This is our first time building a house. We demolished and rebuilding in Clayton area.
If you had or currently building with Simmonds home, could you please post your experience and any advice? Thanks heaps
Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 2Apr 25, 2013 6:20 pm Hi J+G. First check product review for a wide opinion base. We built with Simonds in 2010 of which hopefully the following helps: Sales Phase: Great deals of which in our case we got $40,000 worth of upgardes for $15,000. They do beat a lot of builders on price. Sales consultant was helpful. Design Phase: We found that when it came to building a house that is not rectangular, it became very hard painful. We had to keep every email sent of received and I refused sometimes to talk over the phone so that I got things in writing. The perception we got was that we should have know a lot even though we were building for the first time. Contract phase: Like many volume builders, they use a standard HIA contract that puts majority of items in their favour. You also have to watch out to "provisional costs" that could undo yuor budget. There are many threads on this forum to refer to. Options: Good selection of options but you have to do your research! Just because the display home has a draw under the oven, does not mean you will get one. This is where you will blow tens of thousands. I would suggest avoiding upgrades of (if you have the convenience to do so); flooring, evaporative units, ducted vacumm units, dishwashers, some light fixtures and really anything you can install afterwards. You will get ripped off right royally and you will find that the quality is suboptimal. Example for us, evaporative unit for $4,000 with sale but unit happens to be the worst on the market. Same with the ducted unit. Build: This is where the fun begins. All in all for us, we had an abysmal build. The first Site Supervisor was ok but after they got rid of him, the second was horrible. He did everything minimal and made things miserable. All in all, 9 months late. Handover & aftersales: Painful aftersales but they have been good on a few items. I will give credit where it is due, they did come back 2 years later to fix an issue with the ceaserstone. Price: 8/10 Quality: 8/10 - score due to hearing of some horror stories of other builds Overall: 3/10 - I would stay clear from they if you want a decent builder to build you a decent home. Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 3Apr 26, 2013 12:07 pm Thanks for your feedback Adam. I agre interm value for money. I am just a bit concern after reading product review how much complains and problems that simnonds recieve. What do you mean by "when it came to building a house that is not rectangular, it became very hard painful" Is the design not rectangular on the first place or did they scew it up? Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 4Apr 26, 2013 2:26 pm It was something I used to describe how Simonds Homes built houses. In our case, the house happens to be rectangular with a front entrance that comes out and a cove. Funny enough, the two things they structurally went wrong with was the front entrance and cove. Albeit that it has been fixed, it wasn't fun at the time. Oh and our detached took 6 months to built as well. So there was conflict over payments considering I wanted the garage slab down before I paid the slab stage payment. Have a good read through product review and also review other builders to compare. With the housing boom in 2009/2010 we built at the wrong time considering good tradies were hard to get. That was the excuse from the site supervisor anyway. Just be extra cautious with your contract regardless of builders. Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 5Apr 27, 2013 3:18 pm All volume builders are pretty much the same, just follow a simple formula and you can't lose. Be a hard arse throughout the process. ALWAYS get an independent building inspector through 2-3 times throughout the build. This is simply a no brainer and something you must do. It doesn't just help you to pick up little things before they turn into BIG problems, but it puts a buffer between you and the builder. Worth their weight in gold. Don't accept handover until you're satisfied. I see people all the time, excited as anything to get into 'their new home'.. they can't wait. Well, the builders play on this. They love it in fact. They'll take a long time to fix anything after handover, you'll go mad calling over and over again, just the way it is. If you don't accept handover, they'll fix stuff quick smart to get you off their back. Solution? Don't take handover until you're happy to accept the house or accept the fact that you'll be chasing them for years to fix stuff. Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 6May 10, 2014 7:50 pm We haven't started yet, but I take Product Review 'reviews' as a grain of salt, as with many online reviews they are too easily forged good or bad. I've found reading real stories in these forums and other blog posts of more value. All the best with it Blogging Our Home Build With Simonds - Avalon 3512 4/05/14 Signed Contracts Land 5/05/14 Signed Off with Simonds Homes - Slightly Modified Avalon 3512 4/06/14 Simonds Gallery Appointment 4/07/14 Settlement! 28/07/14 Site Start Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 7May 10, 2014 9:36 pm Our house in brisbane is currently under construction (about 60% done). Very satisfied so far. Sales process suggest minimizing your non-structural upgrades, focus on things you can't easily change later. Choose downlights package for downstairs if double story or at lest pay for baton light points wherever you want lights downstairs - very painful post build. Upstairs is not a big deal. Expect about 50% markup on all non structural things eg carpet etc. Do after handover if possible, except downstairs flooring which rewuiremrbts subfloor leveling and stuffing around with skirting boards - pay their premium and let them take care of that. Non standard things seem ok as long as from one if their standard suppliers. Check every version of every plan revision, things move sometimes for seemingly no reason. If you ask for a change and get a no, ask why. Sometimes can result in a yes instead, eg removal of some voids for us required multiple attempts with successful outcome. Once you enter construction stage do not expect of attempt to make any changes. Our build is movig extremely fast and many components are prefaced before moving to site. Expect to be swayed to spend at the Simonds Gallery (colour) appointment. Remember many things can be changed post build. Do not be in a huge rush to sign your final contract (so, it prior to bank submission), after that changes are very hard and you have effectively no leverage. Definitely use independent building inspector for frame, pre-plaster and Hanover stages. This is not Simonds specific - any build should do it. Ours found two extremely minor issues but we feel this is possibly due to knowing an inspection would occur - we advised Site Super at contract signing it would happen. If you search these forums for Simonds Brisbane you will find our build topic which I've been updating.. A fully I better do an update tomorrow as our brickwork is staring. Product review.com.au scared me, it so far I am very satisfied. Re: Post your experience building with Simonds home 8May 10, 2014 9:38 pm Forgot to mention - if you choose the doe light package (which btw is 50% markup), the baton lights that get removed/replaced can be reallocate elsewhere at no cost. We shifted ours upstairs to pre-wire much of what will become downlights post build Carlisle use to sneak a water resistant "Performance Solution" into their contracts. Have you checked your contract for same? 4 10251 I apologise for any confusion, but your understanding is correct. We approached our situation differently based on advice from… 11 53226 Hi All, I have been dealing with icare for insurance in completing our house after our original builder went bust. We have gotten to tender stage and one of the companies… 0 20795 |