New Living Homes

it might be cheaper to get your driveway done elsewhere, however realistically the savings on it will be minimal. Just depends whether you want to cut down on every penny, or if you prefer the convenience of having the builder do everything in one go so you don't have to keep shopping around for tradies.

Thank you Brahma Bull. We decided to stick with the builder for the driveway.

Could anyone that has built with NLH in the past possibly fill me in on how the internal and external colour schemes work?

Is it a predefined selection of colours in each option? Or is there some flexibility in allowing you to select certain colours for certain things?

Edit: nevermind above. Confirmed we can pick and choose what we want.

Question for anyone who has built with NLH. Just confused on the whole process of obtaining a final price to give to the bank.

We are in the tender stage currently and are including as much as we can but expect there to be increases as we go forward (we might pick different tiles if the standard ones aren't what we like, or change the kitchen cupboards to drawers, and/or add more downlights).

Do these sort of changes/increases get paid by us on top of build contract. Or would we pick and choose these things before we get a final price (which is what we would provided to the bank)

Hi everyone,
Just wondering if anyone on here has built The Oak with New Living Homes? We are looking at it and interested to see what changes people have made or what changes they wish they made.
Any information would help, including experience with colour and product selections and opinions on extras etc.

Hi everyone, this thread is great as my partner and I are looking at building ' the oak' with new living homes and so far it seems they are decent and honest builders. Just curious if anyone has built a house with them and the cost hasn't jumped through the roof. For example we have been quoted $274k for the build including standard site costs etc.. my partner like the build as it is so I suppose I'm asking about any hidden costs that got you unexpectedly.

hi we are going through our process at the moment. Our land required a special drop edge beam which increased the basic build cost by $2,000. the only other hidden cost we found was the Facad options. if you are building in an estate with special regulations, this can cause additional spending. I think the most expensive facade is $17,000.

Thanks heaps for the reply. I was thinking about all that, our land is mostly flat-ish so I was expecting some sort of increas for the drop edge beams if needed. Just curious as my friends build through another company ended up through the roof lol. You hear too many stories out there it makes you worry lol

we had a very detailed meeting with our sales consultant after they did our site inspection. the fall of our land is about half a metre.

We built the Oak in 2017. We love the layout. Only thing is that the feature double doors to the main bedroom are glass frosted which means a lot of filtered light comes in (initially not a problem but over time became hard to sleep). We did end up putting curtains on the living room side which resolved this issue.

Would recommend to put switches on both sides to control the light in the walk-in. And also ask to have the built in to be placed high up. When we got ours, it was at a height of about150cm and due to the low height, we couldnt add a second bar to fit clothes at the bottom. In the end, we ripped it out and installed ikea pax wardrobe. It was a perfect fit as the space was 4m exactly.


We also moved the gas outlet from the middle of the room to the TV side. Although the gas heater isn't now centered in the house, it is less of a tripping hazard and looks better too (not having something in the middle of the walkway).

We also swapped the broom closet and linen closet around. the broom closet is closest to the hallway (makes it 1000% easier since we access this cupboard on a daily basis and can double for a shoe closet if you wanted to).

We bought the house and land package in 2015, and built in 2017. Our prices did not increase at all even though the land registration was delayed by about 1.5 years. The only increases was all the additions we added (hahaha). Back then they weren't keen on modifications but did it anyway.

Thanks for replying. Yea that's so good to hear. All in all they sound like a reputable and reliable builder. I think we might stick with our gut and build the oak and try minimise any alterations on our part lol

Yep. I'm really happy with our build. The workmanship is actually pretty decent compared to other homes I've seen. Only thing is maybe consider another coat of paint in the internal walls to reduce scuffing if you have pets or young children.

Edit: Hubby reminded me that the driveway isnt as good as it can be. There are a few little cracks (not big ones), so maybe make sure they cut the concrete in sections. When they laid our concrete it was 40 degree days though, not sure if that made a difference.

We are looking to build with them as well and from what i've read that seems to be the general feedback given for them. Promising signs.

Still early stages for us but we are looking at the Ivy 5 (but with quite a few changes, mostly making everything bigger). So far they've been nothing but accommodating to us with our requests.

This is very helpful information!

thank you for all your help!

Popped down to the tile supplier that NLH uses recently to work out what we might be up for if we upgrade the tiles.

We have about 90sqm of living space that will be tiled and they reckon we'd be looking at a shade over $15,000 above our included allowance if we selected tiles that cost $75 per sqm.

Doesn't really seem to addup for me. It's like there is an additional markup over the retail price of the tile.

Am I missing something here? Or is this just what to expect?

I built 3 years ago, and from memory they add 30% on top of everything, which was standard practice. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous, but went with them anyway. In the end, I'm glad I did and would do it again, because some things I did post build ended up being similar price to what they quoted anyway, and I found the tradies NLH used were of higher quality. Not to mention the convenience of having everything done, not having to get quotes and look up tradies, not having to go and pick up materials myself, and anything NLH builds is covered by their warranty.
When I built, we didn't have any included allowances - we paid for anything we wanted to upgrade.

Thanks for the feedback, good to know.

Most of our requests have come back very reasonable so far. It's just been a few things that have come back which seemed quite excessive.

eg the tiling: we would already have an inclusion in our tender to tile the house yet if the estimate we received is accurate, it's about a 100% markup on just the supply cost for the different tiles.

Hi Everyone,

I am thinking of building The Oak. I was wondering if anyone added a powder room to this design?
And did anyone do any other floor plan changes they would recommend? TIA

After 7 months of planning with NLH (first tender was in July 2020) we are finally about to get started with our build - building a modified Ivy 5.

Things have been slow so far (some of that due to us) but overall it's been relatively smooth to this point. In contrast to some of the feedback i've read in here, dealing with the head office has been a little slow as i picked up quite a few little errors in the paperwork they were sending us. All sorted in the end, but it just wasted weeks of time.

Looks like the build should be starting mid Feb 21 and I'll try to post some updates of how the experience is as things progress.