Mount Barker Thread

Hi again, can anyone let me know if they had their slab laid in June / July? We've been massively delayed by the contractor at Bluestone so it looks like our mid May start will now be late June or early July. Any help would be great!

Bumping this thread up
I've just signed the land contract last week on a block in Springlake estate
Anybody else building in this area, or Mt Barker in general?

We signed a land contract for Newenham in mount Barker on Sunday.....

Just had our slab poured in Springlake too

Oh awesome!
What house are you building? Is your land release Brookside or Parkside?

We're building the Rossdale Flaxley (modified) in the Brookside release

You?

Hi all

We've been trying for over a year now to start our build in Stage 4 of the Bluestone Estate but it's just one thing after another with these people. The contract says the road was originally planned to be done in October 2015 but we're still waiting for that to happen. We heard this week there was an incident on site on Tuesday which they were hoping to be back on top by today. Somehow that one day to deal with it has suddenly become an extra week in the process. At this point this incident just seems like a convenient time to say 'oh yea somethings happened so we've been delayed again'

Anyway that's my vent done. I'm very jealous of you all getting somewhere with your build!

Oh wow thats a long wait! Is there anything in your land contract to help you?
My land has been delayed by 3 months (springlake), and just now I have received an email saying it will now be advanced by a month lol... very odd.

What house are planning to build? Do you have a thread?

Unfortunately not it basically says they're under no obligation to get it done in a timely manner. The most annoying thing if we've constantly had to chase them to get an update. I would be fine if they had straight up said 'look we don't know when it will be ready' rather than just telling us it'll be next month and then nothing happens.

We are building the Lincolnshire Alfresco Mark 2 with Hickinbotham which by the look of it they have changed the basic plans since we signed off about this time last year. They rushed through our selections in June so everything is ready to go as soon as we have access.

Hi HFBMPC and Blake+Louise

My partner and I just settled on land in Brookside release. Building with Simonds and very excited to get onto finalising contracts with the builder!

Definitely looking forward to hearing what you two are both doing!

Hey KP

We actually built our first home in Barker a few years ago but originally had purchased a block in The Orchard at Bluestone and actually ended up pulling out of the contract and getting all our deposit back etc (not the only ones to do so either) because of similar delays - We just weren't ever seeming to get definite answers on when anything actually would happen and from what I understood was that they actually don't start works until a certain % of the blocks are officially sold so that they can fund the works but that was before the new developers bought Bluestone (think they are onto the third company now!) - whether that funding bit is true or not but sounds like you have been mucked around for a long time!!!

Great to see there's still people on here building in mt barker we made some great friends last time around just by chatting on this forum!

We are now building again just down the road at The Grove estate off sims where we built our first house with Metricon we managed to snap up a 1025sqm block so jumped at the chance and have had it just over a year now

Ooh thats interesting, I was a bit tempted to cancel when I heard land was delayed but from what I saw all of the other land available was going to be a big wait anyway.


Do you know who youre going to build with yet?

Yeah I'm not sure what the estates are like at the moment looking around you would have thought you could pretty much buy and build but I suppose looks can be deceiving! Mt Barker is so full of land though - spoilt for choice!
We only cancelled because we just felt like the delays were going to continue (which they did) we had actually been speaking to the actual development company regarding it and compensation etc but just didn't want to have to keep waiting around when we could settle and build straight away at that point

Yes we are building with gall3ry living - the first home we built was a solid brick home so we wanted something a bit different this time around
We are just waiting for our final approval in council basically and our final energy report and we will be good to go to site

Hey very quick and odd question to anyone whose built in Mount Barker already, is close to completion or would have insight into the answer -

Did you have to have or plan to have a septic tank?
Whose responsibility is this if yes, yours or the builder or the developer (if buying in an estate)?

I just noticed a note about septic vs sewer on the Mount Barker council pdf files when reading up on the application process, and nobody (builder or developer, and we've bought a house and land package which was developed between those two) has mentioned a thing about it to us!

We had a septic to common effluent on our previous built and had our builder do it however can get in contracted after - we also are getting our builder to get it installed again
Suprises me no builders have mentioned it to you though we have always had in included in our quotes bit dodegy all the sales guys up there would no you'd need one by now surely!

(also the septic placement etc should be included on your plans for council etc)

Perhaps the builder has already factored it in without informing me?
I'll chase that up with them, but we did actually have to be put with a sales guy who mainly works out north...due to an annoying stuff up of who was contacted first.

It appears (courtesy of confirmation from our developer), that our development is 100% mains sewer rather than septic. Which seems odd given I've heard people building just a few roads over in a different development do not have sewer.
However yay! Cost saved, but definitely appreciate your feedback!!

Thats great - funny as yes I'm pretty sure the rest of mt barker has commons would be strange for them to miss something like that!

It definitely had me in a post-midnight panic(!!) that there was something we'd not heard about at all, however perhaps it's a recent change or something specific for the development that they've planned.

Regardless, if I find we need one - better believe I'll be taking it up with the developer after this!