Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2121Feb 24, 2015 11:53 am I was told it was all sorted 2 weeks ago, and that my driveway would be replaced ( driveway is a total disaster) regional manager came out ( not a nice guy to say the least) now have heard nothing. Ive emailed them today stating I am taking it further. nothing but headaches, we have other minor issues that im just going to fix ourselves as they say they book in tradies, but you end up chasing them for months. so disappointed as they are good during the build! Site Start 11/3/14 Slab Pour 2/4/14 Framing Complete 8/4/14 Lock Up 1/5/14 Fixing Stage Complete 14/5/14 New Home Presentation 20/6/14 Handover 2/7/14 blog: http://firsthomebuilding.blogspot.com.au/ Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2122Feb 26, 2015 8:04 pm A quick update. We are now into our 22nd week on site. Our third site supervisor. There has been problem after problem and I can't see the end in sight. I think I need to take up drinking. I swear on this night - I will never build again. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2123Mar 02, 2015 9:45 am Hello everyone. Have just recently found this site and read a bit of and got a lot useful information. We are building with HBC (hopefully pending finance) we have locked in land in officer and chosen a design and paid $1500 to HBC and $2000 to lock in land. Have gone with the my home plan option through bluebay and am wondering if anyone else has taken this option to get finance and how they found it? Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2124Mar 02, 2015 3:38 pm OMG Impish, that SUCKS! Have you escalated it? What are the problems? Is it getting to the point where you're eligible for compensation payments? I hope you're not having to pay rent and progress payments at the same time, such a strain. God I'm not liking hearing all these bad things, its making me nervous! Welcome Jay960 - if my finance EVER manages to actually get approved I'll probably die of shock, lol, but our application is through Westpac. I think our fallback position will be Bluebay though if Westpac fall through (we've been promised an outcome this week either way). I'm pretty sure several people on here went through Bluebay and have been, for the most part, happy. Which floor plan did you opt for? We've gone for the Haven19 as we have a long, thin block of land. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2125Mar 02, 2015 8:41 pm Hi puglover. Hope all goes well for you with westpac this week. We have gone with the indigo 22 it was the best floor plan for what we required and the way it fits on the block We have gone. Went through the display and really liked the layout. Wasn't first choice but best choice for what we want and really happy with it now. The haven 19 looks great like the open plan area at back.. Whereabouts are you building? Our land is at grandvue estate officer and doesn't title till August. So things are at a bit of a standstill at the moment. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2126Mar 03, 2015 12:52 pm Welcome Jay960, The grandvue estate is nice, not too far from me. I'm in the cardinia Lakes estate. Impish sorry to hear that it's still going. You guys didnt start long after us... Still having issues with after service care, they say they can't book trades in on weekends. So we need to take a day off work to get the issues fixed so someone is home. My worry is that I'll organise a day off an nothing will happen! Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2127Mar 05, 2015 5:53 am Hi box27. Had a look at cardinia lakes estate nice estate. get some great views from there and nice size blocks. Did you have many major defects to fix at end of your build? Any major things I should look out for with there processes through out build? Anyone in this forum go through the my home plan program with bluebay? Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2128Mar 05, 2015 6:49 am Our build went pretty smooth, and the quality for most is really good, but as you can imagine you are always going to have things that will need to be fixed. The issue I'm having now is that these issues werent fixed after our home presentation. They say they would have had it done in a week. I gave them 2 weeks before we picked up the keys. And none of the issues we picked up were fixed in that time. Now it's hard to get trades in as we work full time and they will only come during the week. I sent an email saying in our contract that once the home presentation has been signed off all the fixes will be fixed before handover. We gave the amount of time required and none of the works were done, so I requested that they work around us and send trades on the weekend. But they rejected this. Very annoying and a neighbour also had the same issue! They claim to have good, if not the best after hand over service. But this definitely not the case. Or if it is, I would hate to see the other builders around. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2129Mar 05, 2015 10:48 am Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone can help…. Just started the process with HBC and have selected a few initial options… we went with the Mona facade and are trying to work out what colour schemes would suit. We were thinking flinders then don't know if its too dark! It's near impossible to visualise. Has anyone gone down the Mona path? What colour scheme did you choose? Do you have a pic of the end result? Thanks heaps Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2130Mar 05, 2015 10:55 am Steve, The Mona with the flinders theme looks really good. The render against the black windows really makes a good look. And if u upgrade the brick mortar to a white, it really makes the bricks and fascia stand out. We did this and it looks good. We upgraded the bricks too. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2131Mar 09, 2015 6:33 pm Hey guys! Just thought id ask whether anyone has built the Vibe 25 with the Fenton facade? My application with HBC is currently pending finance and I'm trying to get my colour schemes sorted but Im just getting a bit flustered with it all at the moment! any advice would be awesome! thanks! Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2132Mar 09, 2015 7:21 pm steve_111 Hi Guys, Just wondering if anyone can help…. Just started the process with HBC and have selected a few initial options… we went with the Mona facade and are trying to work out what colour schemes would suit. We were thinking flinders then don't know if its too dark! It's near impossible to visualise. Has anyone gone down the Mona path? What colour scheme did you choose? Do you have a pic of the end result? Thanks heaps Hey Steve We also chose the Mona facade and we went with Woolamai (spelling?!) We also upgraded to iron roofing on advice from my dad who's a builder. We felt the flinders was too dark for us, shows all the dirt. But it's personal preference really Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2133Mar 11, 2015 10:12 am Hey guys got a call today to say our community infrastructure levy is due..... All $950 of it... Bit steep in my opinion. We're. Building at The Woods, Mickleham FYI Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2134Mar 11, 2015 12:33 pm Ours will be $900 in Villawoood Mt Duneed. Must be making a mint. Could someone please measure the diameter of their roller blind tubes (inner). Looking at getting home automation after handover and need the size to determine blind motors. Thanks Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2135Mar 12, 2015 7:03 am Hi Everyone Long time lurker in these forums (even though I was no where close to building/buying a home) but first time poster. My partner and I are building the Monarch 23 with HBC. To be honest Ive never really heard about them until we looked at a display house in Williams Landing. However having spent the last few nights reading everyones experiences with HBC it has made me feel more confident in our decision to build with them. Our journey to build hasnt been a long one - My partner and I had been looking at buying established however the more properties we looked at the more it made sense to build in that we can customize it the way we want it and have a home we're 100% happy with. After looking at yet another open house we drove past Williams Landing and decided to take a look at their display village. We walked into the Indigo and loved the use of space and the inclusions that HBC offer. We got talking to the SC and 2 weeks later my partner and I had signed a land contract and PWC with HBC Our land isnt expected to title around August/September however we're already booked in to do our color appointments and sign contracts this Friday Because their show room is currently being renovated, We were given a $500 credit toward their selections. But dont think we will be upgrading much more other than handles and taps - We upgraded everything we wanted during the PWC: - higher ceilings - 900mm appliances - 40mm stone bench tops to kitchen - 20mm stone bench tops to bathroom an ensuite - stacker doors in lieu of normal sliding doors - changed the theatre room window to a sliding door - double vanity in ensuite - exposed agregate drive way - laminate flooring throughout (bedrooms, hallways, living areas, theatre room - can you tell im not fan of carpet lol) - 920mm front door in lieu of standard 820mm - overhead kitchen cupboards on top of fridge and rangehood - window splash back in lieu of tiled - mirrored robes to bedroom 2 & 3 My partner has a sparkky friend who will be doing all the aditional electrical works (downlights, data points, aditional power points etc) after hand over We've also taken out the ducted heating throughout as we will be installing heating with add on refrigerated cooling after handover. Sorry for the long post guys. I guess im just really excited to be building our first home - even though its still months away hehe Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2136Mar 12, 2015 7:17 am Juannamo Welcome! Sounds like you nade a great start! We're are you building? Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2137Mar 12, 2015 7:46 am Welcome Juannamo! Looks like your ontop of everything. Good list of upgrades. We did the most of the same except kept carpet to the bedrooms. We had issues with the stacker doors, we asked for stacker doors to our SC both verbally and in an email. He said we has added them, that's what's in the contract... But when I saw what was installed they weren't stacker doors. Safe to say very p1ssed off. I was put to the State manager and they pretty much said that we signed our contract for these doors that's what they supplied as per our contract, you weren't charged for stacker. even though I showed them emails saying we wanted stacker and a reply from our SC that they are. So long story short, make sure everything you upgrade is exactly what you want. Coz apparently even tho if you have it in writing what you want and you get told that's what it is... Doesn't matter if you sign the contract! p1ssed me off, when you tell the state manager "this is what I wanted, your SC said that is what you are getting. So I signed the contract only to find out that they aren't even stacker doors..." And he relies you signed the contract, if you wanted stackers you shouldn't have signed and you weren't charged for stackers. I follow up with "I got told by your SC that they were, and I only signed because I was led to believe they were as that's what your SC said they were" he replies " I'm sorry but you signed the contract and we supplied what was in the contract" I left it there with him! Sorry for the long post but still p1ssed off about it! Just make sure you know exactly what you want and that's what you are getting Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2138Mar 12, 2015 8:12 am parrious128 - We're building in Truganina at their Bellevue estate. Ideally we wanted to buy land in either Derrimut, Williamslanding or Cairnlea however didnt count on land in those areas being in excess of $300k In the end we settled on a block smaller than what we ideally would have wanted, 400sm however its our own little patch of debt .. i mean dirt :p Thanks for the advice Box 27. HBC sent through a copy of the contracts we will be signing tomorrow. I was a bit worried as the elevations, drawings etc did not reflect our changes and upgrades however on each page there is something along the lines of 'prelimary plans do not reflect owners changes. Plans which incorporate owners changes will be issued after contract signing' so correct me if im wrong but they seem like they should be safe to sign? So far everything has gone smoothly. Our SC has been fantastic thus far - great and prompt communication. Only issue we've had has been with the finance guy we met with at Resolve. He didnt really explain things clearly to us and being first home buyers we werent too knowledgeable about loans etc. During our finance appointment he only compared 2 different loans however kept pushing us toward bluebay. In the end we didnt feel comfortable going through resolve and have since found a great broker - Ironically the loan which we ended up going with was one of the loans recommended by Resolve. Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2139Mar 12, 2015 9:07 am Our SC was good, answered our questions quickly. Well I thought he was, but he left out so much. We massive issues after signing the contract and out of pocket expenses. Money that was going to be used to upgrade and buy stuff when we moved iN. Our finance guy was awesome! Quick never had an issue, they put us through commonwealth bank. Our build went smoothly, quality is pretty good. But like everything there will be a few issues like paint ect, but OMG their after handover service SUCKS! Once they get their final payment nothing gets done! Our neighbours had the same issue! It took them over 6 months to get issues fixed. We are 4 months and they haven't fixed any issues at all! This is getting annoying! I asked if they could drop the 2 light globes they didn't supply... Still nothing! This was before Xmas and before we got the keys. We gave them a list that needed to fixed before we got the keys. When I pick up the keys I was told that they had been done, but none had been. It was dirty and had rubbish everywhere out the back! Was very disappointed! Re: Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA? 2140Mar 14, 2015 3:53 am Update So we had our contract signing and color appointment yesterday. Overall it wasn't too bad, I was just a tad disappointment with their temporary showroom. I was under the impression that we would be able to choose from a wider selection of items even from the cat 1 range. So for those also doing their color appointment in the temporary show room, whilst HBC will give you $500 to spend during selections, beware in cat 1 there is only 1 standard option and basically minimum to no options of upgrading to something else. For example we wanted to change the standard color of the overhead cupboards to a wood look laminate. Our pre sales consultant was a bit hesitant because it was outside of the standard "themes". They also didn't have much of any selection to be able to choose a wood look laminate. In the end we ended up going for their Pebble theme as it had a modern yet cosy feel to it,however swapped the colors of the base and overhead cupboards around. Overall the partner and I spent 2000 on electrical and additional uparades : - Additional power points inside and 1 in the alfresco - Cold water provision in fridge space - Upgraded handles throughout - Upgraded taps throughout - Additional 4 junction boxes at front of house house - Upgraded front door - Additional tv point in master bedroom Our color consultant suggested tiling the entire wall area behind the stove as standard tiling only went about half way. This seemed like a good idea at the time however when we got home we realized we changed the splash back to a window so there is no need for extra tiling. Lol Fail! Needless to say we will be emailing HBC requesting that item be taken off. I havent, and i havent looked to much into it, but on face value its not the saviour its trying to make out to be. Shared equity in your home is never a good idea. The… 1 3974 Hi, have purchased a house with 2 single garage doors. The Centre pillar one side sits proud to the other. Can I change 2 doors into one. Please see picture. 0 6353 For reference, this is the Austlii reference. My take on this is, that they would be breaking the law denying access to a homeowner in Victoria, or their agent from having… 1 9098 |