Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 21, 2013 1:55 pm We are new to this forum, but have been lurking for a good 6-12 months. This is my 3rd time building (have build twice with Henley) and my partners first building experience, however he works in the trade so possibly knows more than me. We purchased an extremely small block of land in Blackburn, about 325m2; the block came with approved plans for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home; when purchasing the block we never LOVED the plan that was attached to it, but both agreed that we could live with the plan if it was our only choice ... The area we too perfect for us to pass up, and because we had been looking for so long we knew how often such a flat and clear block in that sort after neighbourhood came up for sale. So in August last year, we purchased the block.
We spoke to a number of builders most of whom told us that changing the plans would be a lot of work, Whitehorse Council isn't meant to be easy to deal with. We then spoke to Carter Grange who said that yes it would be exxy to get the plans changed, but it was do-able. Since our first meeting with Carter Grange they gave off a very 'can-do' attitude, nothing seems too hard for them. Their consultant put us in touch with a building consultant 'Urbis', who we can not recommend highly enough, they did everything to help us achieve everything we wanted on such a tiny block. We now have plans approved for 5 bedrooms (2x masters), 3 livings, 3 toilets, double garage and outdoor living space - yes we basically have no backyard, but we figure - less to mow! We have followed a number of blogs and forums with regards to Carter Grange, and spoken to other people building with them; so we feel we are making the right decision ... but any advice is greatly appreciated. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 2Jan 21, 2013 6:35 pm Welcome Agape. I've heard good things about Carteeir Grange as well. Have you submitted the plans to council yet? Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 3Jan 21, 2013 6:38 pm hi and welcome the design looks great Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 4Jan 21, 2013 8:46 pm Thanks for the welcomes, we have submitted and had approve the planning permits. We are up having soil tests done at the moment, the next step is building permits and the building contracts. So glad to hear good things about Carter Grange, we haven't heard too many negative things about them. But interested in hearing as many reviews and opinions as possible. Knowledge is a major positive when building Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 5Feb 12, 2013 8:02 am Yesterday we went and spoke with CG again, and looked at their proposed tender. At first we were a very shocked with the price - being that it was a touch over $100K more than we had told them that we wanted to spend, and they had agreed was a reasonable price - this is also after our contact had told us that he had removed approx $50-60K before we arrived, and keeping in mind this is without upgrades. After going thru the tender we were extremely impressed with how willing they were to compromise and tried to get the price down to something we were happier with - this is an area where we definitely cannot knock them, they will work to keep your business. We realised that part of the extra costs were because we have raised ceilings in both the ground and first floors - something we didn't realise on the plans (admittedly, our fault), but we are now thinking this should help with the value. We have eaves, something I didn't realise, but hubby did; 4 bathrooms; the added costs of balconies, etc ... everything adds up. Next we have the colour selection and then the final tender ... Because we are happy with many of CG's 'standard' selections we are hoping there will not be too many upgrades. Other than the square edged cornices that hubby REALLY wants, the floorboards that we both want - We think that most other things can be standard, hopefully keeping the price down as much as possible. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 6Feb 26, 2013 8:33 am We had the colour meeting yesterday. OMG I had forgotten what a hard day it was!!! I tried to prepared hubby (he has never built before) by going in a deciding exactly what we wanted before hand (we have looked at displays, looked in the builder's interior design place, as well as other builder's displays), I wanted to go in prepared and get everything done quickly .... Well our meeting was for 11am, we were still there at 5.30. But colours are finally done, albeit hubby changed his mind a LOT and we now have different coloured kitchens and bathrooms than first planned. Overall I think we went quite well in sticking to the policy of only getting the builder to upgrade what would be too hard for us to upgrade later. Now waiting until the 12th of March for our tender meeting. We do expect this meeting to be a hard one, as we were promised a few things as standard, that we have since found out are not standard inclusions (these promises were not made in writing, however we did have 2 different people, say the EXACT same thing to us) - but we are planning on fighting for them to be included. Our big question now is will they be able to complete our home on time???? We NEED to be in this home by December this year, but they are saying they will not start the build until June - thinking that we have winter and during winter they will be doing the site worked, we can see a few rain days where nothing will be happening. Has anyone had any luck with changing the build time on their contract? Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 7Feb 27, 2013 1:53 pm Hi Agape, I am the newer to the forum, and got plan to build 2 townhouses on a blaock in southeastern suburb as well. now at town planning stage. I enquiry from CG recently, and got a quote over $12,500/sq, really much over my budget. could you mind shareing your quote from CG at the moment? many thanks. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 8Feb 28, 2013 1:59 pm Sure thing ... We went in for our first 'quote' (and I do use the term quote loosely, it was more of a sales guesstimate) and was told that $315K would cover our 34sq, this was meant to allow for $5K of electrical upgrades and engineered floorboards. However since they have looked at our plans properly our 'starting price' has since gone up to $322K - our house has gone up to 35sq. This doesn't include ANY upgrades or site costs, or the above mentioned electrical inclusions or floorboards. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 9Apr 03, 2013 3:45 pm Well we have finally made it thru the Colour Selection Process and the Tender Meeting ... we have our Contract Appointment coming up this Friday. Considering we haven't actually started the build as yet, this has been an extremely slow and bumpy journey, more so than when I have built with volume builders in the past - 7 months and only at Contract!!!! To date we have had a few issues with communication within their offices which is a little bit of a downer - finding ourselves having to chase things up, or email the same thing to 3 different people (sometimes more than once), and finding them making changes to our plans without consulting (or even highlighting the changes to) us. Since first meeting with them in August last year, we feel we have tried to make it EXTREMELY clear that we NEED to be in by December this year, however considering our contract will only become ready Friday, I doubt this will be the case ... however we will push for it, and if it isn't possible we will find a builder who can offer this. To date we are happy with the service their staff have offered - especially their sales consultant (who is only consulting for their company, not an employee), he was amazing in recommending a planning consulting company who got our planning permit thru council within weeks, even over the Christmas Break. Even though the Sales Consultant and hubby seemed to but heads a few times, he has been absolutely amazing to deal with and we wouldn't be at the stage we are today without him. Our Admin person has been a little blah, we have found her to forget to mention things to us which could have sped up the whole process, such as our electrical pit which we could have organised during the design phase. And also found her to be less knowledgeable to the building process than expected; we understand that she may have a number of accounts/clients to deal with, but her manner in pointing this out seems highly unprofessional to us ... However I have to say on other occasions she seems to have gone out of her way to say hi, and to help us get things moving. Our colour consultant was amazing, honestly I could not say a bad word about her. She was extremely talented at pointing out options without giving her opinion. Finding samples of what colour schemes would look like, giving ideas without being pushy ... Honestly we spent all day with her (and I do mean ALL day, the poor woman) and she never came across like she wanted to get rid of us - nothing was too much hassle for her. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 10Apr 05, 2013 1:56 pm Well the contract appointment didn't quite go as planned, we are unable to sign the contract as we have to go back to Town Planning due to elevations. The house is too low for the drainage system to work properly???? I really have no idea, and pretty much at the point of no longer caring ... We are reaching the stage of feeling this is all too hard and maybe it might be easier to sell the block, or just find a 'volume builder' to build on the site. So where to now??? We are waiting to hear how we go about going back to town planning - given that this cost a few thousand last time, I am not looking forward to the price tag. Also peeved off because the builder has been sitting on this matter since the 1st March so in the mean time it could have been thru council by now. Why does it seem so hard to get this building process off the ground???? Is a custom build always this difficult? Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 11Apr 05, 2013 2:22 pm Agape The house is too low for the drainage system to work properly???? This would apply only to surface drainage surely? 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 12Apr 05, 2013 2:45 pm As I understand it, it is something to do with the Stormwater. We have to run the stormwater thru our neighbours property (sub-divided lot) due to the fall of the land, our land falls to the back instead of the front meaning we can not drain to the front road. I think the house elevations only need to be changed by 10mm, which I think is ridiculous - after today meeting we are at our wits end with building.
Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 13Apr 17, 2013 1:24 pm hi all, just some general feedback about CG. We are post lock up phase in a custom build (completely custom, i litterally drew the house in their offices, i've named it after myself haha). To date, CG have been an absolute pleasure to deal with. We gave up deposits with 2 others to go with CG (hubby was not impressed) but not only did they move quickly but there was no 'game playing'. selections and appointments were all great. we have spent (a lot) more than we initially wanted to with the other companies but we are getting exactly what we want. hardly had to upgrade anything in selections due to their great inclusions. We thought the good customer service would drop off once we signed the contract, but we are so pleased to report that our SS and in-office contact have been great, especially our SS. We speak regularly on the phone (at his initiation) and has always been honest with me about where they are at. I've bugged him with changes and his opinions about things and he has always been helpful and polite. We have so many other things going on in life at the moment, and to build at the same time was probably not ideal, but the process has been so great so far. we have had inspections by New Home Inspections as well and they've gone well too. The build is moving along so quickly and the house looks great. We also made some significant late changes, and whilst it cost us financially, they made every attempt to make it work for both parties (not to hold up the build, but get what we want). Touch wood it keeps progressing along like it has been. i think everyone faces hurdles in building but its how the company communicate it and deal with it and we have no complaints. I just thought it'd be good to put it out there bc sometimes it is so easy to want to vent when things aren't going right, but in our case (so far), we have barely had to be invovled! we just get to visit the house and have chats about each weeks progress. Good luck to everyone whatever stage they are at. Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 14Apr 17, 2013 9:50 pm I am happy to hear that all has gone well for you, we have been dealing with CG since August last year (7 months) and are still yet to have them touch our land - in fact we found out last week that they had only actually inspected our land the afternoon before. I think you have knocked the nail on the head - communication is the key, and unfortunately our Administration person is horrible at communication and this is where they have failed us.
Up until our file was passed to the Admin team I would have agreed wholeheartedly with you that they were fantastic, now we are not so convinced. For example our permit drawings (mentioned below) were going back to council by last Friday, they only finished putting together their information to pass onto the draftsman today, the draftsman still has to draw it - this will cost us another week. I have discussed your post with hubby, and we are now thinking that maybe we should request another admin person, clearly they do have good ones however ours appears to have no idea of the processes when it comes to custom builds. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 15Apr 18, 2013 9:42 am We are also building with CG and have been so happy with our decision to do so. Ours is also a custom build. We spent a lot of time getting our plans right (us not CG!) to try and avoid any changes during the build. We are not at lock up yet but everything is moving along very quickly. Nothing has been too much trouble and we couldn't be more pleased with all of our contacts especially our SS and admin person. We've had a couple of issues to work through on site due to the custom build but our SS has been fantastic in getting these sorted and we have found CG to be completely flexible to things we are thinking of as we are progressing. Re: Custom Build with Carter Grange - Melbourne 16Apr 28, 2013 9:48 am Hi all, I am new to this forum but have been reading with great interest. Like Agape, I have built with Henley several years ago and had a good experience with them. This time around we are looking to build a quasi-custom build with a better quality and I am very close to signing a contract with Carter Grange but the mixed reviews about their jelly-like quotes and admin problems are making me nervous. CG have assured me that they can build for $450k or under based on our discussions to date and my description of what I want, but can I trust them ? Agape's extra $100,000 above nominated budget is making me nervous ! I am desperate to know who the GOOD vs BAD admin people are at CG ! I am fussy and fastidious for detail and if I get a slack admin person it will end badly for both of us. Can you guys tell me who to ask for at CG when it coes to admin ???? Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 17May 01, 2013 4:30 pm Hi All, We are brand new to the forum but reading with interest all of the comments about Carter Grange. We got in touch with CG back in early March after we had read some great reviews elsewhere. We went initially to get a quote for a custom build. We visited the office, put down our $1500 deposit and waited for the magic to begin! We set our budget at $400k and we were after a 4 bedroom double storey home, around the 38 square mark. First off, we were told they couldn't do a custom build for that price, it would be better to alter one of their current floor plans - so we went for the Metropol. Site and soil surveys and alterations through, the price came in at $428k. A 5% blow out we could deal with. But then we noticed something strange on the siting plan and tender - there was only allowance for one retaining wall, when we had specifically asked for retaining walls to both sides and rear boundaries. When I asked the tender presenter about it, she said she would get engineering to look into it and get back to us. 3 days later we got the call - $56k for 2 retaining walls! I just about had a heart attack! I told the tender presenter (very nicely, of course) that for $56k I would take a year off work and dig it out by hand! Went to our colour appointment and managed to add another $22K by changing from tiles to bamboo, upgrading kitchen cabinets and the stone benches by one category. We went to Carter Grange because we were hoping to get a custom product built with excellent inclusions. They also promised to stick to the budget. If you include the upgrades and the retaining walls, the final price is more than $100K over budget. With the exception of a couple of people, the CG service has been average and we have just been so disappointed with the whole experience. Thinking it's time to move on and engage another builder. Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 18May 17, 2013 12:30 pm Hi It is sounding like CG is becoming more expensive now. I've started my dealings with CG in May 2012 and as stated in other forums I've manage to get a 29squares 2 storey house for slightly under 300k - including all upgrades that I think was around 60-70K in total. This is also a custom build based on my own design. The only thing I copied from CG is the facade with slight modification to fit the size of my house. I did manage to get all the standard inclusions (stone benchtop, semi-commercial glass doors and windows etc, etc,..) Before committing to CG I found them highly recommended online. I think my mistake and I'm sure some of you might be in the same boat as me is that I forgot that although CG is by far the best builder to deal with they don't use special tradies to build their homes. Hence, expect that the end product will be exactly the same as the rest of the other builders. I suggest that you be involve as much as you can. The good thing about CG is their Site Supervisor (at least mine) listens and do something about issues I raise. I suppose in terms of pricing, they're there to make money. Despite getting what I think is a good price for my house, I still feel ripped off in some regards. For instance, for a 6meters x 2.5meters alfresco I was charged ~15k in total. For a 3.8m by 2m balcony without roof I was quoted over 20k (for which I ended up not getting). In the end, I think I'm getting the house that I want. Might not be the dream house we wanted but good enough for the cost. Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 19Jun 29, 2013 2:01 pm We are also building with Carter Grange and can happily report that we are delighted with the build so far. We are almost at lockup, if not today - then Monday or Tuesday next week. The price is probably going up as Carter Grange has become quite popular, though I doubt that you could get a better deal. I have paid about 11K per square metre for a highly customised house, same thing should realistically cost around 13K. For budgeting I would subtract $50-60K for finishes such as driveways, fences, landscaping, new furniture etc, then divide the rest by 12, and that will tell you what size house you should be looking at. As for Admin, I try to look at the issue from their side, they are only working with what they are told and are not in a position to comment on much, they have either passed on your request to the whomever needs to deal it, or are passing on what they have been told. Best thing if there is disagreement is to politely point out the issue for their noting (not action), and ask who to follow up with. I have found this necessary in a minority of interactions, and the outcome achieved my objectives, provided clarity to admin, and removed unnecessary angst. The admin people I have dealt with at CG have been great and are only trying to help and get their and your job done. They deal with quite a few jobs at once and are only the messengers. I suggest if there is an issue, politely take it to the source as quickly as possible and don't shoot the messengers Carter Grange Radisson Carter Grange Custom Radisson 43 with rear balcony (see CG Build for details). Re: Custom Build - Melbourne 20May 23, 2014 10:40 pm Agape As I understand it, it is something to do with the Stormwater. We have to run the stormwater thru our neighbours property (sub-divided lot) due to the fall of the land, our land falls to the back instead of the front meaning we can not drain to the front road. I think the house elevations only need to be changed by 10mm, which I think is ridiculous - after today meeting we are at our wits end with building. Hi Agape, Just wondering how you overcame the drainage issue. Did you simple raise the level of the slab or implement another system. Looks like I have the same issue to contend with ------------------------------------------- Build Thread - Mainvue Emporio ER430 KDR https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=76790&p=1332227&hilit=mainvue#p1332227 Hello, we can help you please get in contact 0421019219 thank you 3 31838 Hi, can anyone recommend a custom home builder who can build in north east area? Looking to build a custom 4-br energy-efficient home with a max budget of 750k. If they… 0 22813 I'd get the gutters to match your roof and pipes to match the paint - otherwise they become a feature. Nice pick with the paint colours! 1 34269 |