Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Boutique Homes 369Jun 16, 2014 8:12 pm Oh my god Aussie, I am floored. I cannot believe the mistakes Boutique have made with your build. Just one of those things would've stressed me out completely, but to have them pile up like they have - the kitchen bench, the grout, the paint and everything else... it staggers me. It also makes me realise how lucky we were. I really think a lot has to do with the personnel you're assigned to. Our site supervisor was pretty great and he only used tradies he trusted. They really ought to give you a credit or something, considering how much money you're spending with them. Fingers crossed that once you move in you won't have to deal with them again. Re: Boutique Homes 370Jun 16, 2014 9:14 pm Hi everyone! My partner and I are in discussions for the Barcelona 26 - this will be our first home and we are so new to the building process! We have asked to delete all flooring (except wet areas). We have been to the colour place at head office to get an idea of what is an inclusions and what we might like to upgrade. We are building in melbourne western suburbs and our land isn't due to title until February/march next year. They have offered to hold price for 8 month. It does make me a little nervous not having many months up our sleeve if the land doesn't title exactly on time. Seems boutique sometimes doesn't give site start straight away. When I asked about this I just keep getting assured that they will have plenty of ppl ready to go. So prior to signing I asked if we could get an upgrade facade included at no extra charge I was told boutique "we don't discount anything" In everyone else's experience is that true? Seems boutique is only builder who isn't willing to negotiate? Just not sure on the process and worried that as two young adults we may be treated differently due to our inexperience with building! Re: Boutique Homes 371Jun 16, 2014 10:01 pm Hi there, in our experience boutique didn't negotiate on price at all nor did they appear to throw in extras or sweeteners like some of the other builders. In saying that though our consultant was always transparent and I thought reasonable. She also never tried to up-sell us into higher options or product categories and was very open in things she thought were of value upgrading and those she thought were a waste of money. We have found things have progressed quite quickly since signing and build is due to start in the next couple of weeks. Re: Boutique Homes 372Jun 16, 2014 10:58 pm Hey Baneshouse, I too found they would not negotiate on price, however (apart from Aussies experience) I've found they seem to be quite good when discussing standard items. One thing I would say however is that you should never sign anything until you have gone through it with a fine tooth comb, once signed you are pretty much locked in and will have a very hard time negotiating. Also, ask for the complete price list before signing the PWC, if they protest just say that there may be things in there you didn't consider and may want to upgrade but didn't know about, I found when I read it there was a bunch of stuff that was structural that I wasn't aware of. Also, make sure you read (and its VERY long but seriously worth EVERYTHING) the thread about what things people forget when building a house at the top (it a sticky) of this forum. On the whole I've found boutique to be not bad compared with some of the stories people tell of other builders. On the subject of the 8 month price lockin, I'd suggest you research other builders as well to use as leverage, and then remember its from the time you sign the PWC, so put that off and ask them to inform you if there is going to be a price rise (I was told one was happening a few weeks after I signed my PWC) that way you can extend the 8 months. I'd allow maybe a month or so on the land titles but as it looks like it will be mid summer you might not have too many problems (development may slip primarily due to weather) What suburb are you looking at? Re: Boutique Homes 373Jun 16, 2014 11:30 pm We have purchased land in Werribee. There was a price rise roughly 5 weeks ago and there is another one on the 18th (our house is going up 2900) We have done the walk through and selected the upgrades we are after. Doors on theatre, ensuite and WIR all sliding cavity. Putting extra cupboards in laundry. Extending kitchen bench and adding waterfall effect. Sales guy has given us the sheet of upgrades - such as going from category 1 to category 2 items. Roughly advised that extra double power points is around 35 and TV around 50. Originally went with palamo facade - we didn't factor for cost of bushfire levy so decided to drop facade to counteract this cost. The sales guy has offered to extend price lock in to 9 months at no extra cost. I was pretty happy with him today until I asked about including the facade at no cost. I asked via email he then called back at 7ish tonight and when I answered the phone there was no hello it's so and so from boutique he simply said 'we don't discount anything" bit off putting. We have compared prices for similar house with carslie, porter davis and urban edge. Aside from not finding a floor plan we love the base price was similar and they would all require more upgrades! We love the barcelona and it's the home for us. Just wanted to make sure we weren't being taken for a ride! Seems the only 'freebie' they give is refer a friend! So if anyone who has built with boutique wants to swap details let me know! A wins a win as far as I'm convened! Thanks for the tips! Will give forum a look. Already had plenty of ideas thrown my way from family who built few years back! Re: Boutique Homes 374Jun 17, 2014 9:15 am Thanks Genghis. We really are pulling our hair out. My father is a tradie and said sometimes you just get a house where nothing seems to go right. Seems as though that is ours which is unfortunate. And it doesnt make it any easier to cope with. Our site supervisor is understanding of every situation and feel as though he is not entirely happy himself with the internal processes of the company as he is the one who has to deal with the rubbish from customers when it was an Boutique consultants in the office who are making the majority of our mistakes. Anyway we've contacted the paint company ourselves and sent through photos who advised us it certainly doesnt look like it should. Boutique are getting a Solver rep out tomorrow to go through the house also to make a decision. We went through all of our paper work last night and found the colour palette we chose the paint off. The wall colour matches what we chose but didnt see a palette of the gloss finish, so how we were supposed to know that it turned to pink (if its correct) in a gloss is anyone's guess. Our contract has a disclaimer on the stain colour advising that it can vary depending on the type of timber, so I would have thought that a similar disclaimer would have been made about the gloss if this was normal.. On the discounting, we went through the different builders and were right on the fence between Boutique and Long Island (wishing we chose differently now), so we put it to our consultant that Boutique weren't far off what we were looking for. They gave us a $5k discount on the proviso that we spent $5k on the elctrical - which we did easily and were always going to do with downlights, fans, powerpoints, dimmers, ixl tastics, security lights etc. As others have said make sure you have everything you want extra or different in your PWC. We went back and forth probably 20 or 30 times to the consultant making sure everything was how we wanted our house before even getting close to signing the contract. Luckily for us, given work committments and the like, we did this all through email which has meant we have got written correspondence to fall back on with many of our issues throughout this whole process. If we didnt have this, then we'd be up .... creek without a paddle. It sounds really stupid too, but if I went through this process again I would probably voice record our colour appointment as there are a lot of things said there that you take as gospel when others on here have advised otherwise - it really comes back to the knowledge of the consultant you get on the day as to what information they offer when questioned. We took photos of all of our colours, and wrote everything down. I cannot stress any of this enough, as again it has helped strengthen our version of events when trying to get issues resolved. The one other thing that we would suggest is that the addenda that you receive straight after your colour appointment, and the one you sign might vary without any notice. So make sure you compare them all with your notes you took. We went through the first one with a fine tooth comb matching up everything to our colour appointment notes, then made sure any changes we'd requested after that were rectified in our contract copy, but didnt really check everything else as closely as what we would have liked to in hindsight, again thinking there'd be no reason for certain colours to change without any knowledge or reason from us. Judging by the email from our site supervisor recently when discussing this, it certainly isnt the first time it has happened. Stay on top of everything the whole process, and question everything. Don't let them rush you into any decisions, or rush you into moving in if you're not happy with the end result. Pay for independent building inspections as they'll pick up things you would never look at, including many safety features of the home - ours were $440 per inspection and we had one at lock up and one at "handover" which was about a month ago and we're still not in. When you're spending so much on a house that will likely be the biggest asset most people own at the time, what is an extra few hundred $$ to give you peace of mind. On the fascade baneshouse, we upgraded to one that cost us $11k I think. Our theory was by doing that if you ever want to sell it in the future, the front of the house will be the first thing that people look at and suck them into checking out the rest of the property. Any big upgrades in the house we thought of this point where it adds a bit of a wow factor - integrated fridge & dishwasher, upgrade to exposed driveway, gas(BBQ & roof heating)/TV/fan in outdoor living. I'll post some of the costs in our PWC shortly to help with getting an understanding of the extras that can add up quite quickly. Good luck! Re: Boutique Homes 375Jun 17, 2014 9:44 am Some of the additional costs we added (I cannot find an electronic version of our latest PWC so cannot included everything): LED Downlight (in lieu of other light): $109 LED Downlight (additional): $141 Fluroescent light in garage in lieu of standard: $196 Two way light switch: $45 Outdoor sensor flood light: $155 Outdoor light: $75 Ceiling exhaust fan in WC: $227 Ceiling fan: $460 Double power point (10amp): $59 TV point: $90ish Garden tap: $265 Upgrade concrete to exposed ag (35m2) in lieu of standard: $1260 Silk gloss to laminated cupboard in lieu of standard gloss: $455 Low iron glass splashback in lieu of standard clear glass (takes away the green tinge): $354 Additional showerhead (ended up stuffing ours up but….): $440 Translucent glazing to front door and sidelight: $388 ($138 for the door only) Kitchen sink built into bench (unmounted) in lieu of standard: $685 Zoned heating to shut off certain areas (upgrades the heating unit to 4stars): $1356 Cavity sliding doors for areas like pantry, home theatre etc: $142 each From memory the integrated fridge/dishwasher cost about $2.5-$3k which included a Fisher & Paykal fridge of decent size. Hope that helps. Re: Boutique Homes 376Jun 18, 2014 3:07 pm Paint representative was out onsite today for us and agrees that the paint seems to have been mixed incorrectly. So the painter has been rebooked and hoping that it can all move quickly from here. Our painter was there over the weekend working so I'm hoping we can have it all fixed by the end of this weekend. Grout issues in the toilet will also be fixed in the coming days. We've got our new home presentation still tomorrow so we're pretty confident it'll go ok outside the 2 issues above which wont be resolved in that time. We wont sign off on the home though until they're fully resolved as they have to remove doors and paint over carpet etc so small damage can still occur. Re: Boutique Homes 377Jun 18, 2014 10:53 pm Glad you're getting somewhere Aussie - trying times. They must have mixed the paint up more than once though, for that much space, did they keep making the same mistake each time? I bought some sample pots of my paint choices & one of them looked nothing like the colour cards I'd seen. Instead of a dark grey it was basiclally paper-bag brown. Fortunately I caught it in time to change it (& paint up a sample board of the new choice). Re: Boutique Homes 378Jun 19, 2014 6:47 pm Hmmm, so here's something Boutique doesn't do well. My block was titled about a month ago, Boutique saying the Developer was holding them up with their approval of the plans. I found out today that Boutique only submitted the plans yesterday!!!! Developer commented that the plans can be submitted to them prior to settlement of the land & quite a few builders do this & consequently get on site a few days after titling. Boutique apparently never do this & are always at least a couple of weeks later than other builders. Pretty frustrating, especially given the developer took 5 months longer than promised to get the land titled. Re: Boutique Homes 379Jun 19, 2014 8:48 pm Yeah Bandha we had the same problem. Once our little release was titled all the other houses flew out of the blocks whereas we were left scratching our heads waiting like you now. Yeah they put x mix instead of y mix in for our paint so the whole house got it. The food news was the decision was made to repaint it yesterday and the painters were onsite today before lunch. So kudos to Boutique for getting things fixed quickly for this issue. Had part 1 of our new home presentation today. All went very well with only a couple of little things - 1 powerpoint not working (we took a hairdryer to test), 3 way switch not correct and only a tiny couple of marks on the walls. The walls actually look like a brilliant finish so very happy about that. Anyway, providing painting goes well and part 2 of our NHP, we're hoping for keys next Friday. Still means we have to wait until the following Thursday for appliances (annoying Boutique process but I'm sure there are reasons for it), and then the Friday for hot water but at least we'll have keys. Re: Boutique Homes 380Jun 19, 2014 9:32 pm Hi Everyone, We are building with Boutique in the South east... We're building the Barcelona 26 and have just signed off the final plans for it to start. I wanted to mention that the process has been a great experience so far with Boutique. fingers crossed it will stay that way once we finally start. We have had good communication with our sales and pre start consultant and with any changes or errors along the way have been taken care promptly. We are lucky in that aspect. We are also experiencing a slow site start being we have also titled 5 weeks ago and other builders have already started and have roof's on houses too. baneshouse My partner and I are in discussions for the Barcelona 26 - this will be our first home and we are so new to the building process! If you have any questions around the specifics of the Barelona 26 I'm happy to answer any questions on what we've gone through .. PM me if you like.. Can't wait for a site start.. and thanks everyone posting on this thread about Boutique.. it has been a great help.. and Aussie Assault I hope the painting situation gets fixed and you feel you can finally imagine how it will be living in the house 10 15745 Ask for references and speak to them. If they are defensive or try to avoid the request, walk. 1 74701 |