Anyone building with Homebuyers Centre in VICTORIA?

kol thankyou!!!

hey guys

we have just finished building with Homebuyers Vic in Mernda and are absolutely thrilled with our new house.

the whole experience has been great. excellent customer service the whole way through.

We built the Oasis 26 modified to a 27 through some changes we made.

Other than some teething issues with a shower head and appliances its all been great so far.

While they were a bit slow to get the initial permits etc approved when land titled, as soon a site scrape happened the house was completed within 3.5 months.

We had an independent inspector inspect 4 stages and even he said that the finish and overall quality was excellent. Although I think this may have had something to do with the fact that i was on site daily checking up on what was being done and reporting issues straight away.

Here are a couple of photos

http://i1329.photobucket.com/albums/w54 ... b7f946.jpg

http://i1329.photobucket.com/albums/w54 ... 6a49cc.png

Hope you all have a positive experience and dont have to wait too long to get into your new homes.


Fuzz

Hi Fuzz! Congrats on your house! It's so nice to hear that your experience was a positive one. When did you move in? The things you were reporting from your site visits, may I ask what they were, just for learning needs for myself and the others here?

Hi Pooks

During the site visits the main thing that I noticed was problems with the brickwork that was done. This may have been due to the bricks being slightly irregular size so when they went up the perpendicular lines (the vertical mortar on either side of a brick) did not line up as you ran your eyes up and down the wall. The builder agreed that this was a defect and ripped them down and re did all the face brickwork. The important thing for me was reading up on building regulations as this is how I picked up on the brick irregularity myself. If ever in doubt look up the building regs and make sure that the finished product is within what is specified.

If you are using off white mortar for your brickwork make sure that any patch up work is also done using off white mortar. Ours was all done with off white but Ive seen other building companies where they cant be bothered sourcing off white and just use grey and it looks horrible.

Other than that everything else was minor cosmetic things like paint touch ups and tidying up things. If you are getting any part of your house rendered make sure that you are happy with the finish as we got them to redo some of the facade as it looked a bit patchy. Particularly light colours.

Our independent inspector picked up a few things that I wouldn't have known about and to be honest I dont quite understand... but its good to know that they were rectified.

But I must say that overall they were very understanding and our building supervisor treated the build as if it was his own home. He was on site doing things til late and went out his way for us to get things done.

The really good thing I found with Homebuyers/Boutique was their staff retention. My mum built with another very large builder and she went through 3 building supervisors in a 6 month build. Everyone who has dealt with us at HBC were there the whole time and we managed to build a good rapport with them. I believe this good working relationship is why we hardly had any issues and are so happy with the end result.

Hopefully this helps. If you have any further questions feel free to ask.


Fuzz

Thanks for the info- really helpful. I will now make it my task to look up building regulations! I went out to Mernda to see our house design- such a nice place. Fuzz- did you have a clothesline and letter box as standard? You may see from previous posts its been one of the questions, haha!

Hi Pooks

Yeah the Aston in Mernda is beautiful, congrats on choosing an awesome house. And Mernda in general is really nicely designed. I like the hills that surround our estate.

We chose the Oasis 26 design (formerly on display in Doreen) in Oct 2011! we had some really long delays with the land titling. Unfortunately for us the inclusions at the time did not include the letter box or the clothesline. Although I believe that they do now.

We went through Westpac with our financing so we didn't have to do the whole turn key thing that I know Resolve make you do when you take up the $3k promotion. The biggest headache was bank valuations. I saw so many comments online about valuations coming in really low and people having in tip in $20k or more. So I was really concerned because we chose a lot of upgrades, but luckily for us the valuation came in $2k better than the whole house and land price. Not looking forward to doing the landscaping though - it is going to be a big task - but we have plenty of time to do it.

Fuzz

Thanks for that Fuzz - really good to know that the finished product looks positive! There's actually a couple of bits of my render that look a little off, but I think the render guy comes back after the driveway goes down - just in case of splashes - so I've taken some photos and we'll see how it goes.

I have the clothesline and the letterbox written into my contract, so I expect for them to both show up, I thought they were both listed in the brochures in the standard inclusions in the back?

From what I understand from my site supervisor, they'll talk handover dates once the tiles are finished and I think that's all done now. So fingers crossed for some dates this week!

My client liaison said, they'll do the landscaping before handover, which I guess makes sense, since they have to do the pipe under the driveway thing for the irrigation.

Hi I have built with Homebuyers/Boutique and have finished, we built when they just moved to Victoria. Very Happy with our house, you can check out our build thread, gives you the timeline etc.

Best of luck with your build.

Hi ring09. Awesome to hear! Can you post a link to your build thread please? I would love to read it.

Hi, it's at the bottom in the signature section. I cant seem to cut & paste.

Sorry about that, didnt show up on my phone!

hi all!
does anyone have any info on the carpet through HBC? I've asked our preconstruction lady if we can change our carpet choice as I think the one we chose is too dark(it looks dark blue, nearly black) and I've been stewing on it for a while now. We just chose from the standard category and I think I want to upgrade as we have cats so I need something that would hold up? does anyone know who the supplier is? what carpet did you choose? thanks!

had pre start yesterday what an awesome day! now lets hope my colours look good on the end product lmao!!! we just choose a standard carpet -the dark brownish black coloured one. They've just upgraded standard flooring from vinyl to laminate so that was great news when we arrived. But im pretty happy with our upgrades and our colours. pooks did they tell you about the fee payable (some community fee to council) when land titles?????? I have never heard of it if so how much is this. our pre start lady said could be up to $900. :/ Might need to ring Jason (peet guy) and ask him. she said the developers should of told us!?

Hi Ruby,
So glad you mentioned the vinyl to laminate option as flooring- I will have to check on how this affects me as we got the vinyl but hopefully I can change it now! Glad you enjoyed pre-start, it's full on hey?! Did you take photos of the carpet selections by any chance? I read in the land contract about the annual community fee and asked Jason about it. He said it could be between $900-$1400 but didn't know at that stage exactly what it was. I would love to see pics of your selections!!

I forgot my camera - omg and my phone realised halfway 2 docklands lmao so my partner has a photo of our external colours on his phone. il put it up later rest ive had 2 remember my head. didn't up grade 2 much afew things we are gonna do after hand over. we have added a junction box 2 each pillar so we can add our own fancy lights to it after hand over. upgraded front door to same as yours. added more tiles to splash back in kitchen, a double 900m towel rail 4 bathroom and a 600m double to ensuite. Rest we gonna do ourselves once we r in. need as much savings to pay mortgage and rent while building. Gonna be tight tight done birthday n xmas shopping early so wont be worrying about that while house being built as we have 3 kids they end up costing a small fortune. thanks for letting me know bout that money I so had no idea at least I can budget that now. hope ya can swap from vinyl to laminate

Well, occupancy certificate was apparently issued today. So, my independent building inspector is going in on Tuesday for final inspection.

Flooring, driveway, letterbox, clothesline, and the landscaping were done this week. So just caulking, paint touch ups and final site clean next week, Hopefully can tee up handover soon!

congrats becca, that must be so exciting for you- youl be in your new home in no time!!!!!!! do you have any photos or a blog? would love to see them

Good times ahead Becca! That's awesome! Are you pleased with the final progress and look?
Thanks to you ruby123 I contacted HBC about the laminate and I can get it free of charge so I'm heading back in to the showroom on the 16th August to pick our selections in laminate and carpet!

that awesome pooks

Had the building inspector in today. It went really well all up. All cosmetic and minor things - a cracked tile, paint imperfections, carpet lifting in a wardrobe, a damaged cornice, clothesline bent and needs straightening. Building inspector had about a page of defects, he said he usually had 2-3 for the inside alone. Said the SS had done a good job, which was great to hear.

So...still to go. Insulation in roof, site clean, and fixing the defects. Final inspection mid next week!