Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 26, 2014 11:54 am Hi everybody, My fiancé and I bought a block of land in Casiana Grove a while ago and have just been paying it off as we weren't able to build straight away We have been looking at displays since before we even bought our block and are finally very close to building now We chose FH Newport 309 as we fell in love with the design before we were even able to see it until someone else built at Newport 275. Everything leading up to our tender appointment we were quite happy with, lovely sales ladies who always tried to help us when we wanted to make changes to the plan and to answer our enquires. However after the colour consultation we knew our preliminary estimate would go up $$ but we had accounted that it may only be $3000 max. Well to our surprise we walked into our tender and were bombarded with a whopping $23,000 added to our estimate price. As our sales consultants knew our max price we were very angry and upset that nothing had been previously told us before about this extra cost. FH decided to add an extra $5000 for wind rating, $12,000 for P Class Slab & $5000 for BAL 12.5 fire rating. We knew our site costs might cost a couple thousand but they have our site costs at $0 which we think is a complete lie and they have just decided to charge us it in the slab price. Needless to say we did not pay our $2000 deposit for the engineering and final contract to be drawn up. We left very unhappy with our new quote and drawings. We have discussed with our family and friends who have never heard of a wind rating and after a lot of phone calls and emails between us and FH they have taken off the wind rating which they said rated us so high the rating would be for somewhere up in the mountains(seriously…..). However we keep fighting with FH about the fire rating price as neither house next to us has the fire protection stuff built on it. We have spoken to one of our neighbours who built with M and they ended up being credited back the $6000 they paid their builder for the fire rating as they didn't need it, same with their slab as their builder tried to charge them $6000 more for that which they never paid and have advised us not pay our builder for either. When we bought the land we were not in a bushfire zone and our builder told us in the past year our block has been in and out of the bushfire zone 3 times so how can they justify charging us?? And finally the slab price which FH say is quite high and could come down a couple thousand but they won't know until after we pay our $2000 and they do the engineering. hmmmm how convenient for them……. So sorry for my rant but I just want to know if anyone is else in Casiana Grove has or is going through a similar situation??? Thanks. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 2Jan 26, 2014 6:40 pm Sorry to hear you story.... I guess you are talking about fairheaven as I had a look at their display houses when I was choosing builder. I found their list price is lower than others' and has some good neat designs, but I also found when added all developer's requirments and council's requirments the price would not be very competitive... so you better shop around and ask at least 3 quotes to have a rough idea as the different builder has different designs.. My block has a 500mm fall from front to rear, P class soil, the site cost is 10k, so you may have a rough ideal how much your site cost could be. You can find out if your block is in the bushfire zone from govn website, that's what I did http://services.land.vic.gov.au/maps/bushfire.jsp wish would helpful Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 3Jan 26, 2014 6:46 pm Hey! We are building in berwick waters and we had a similar experience with Orbit homes, we went to colours and came back with our heads hung low because of all the additional costs and also lack of choice in the basic range. They gave us 5 ceaser stone colour options and then it was thousands more for the upgrade! With henley we got A LOT more choices!! With the bush fire rating I honestly suggest jumping onto this weblink http://services.land.vic.gov.au/maps/bushfire.jsp as long as your land is titled it will advise if you are in the bushfire zone! If you are not you can then take this to FH and show them and they will have to remove it! If your your block or part of your block falls in it you will have to pay it unfortunately. With site costs they can be quite expensive at times, we were initially told that our site was P rated by orbit homes, but we ditched them lost our 1500 and went to henley! They gave us a completely different soil report! Site costs for us however were still around the $12500 mark. This honestl depends on the site works involved to prep your site. Maybe go and get some other quites from other builders? tell them of the additional costs and see if they can do better? We were able to get henley to knock off another 3k from our cost and we also got a lot of free stuff added in, which we were told we had to pay for. If your starting to have doubts, check with a few other builders and see if you can get a better deal we were going to pay a little of 200k for a 3 bedroom 22sq home and then we left and for 213k we are getting a 4 bedroom 26sq home with MUCH better inclusions. I hope some of this helps Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 4Jan 26, 2014 7:55 pm was it 23,000 extra site costs or was that the total? Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 5Jan 27, 2014 4:56 pm Hi, Thanks for the replies unfortunately we are in the bushfire zone yep am talking about fairhaven , we are looking at other builders but are finding the double storeys are more expensive than our estimate atm and that's without the upgrades we have put into the newport. That's interesting that your soil report came back different with another builder. The $23,000 was the slab, wind rating and bushfire requirements added together. They have written our site costs as $0 and I wrote before they were charging us for a P class slab before but it's actually H class waffle slab instead of M. And then extra $$ for binding concrete for depended edge beams. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 6Jan 28, 2014 11:42 am They seem to be doing that a little bit funny. I would be asking FH to lock in a site cost. You want them to lock it in with your signatures on it, otherwise they could slap you with even more costs. even though they are coming out cheaper now, they may not come up much cheaper in the end. I would be asking them to give you a fixed cost! obviously any upgrades you choose will add to this, but requesting a fixed cost and then go from there. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 7Jan 31, 2014 8:06 am Can I ask what upgrades you were getting and the costs of them, I'm looking at that house too. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 8Jan 31, 2014 6:01 pm stayxtrue They seem to be doing that a little bit funny. I would be asking FH to lock in a site cost. You want them to lock it in with your signatures on it, otherwise they could slap you with even more costs. even though they are coming out cheaper now, they may not come up much cheaper in the end. I would be asking them to give you a fixed cost! obviously any upgrades you choose will add to this, but requesting a fixed cost and then go from there. On our tender they have put our site cost as a vegetative scrape as our block is very flat and it is included as part of the base price. However they have the slab as it's own thing on our the tender. And are saying they have to dig through the fill to pour the slab and that it will cost over $12,000 for this. They are now saying it could go down and that it is an estimate but still if it doesn't go down buy at least half we may have to downgrade to a Newport 275. In order for us to see how much it can go down they need us to pay $2000 deposit for engineering. We are thinking of looking into paying for our own test to be done separately as we don't agree with their soil report and slab price. So unfortunately we aren't able to lock in a site cost . Hope I make sense lol. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 9Jan 31, 2014 6:56 pm aussiebell Can I ask what upgrades you were getting and the costs of them, I'm looking at that house too. Hi oh how exciting, what size newport are you looking at? Have you been to the display in Casey Fields? What estate are you building in if you don't mind me asking? PROMOTION WHICH IS INCLUDED: colour bond roof 20mm stone bench top ceramic floor tiles to entry foyer, meals and kitchen areas carpet from builders category 1 range to remaining areas of the house. Upgrades we are paying for: Bayview facade - This is an old facade that they had when we first started looking at the Newport and they don't have it in their options for facade anymore but we specifically asked for it and they said yes It comes with a balcony which is what I wanted $2800 Provide brickwork and steel lintel above Garage door opening in lieu of standard infill. $1400 Provide brickwork above all upper level side and rear windows in lieu of standard timber infills. $352 Provide Walk-In-Pantry Option 1. Includes; - Change standard Walk-in-Linen to a Built-in-Linen with 2 x 2040 x 720 flush panel hinged doors. - Change standard Built-in-Pantry to a Walk-in-Pantry with 1 x 2040 x 720 flush panel hinged door and additional shelving to external side of pantry. $288 Provide additional W.I.R (approx 2700mm x 1410mm) to Garage side of Bedroom 1. Includes 800mm wide plaster opening and 1 x melamine shelf at 1650mm high with hanging rail to underside of shelf to side and rear of W.I.R. $338 Provide aluminium framed flyscreens with fibreglass mesh to all opening windows. $455 (but they are trying to double charge us for this in the bushfire requirements as well so now they are saying they are upgrading them) Provide white cathedral glass to Bathroom and Ensuite windows in lieu of standard clear glass. $80.00 Provide windows locks to all openable windows. $143.00 Provide translucent glazing to front entry door in lieu of standard clear glazing. $147.00 Provide SW1221 aluminium sliding window to Ensuite in lieu of standard window. $186.00 Provide remote control to front roller door including 3 x transmitters (1 x wall mounted in removable cradle and 2 x separate) and single power point. $693.00 Provide plaster bulkhead above overhead cupboards and rangehood in Kitchen. $152 Provide base of cabinetry only to freestanding oven space. Oven to sit on base in lieu of standard oven on legs. $160.00 Provide 1540mm (approx.) long laminate base cupboards with laminate benchtop in lieu of standard 900mm base cupboards. Includes additional standard range wall tiles. $372.00 Ensuite Provide 20mm reconstituted stone benchtop with shadow line in lieu of standard laminate bench top. $392.00 Provide 1760mm (approx.) long laminate vanity cabinet with stone benchtop in lieu of standard 900mm cabinet. Includes additional wall tiles, full width mirror and 1No. standard range basin and standard range mixer tap. $1,437.00 Bathroom Provide 20mm reconstituted stone benchtop with shadow line in lieu of standard laminate bench top. $392.00 Powder room Provide 20mm reconstituted stone benchtop with shadow line in lieu of standard laminate benchtop. $392.00 Tapware Provide 1No. Astivita Bella shower rail to Ensuite in lieu of standard shower rose. $143.00 Plumbing Fixtures Provide 1200mm x 900mm shower to Ensuite in lieu of standard 900mm x 900mm shower. $293.00 Provide Decina Oval free standing bath to Ensuite. Includes additional standard range floor and wall tiles. $1,998.00 Provide 1No. Astivita Swan sink to Kitchen in lieu of standard sink. $25.00 Provide 2No. Kristy vanity basins to Ensuite in lieu of standard range basins. $90.00 Provide additional 1No. shower outlet (Astivita wall mixer and Brewster ceiling mounted square shower outlet) to Ensuite shower. $540.00 Wall Tiling Provide metal tile trim to Bathroom bath hob in lieu of standard plastic tile trim. $54.00 Provide tiled niche (450mm high x 600mm wide at 1350mm above floor) to rear wall side of Ensuite shower. $216.00 Floor Tiling Provide ceramic floor tiles from Builder's standard range to Entry hallway from Entry foyer to Kitchen in lieu of standard Builder's range carpet. $484.00 Carpet Provide Builder's category 2 range carpet in lieu of standard range carpet included in Promotion. $882.00 We have removed upgrades: Wall mounted clothes line Colour driveway Overhead cupboards in the laundry Higher ceilings on the ground floor You may have noticed a fair amount of upgrades to the ensuite as we have changed it completely lol. So in the end we made a bigger ensuite, made the walk in robe smaller and put an extra walk in robe on the other side of the room. Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 10Jan 31, 2014 7:31 pm [[Sapphire]] stayxtrue They seem to be doing that a little bit funny. I would be asking FH to lock in a site cost. You want them to lock it in with your signatures on it, otherwise they could slap you with even more costs. even though they are coming out cheaper now, they may not come up much cheaper in the end. I would be asking them to give you a fixed cost! obviously any upgrades you choose will add to this, but requesting a fixed cost and then go from there. On our tender they have put our site cost as a vegetative scrape as our block is very flat and it is included as part of the base price. However they have the slab as it's own thing on our the tender. And are saying they have to dig through the fill to pour the slab and that it will cost over $12,000 for this. They are now saying it could go down and that it is an estimate but still if it doesn't go down buy at least half we may have to downgrade to a Newport 275. In order for us to see how much it can go down they need us to pay $2000 deposit for engineering. We are thinking of looking into paying for our own test to be done separately as we don't agree with their soil report and slab price. So unfortunately we aren't able to lock in a site cost . Hope I make sense lol. That's a very weird way of doing it! Ours was all included on the fixed site costs! A second oppinion wouldn't hurt either. The first builder we were going to go with said we had a "p" rating, but our second one which we are building with said it wasn't a P. Even with a P rating it's not all that bad, we had fill on ours to and all they did was scrape the site and build a raft slab on the clay. Hopefully it all goes well for you Re: Anyone building/built in Casiana Grove?? 11Feb 18, 2014 8:52 am Hey ya sapphire.. we are building with FH too but the fairhaven range & not the bridgewater.. I would recommend a second opinion for the soil tests though.. there are few that they have charged you as "upgrades" which we didn't get charged for. just to name a few eg. -locks to open-able windows. -Kristy vanity basins were basic range the time we did our selection March 2013 also It's smart to remove the following "Wall mounted clothes line Colour driveway Overhead cupboards in the laundry" our sales consultant recommended that we to do it after handover (so much cheaper) viewtopic.php?f=31&t=63700&p=1043512#p1043512 13/12 Site works 05/2 Framing 11/2 Gutters 26/2 Bricks 7/3 Lockup 02/4 Fix complete 30/5 PCI 05/06 KEYS Hi All, we are starting to think of building with Masterpiece Builders in Victoria, has anyone had any feedback or experience with them 0 13567 wondering anyone built with omaxe homes and care to share their experiences. thanks 0 13821 Hi we are looking to talk to people who have built with them recently. We have signed mid range built contract but identified that a lot of things are not included.… 0 646 |