Our Benham 33 journey

Shakeandbake - love the name!
I think this process would be no different to any other builder. My biggest suggestion would be to have as many changes that you want up front to be dealt with when you do your tender with your sales person. THis would reduce alot of time waiting for plans to come back.
Look for things evan as small as where the man hole is, voids that could be used. walls that you want moved - fridge spaces!!!

Then once in the admin process, make sure you keep on top of your CSO - don't wait for them to come back to you, keep on them. And remember that they don't always know everything - so if you know you can have something... push for it.

Good luck!!!

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I agree with JTM on the timeline thing, and it being normal with many builders ... we ended-up not going with Rawson (they rejected us - we didn't reject them), but the mob we're with took quite a long time before we were able to sign a contract & start the build.

Shakeandbake - I agree 100% with JTM. I think Rawson have gotten a lot better with the admin process now that they have more CSOs but you'd still need to stay on top of them, definitely don't be shy!

Admin process is only half the problem try being lucky to get half decent tradies to actually build your house.
We would never build with Rawson again or recommend them.

I second SEC. I wouldn't build with Rawson again and I haven't even started the build. We've only just gotten to contract stage, and we started with them last April. I assure you it wasn't us holding up the process at any stage. For us, they've been ridiculously difficult, stressful and a lot of work. The sales guy (who you don't deal with after you go to tender) told us we could have anything we wanted, but this wasn't the case. They also have, in our opinion, been expensive with lots of upgrade items.

Edited to add: next time I would go owner builder. It took me just as much effort and time to get to this point. Time I didn't really have to constantly harass Rawson. I shouldn't have to worry about harassing them, I would expect they would push things along, after all, that's what I'm paying for.

Its always best not to get me started.

We'll my admin process took 9 months and as someone who's nearly finished their build I have not had an issue until the air conditioner flooded the ceiling this week which was the fault of the air conditioner subby, not Rawson. They have actually be very helpful through this difficult time.. The quality of work has been excellent. I completely disagree about the pricing of the variations - I did a lot of research on ours and Rawson came in cheaper than me getting someone in after handover.

Thanks JTM, Forg, munchi, SEC and Mrs Brown Bear for your comments. Sounds like there's a general consensus that their timelines are no better or worse than most other project builders. Which in a way is a bit disappointing to hear for me - was kinda hoping for a speedier timeline, but perhaps that's wishful thinking.

Sorry to hear about SEC and Mrs Brown Bear's poor experiences though. I wonder whether that's a by-product of (a) where your build is located (which determines which set of tradies you get), and (b) which sales rep you happen to deal with.

Which also leads me back to one of my original questions - is anyone here happy enough with their sales rep to recommend him/her?

I understand that you're handed off to someone else after the contract stage, but I'm thinking we would try to get most things finalised upfront before getting too deep into the process (as people have recommended here as well).

Thanks again for any help.

My sales rep was great but he doesn't work for the company anymore and he was in the Hunter Valley office. We visited the sales office in Kellyville once though and the sales rep we spoke to there wasn't as friendly..

There's a big difference between going to tender and being handed off to head office and going to contract. We are only just looking at our contract as I type (10 months down the track). I really liked our sales guy, but we had nothing to do with him once we paid our $1200 to get the tender finalised. Our was at the Ponds.

My beef is with head office, and to be clear, we have not yet started construction as we haven't signed the contract. Waiting on final plans to be prepared. So I really can't comment about the construction quality as yet.

My poor experiences are with head office as a whole. Sadly, that's who you deal with the entire admin period.

All the project home builders we spoke with (including Rawson) told us point blank that we should expect it would take 12 months from the time of going to tender to moving into our finished home. Ummn, coming up to 12 months shortly and still haven't started construction.

Yeah my only real beef is with admin period too. To put it to a dollar value - it cost me an extra $9k in rent having my admin period run as long as it did. Our first CSO was a complete moron. She was fired. Our second CSO didn't get the job done in 4 months (it was 5 and then the bank held us up another month) but was much more efficient and I have still asked him for help as recently as last week and he was great.

Mrs BB things will get better. I promise. Our build has been long but we're not over contract and we've gotten them to do everything (first house in the Hunter to go crazy externally and internally haha). Our only issue was this week with the AC which R have been excellent with helping us with as they know how long we've been going through the process for our home.

My advice for the build - keep on your SS if you see something you think isn't right. Don't be a total pest and try to rush them though - better right than rushed! And finally, get a private inspector. You should trust your SS but at the end if the day they're looking after 20 builds, they may miss something. It doesn't cost much to get it triple checked for peace of mind.

I hope you get onto your build soon and it goes well. I've been in your position and it sucks and seems never ending. Just remember that there is light at the end of the tunnel though!

Rain has no doubt slowed things a bit but it was great to get that next phase of the build done, we have trusses and windows Starting to look more like a house now than just a construction zone. Roof tiles this week if the rain goes away.

Aww, thanks munchi. I'm sure things will be better soon. Our rent is costing us big time too. We pay $1K per week , so whilst I did budget in extra money spent towards rent / interest into the overall costing of the house, it has gone over budget big time. I'm about to come up to my 12 month lease, and I'm pretty sure they're going to put up the rent. Sydney housing prices have skyrocketed. Will be rough for a while once the progress payments pick up and we are paying rent and mortgage at the same time.

So its not that I'm impatient, (well I am), but I want to stop the constant drain on funds!

Roadrunner - looking good! You must be excited to see progress!

we were happy with our sales rep at the ponds. however you only deal with the sales rep until the tender appointment, then you get handed over to a cso from head office. i don't think you can pick your cso, they are just assigned.

so you meet with sales rep and request items in your tender, have your tender presentation, and get handed over to a cso, then go into the contract preparation phase (picking colours, tiles, electrics, getting final plans complete, submitting to council, etc). then go to site! our admin phase was 219 days, but our delay was caused by the mortgage broker, not rawson.

ShakeandBake - we have been in our Rawson home for eight months now. Would i build with Rawson again - probably as i still believe that despite issues that we have had, they are better than a lot of the 'project' builders out there.

Admin period - yes it is terrible. For us, I think we got through quite quickly. The reason being, the squeaky door gets oiled. I made sure I was on top of my CSO. I asked for dates that things would be finished and a couple of days before that date, I checked it was going to be done on time. Never was a date missed. I kept a copy of everything. I sent emails and if I didnt have a reply in 24 hours, I sent an email again and I did this until I got a reply. I am sure my CSO couldnt stand me, but I wanted to spend the least amount of time possible in Admin. We had already settled on our block of land and was living in a crappy rental house and the least amount of time i could spend there the better.

Building time - ours was a 40 week contract, which is quite long when it comes to building contracts. With the Christmas break and nothing being done on our site for 6 weeks, we still had our build completed in 36 weeks - so quite a bit under of what we should have been.

With our build I made sure that I kept in touch with the SS regularly. Every week on the same day I would call the SS find out what was being done for the week going forward, any issues etc. My big thing was it is my build and I am going to be involved in the process. For me, I work part time and the house was only a couple of minutes from where we were living and so I went past at least once every day. My DH works night shift on alternative weeks so the weeks where he was home in the day he would also visit site and speak with the tradies.

Our worst trade - the bricklayers. They were rude on site, they went AWOL for a week at a time even when the weather was good. Their work at the end was sloppy. In our independent inspection the main comment was the bricklayers had let the side down and they were the worst trade.

Today we are having scaffolding erected at the front of the house. Tomorrow new bricklayers come back to start rectification works. The column that holds the balcony up, is being partially pulled down as it is crooked. Part of the balcony is being pulled down as it is crooked. The other columns at the front are having their capping pulled down as they are so thick with mortar they cannot be cleaned. The whole of the house is being gone over and the bricks are being cleaned again (probably about the 6th time the bricks have been cleaned) and the house where needed will be re-pointed.

I am not sure at the moment when the plastering work will be started inside, but that is another large job that needs to be completed.

From the report we were given on the house - we were told that he house was of áverage' finish and once the brickwork and the plastering issues were finished it would be ábove average' We were told that the carpentry fit out was excellent and the carpenter who did that was very good. We have said the same thing all along that the internal carpenter that worked on our house was really good and we cant praise his work high enough. He commented that we had a good house and it was better than most of the new houses that he had seen.

Our Frame and Second floor subflooring were delivered to site 10th December. It was erected on 28th January. It is now 3rd MArch. So this particle board flooring has been out in the weather for 12 weeks. Any idea if the rain / weather will affect the flooring? are we likely to have creaky floors? Anyone else have this issue?

There should be no issue as there is wax finish on the board that protects them from water. Before they lay the carpet they also sand the top layer off. If you get a private building inspector they also check this at the frames stage to ensure the flooring is level and nothing is raised

Our framing was finished 12/12/12 and we did not have brick layers come to site until 22/01/13 and it was not until March that it had a roof. We were concerned that the frame should not have been sitting exposed for so long, but we have been told by our independent inspector that it is fine, and we have had no problems with the floor creaking at all. They did bring a floor sander in and any bits that were sticking up slightly was sanded.

Bricklayers at my place today. It is a team of two (thankfully not the bricklayers that did the house) and they are going to go over the whole of the house to fix up all the issues. Met them this morning before i went to work and they are very lovely. Feeling very relieved. Now we just have to get the cracks and the ceilings fixed and it will be pretty again.

Hi Folks, we signed our contracts about 4 weeks ago, the sales guy told us we would need to make another appointment to go over upgrades etc... but we havent heard from him yet, should I prompt him or just wait?
Our settlement is 21 mar so keen for rawson to start building as soon as possible after then

chase him.