting? So complicated ...when really it ain't that hard . We've built with two different builders and both times we sat there as they put all of our inclusions on the computer and we knew exactly how much we were spending, as it was itemized . We signed it then and there.It took roughly a month this time to get out final plans( and that was with Xmas shutdown) and any other variations back. How they can justify taking 3 months I don't know...grrr :oops:

Hopefully anyone thinking of building with FHBD will read this and perhaps think twice.

You can only hope that the construction side is better.

Good luck to you both

firsttimers · May 31, 2013 5:35 pm

Hi Marshmallow,

Sorry you're experiencing all this too

In the end I had to go into the office and sit down with them to get it all sorted because our final addenda form had completely different info on it than our prestart variations.
If I hadn't already forked out so much money n put in so much time and effort I think I would have pulled our contract that day...

It has been another month now but we are finally admin complete! Looks like this whole ordeal is going to stretch over three years! Started in 2012 and the build will not be finished until next year, 2014.
Unbelievable. We weren't asking for them to build us a castle, it is a standard house with very few variations.

And yes Belle22, I can only hope the build will go alot smoother. I'm too young to have this many wrinkles ahhh

Marshmallow · Jun 03, 2013 1:47 pm

Hi Firsttimers,

We have only one thing to confirm with them before finalising since their pricing is inconsistent, they can put the price up and down without notice not even a sorry or a notice that it was misquoted. Like you, we're so close to pull out of contract if we hadn't spend so much time and money on this. We started at the end of September 2012 and this is just taking forever.

And thanks Belle, we also hope building process will be better. I will keep updating here. I hope those who plan to build with FHBD think twice, that's why we posted this. Last year when we started, there are not much review we can find on FHBD and we thought "no news is good news" however, this proven wrong. I have read several recent bad comments as well now popping up in other thread here in Homeone

bernatienza_20 · Jun 25, 2013 7:54 pm

Hi Firsttimer, Marshmallow & Belle22:

after reading your comments, i don't know if i can now be somehow consoled or be more frustrated, as i am experiencing the same thing as you all do. atleast now i know that i'm not the only one. i need not mention what i've been through with FHBD as it is exactly the same as yours.

i felt like i'm trapped in this biggest scam in my life and there's no way out. i can't find a logical answer why it's been taking them so long while my neighbours (i'm building in a new development, and it's safe to assume that we all got the land transfer at the same time) are already laying their bricks and maybe a couple of weeks more will have roof on their houses.

we had a contract with the developer that from the time the land was transferred to our name, we need to finish our house within 12 months and the developer will handle the cost for the fences and front landscape. i started dealing with FHBD sometimes in September, had our pre-start 3rd week of February, until now no sign of them starting my house. i only get an advice that FHBD is still waiting for the council to get back to them. i just rang the council and i was told that they adviced FHBD of some "building concerns" and was told to address the problem within 21 days, but until now FHBD hasn't came back to the council yet. So i don't know who's telling the truth. but with what you've shared, i think its really obvious.

if only i can turn back the time... ::sad::

firsttimers · Jun 25, 2013 10:14 pm

Hi bernatienza_20,

I'm sorry to hear you are going through the same thing.
I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but our slab is down. Only 3 days after it was booked as well! I'm calling that a win.
Our brick work is also booked in... So they do move to construction eventually.
Tbh we hassled FHBD on a daily basis and I think the only reason we even have a slab is because they got so sick of us calling and emailing... Maybe try that!
Also, we have found out that despite all that the paperwork, info pamphlets and personal assurances said, the build will not be 5 months but more along the lines of 7. So be prepared for that when they finally book you in, I assume you have the same FHBD file as us with timeline on the first page.
Goodluck with everything. I hope it works out :/

Belle22 · Jun 25, 2013 11:20 pm

That's awesome news firsttimers, bet that is a relief to have some action...finally!! I hope everything goes well for you from now until the end. 7 months seems like a long time, but maybe they just tell you that so you don't get your hopes up. If its less than 7 , that's a bonus.

bernatienza_20,
Doesn't sound like your alone at all if Marshmallow and firsttimers are anything to go by. I'm not building with FHBD, and haven't suffered the nightmare you are all going through. Very happy with the speed of my builder, it's just funny how they all do their pre starts and the admin bit differently, and how some buliders,like FHBD seem to just drag their feet :twisted:

Probably some good advice from firsttimers, just hassle and hassle...as much as its a pain, they might be more likely to pull their finger out. There will be a light at the end of this dark tunnel

Good luck

Di Nosaur · Jun 25, 2013 11:26 pm

Posting to hear the advice as to how to hassle

Not going through FHBD, but I could have written your first post :cry:

Here's hoping we all get a house soon :roll:

bernatienza_20 · Jun 27, 2013 7:34 pm

Hi firsttimers,

thanks for the advice, that's what i did... and surprisingly it works...

you won't believe it, after they learned that i've been in contact with the shire, 2 girls from FHBD plus the agent are now simultaneously corresponding with me. hopefully before the end of next month, i can see some major changes in my land. coz its more frustrating to see your neighbour using your land as temporary stock yard for their materials

...

for all those who went with FHBD, i wish you all goodluck...

bernatienza_20 · Jun 27, 2013 7:39 pm

By the way, for Marshmallow, i like your house design, that was our other option. but due to some special requirements of our lot, we were left with no option but to choose another design....