Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 2May 28, 2012 2:19 pm It is a lovely house, all the best with your build Orchid 4200 with Burbank: Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=53034 House Built in 7 Months and 2 weeks Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 3May 28, 2012 2:50 pm Thank you doublej2500! I see your building is near hand-over and looks like a smooth run, especially for a double storey. My work college is building with Burbank and he's wrapped with what he's got with Burbank for money and time. I wish to choose Burbank but none of house layout suits us. I like that they offer 30yrs structural guarantee whilst others only offer 7yrs. Not to mention lots of inclusions others called upgrades. Anyway, I do love Simonds Villa Grande for its layout and facade, good value for money (love that they offer free Demolition as well). Hopefully, there won't be too many dramas in our journey. Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 4May 28, 2012 3:03 pm Oh how exciting, another knock down to follow! Where are you building? The villa grande is very nice - it has a lot of similarities to the Elwood design we've built (just a lot bigger). Good luck - I hope everything goes well for you! Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 5May 28, 2012 3:19 pm Thank you Bronj! Just checking out your blogs. Our timing are very similar. I also recently purchased the property due to settle in July as well (in Mount Waverley of South Eastern suburbs, VIC). It took you until September to sign the contract and November for demolition and site start. Our tender appointment is coming up on 18th June. I wonder if we can get to the contract signing stage any sooner. Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 6May 28, 2012 5:10 pm It might be quicker if Simonds is doing the demolition themselves - that was the main delay for us I think. They didn't even have that as an option for us - very jealous that you are getting it free! Also looks like there are some good upgrade deals on offer at the moment. Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 7May 29, 2012 10:04 am We all will have dramas on our build...ups and downs Burbank has been good (no Major hiccups yet) - I was offered 7 year Guarantee at Contract but was able to change it to 30. If you read the fine details, the following needs to be properly maintained: E.g drainage, termite treatments etc...) also it is not transferable when you sell the house. - (IT IS PURE MARKETING) I am excited that the end is near and they built the house quicker than what I expected (Contracted day to complete is Mid November 2012) I have my PCI next week and I will post on detail how I go. All the best with the demo and rebuild , Simonds have some very lovely designs, My second option was Simonds "Parkside Fusion" Orchid 4200 with Burbank: Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=53034 House Built in 7 Months and 2 weeks Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 8May 29, 2012 1:08 pm Just checked out the Simonds Parkside layout, the floorplan would suit us very well as well. I quite like it. Talking about promotions, we initially deposit for Big Brand promotion where you pay $22,500 for $50,000 worth of upgrades and the free demolition. A couple of days later, we saw Simonds TV ad about the new "Shop 'til you drop" promotion where you only pay $15,000 to get $50,000 worth of upgrades. I chased up with my sale rep and enquire if we could have the new promo instead. She wasn't around so I talked to another sale rep and he said new promo is still available with free demolition. In principle, we have not signed contract so we should be able to get this new promo. My sale rep rang me back with her manager on the line the next day and her manager told me either I stick to old promo with free demo or get the new one without free demo. I told her the sale rep I spoke to on the weekend said new promo is available with free demo. She told me that sale rep is making a mistake. I told her I would rather withdraw and enquire about the process for getting my deposit back. Cut the long story short, even though my sale rep's manager refused to give us new promo with free demo, the sale rep was still able to get approval from another construction manager to give us that. I just hope that they won't try to gain this "give-away" back later through means such as an inflated site cost. Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 9Jun 07, 2012 2:41 pm Sale rep now told us they're using lightweight cladding for the upper back section of the house on top of the alfresco roof. I have researched arround the new estate double story houses and many are built with bricks in this section. Orginally the estimated cost for alfresco extension was only ~$16k. Then they came back with ~$23k. Now they want to take away the top brick section and use the cheaper light weight cladding materials. I insist to keep the top section with bricks, which would have already come with the house without the extension. Sale rep hasn't got back to me on my last response to her. Hopefully we can sort this out in our tender appointment on Monday 18/06. Re: Building Simonds Villa Grande 4315 10Jul 03, 2012 1:51 pm We're now having second thought about continue our building journey with Simonds Was told site start can be within 60days of contract, which is some time in September .. now told that our site start is in December. December is normally the holiday season, therefore won't expect any real work happening until late January or February the following year. We are not very impressed with the Tender consultant either. We're loosing our confidence with Simonds now. Perhaps, the Villa Grande was not meant to be for us. We already have plan B under way. The more Simonds make us wait, the more we're leaning towards plan B. Just wait and see how things pan out before making the announcement. Hi all. I'm thinking of installing an electric gate in front of this street front villa (link below). The gate would be between the bush on the left and the letter box on… 0 2778 go upvc window frames ensure insulation under colorbond. not just sarking, lighter color roof also not sure if you have seen this viewtopic.php?t=5823 last couple of pages… 4 110566 |