Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1542Feb 03, 2016 8:36 pm Hi Everyone, Re signing the contracts before appointments, yes that's what happen to us. Paid 5% then proceed with the appointment. We had hard time booking appointments as we are both working and with our son starting new school, it is hard with all information nights that we have to attend. Today we have completed our all our appointment and felt like i was robbed. Plus the fact that during our kitchen appointments, we were told that the vanity measurements on our plan is incorrect. So all the plans we had has to change on the spot. For non architects, how will you know. It's now the waiting game of when to get the quotes and how much it is and are we able to have everything that we had in our long wishlist. But still feeling accomplished - (at least the first part) Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1543Feb 04, 2016 9:44 am Addie 1231 we had similar problem. We found out that our kitchen plans was wrong during the kitchen appointment. We wanted the microwave tower and it was drawn on the plans. But during our kitchen appointment we were told that there isn't enough space and will need to get the plans changed to fit it. Wisdom wanted to charge us a variation fee for that but luckily I kept all mails where I itemised what we wanted and they waived the fee and sorted the plans. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1544Feb 04, 2016 10:05 am Greg_K Hi NavyLion, In the end its really down to how much you like the design of the house and if there are other alternatives you can/will consider. I would say you get good and bad with every builder and in terms of cost most tend to add on in terms of pricing. To give you our experience, the only house we liked was the Ambassador and it didn't matter how many other display homes we saw, we kept coming back to that one design. The costs with Wisdom seem higher compared to other builders that i have read about in these forums. The admin process was slow and at times painful but we have been pleasantly surprised by the construction process. We have also been very happy with the workmanship so far - we have had an independent inspector (Housepect) come out and inspect the slab and frames and they found minimal issues all of which were fixed by Wisdom. If i had my time again and i had a few house designs i liked i would have tried to do 2 or 3 tenders (and hopefully get them to wave the $1k fee) and then go from there but given you have paid the initial deposit i guess that doesn't really help. We also really liked the ambassador but still got a 2nd tender from Metricon on the Liberty. Metricon was more expensive. We had the same requests on both in order to try and compare apples with apples. I know Metricon has metal frames whereas wisdom has wooden frames which will make it more expensive. I felt the unused space above the garage of the Metricon home was a wasted space and the use of space in the Ambassador was better so we stuck with Wisdom. One of the beechwood homes had a similar layout but the quality wasn't as good and we liked some of the Rawson homes too but the base price was much much higher. So we stuck with Wisdom Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1545Feb 04, 2016 11:56 am Carix Addie 1231 we had similar problem. We found out that our kitchen plans was wrong during the kitchen appointment. We wanted the microwave tower and it was drawn on the plans. But during our kitchen appointment we were told that there isn't enough space and will need to get the plans changed to fit it. Wisdom wanted to charge us a variation fee for that but luckily I kept all mails where I itemised what we wanted and they waived the fee and sorted the plans. How frustrating is that?! Having this plan in your head and then during the appointment you have all this issues. I totally went blank and struggle to think of other alternatives. So end up having rushed decision. Hopefully didn't forgot anything as it wilk cost us to get another quote. Greg though is really nice and friendly. Only thing i find is, with all suppliers of Wisdom, even wisdom itself, seems it's all very manual that is why it's all very prone to error and miscommunication. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1546Feb 04, 2016 9:55 pm surja Hi shudda Who's building inspection did you use. Thanks for sharing information Houspect are the front runners at the moment but open to suggestions as to who else would be reliable for 5 inspections (pre-slab, frame, pre-lining, PCI and 90 days post handover) Wisdom Homes Abode 27 KDRB - Inner West Sydney https://wisdomhomesabode27.wordpress.com/ Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1548Feb 04, 2016 10:27 pm ShuddaBeenATradie surja Hi shudda Who's building inspection did you use. Thanks for sharing information Houspect are the front runners at the moment but open to suggestions as to who else would be reliable for 5 inspections (pre-slab, frame, pre-lining, PCI and 90 days post handover) How much is the fee for independent inspection? Building Washington 29, Avanti Facade. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1549Feb 08, 2016 11:57 am Just a headsup for those considering to go with the terracotta roof tiles promotion by Wisdom Homes for $2990 on top of the Wise Choice Promotion which is at $9990. It is only for one range of terracotta tiles with Bristile Roofing, being the Planum range. And only for a few colours and not all the colours that Bristile offers. The other range of terracotta by Bristile Roofing like Marseille, Visum, Vienna etc are additional costs. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1550Feb 12, 2016 8:28 am Wow are we having a few issues with wanting to do our tiling after handover. We are saving about $7000 doing our timber tiles after handover and they are trying to get us into doing it through Di Lorenzo saying that it's more of a headache to do it ourselves after. We've given them the thickness to allow as advised by our tiler and Wisdom think it's too high... There may have been tears last night! Seriously, alot of people are clearly taking the same path and doing it after handover it clearly can't be as hard as they are making out?! Building Wisdom Homes Serenity 31 Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1551Feb 12, 2016 8:38 pm Kirst10 Wow are we having a few issues with wanting to do our tiling after handover. We are saving about $7000 doing our timber tiles after handover and they are trying to get us into doing it through Di Lorenzo saying that it's more of a headache to do it ourselves after. We've given them the thickness to allow as advised by our tiler and Wisdom think it's too high... There may have been tears last night! Seriously, alot of people are clearly taking the same path and doing it after handover it clearly can't be as hard as they are making out?! Makes me wonder how much mark up they add. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1552Feb 14, 2016 6:17 pm Hi guys, for those that have gotten Wisdom to do their landscaping, what did you get them to? We're thinking of putting the $5.5K towards retaining walls but wondering whether to also get them to do the driveway too. It seems reasonably priced but haven't gotten other quotes yet. Cheers Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1554Feb 16, 2016 7:53 am Hi extreme, addis and greg, It's on board all your advices and thoughts. We went to Metricon and asked for tender, immediately we got worth of $40K discount summer promo upgrades compare to wisdom homes. You guys right Metricon houses are cheaper than wisdom and bigger size too. By comparing 'site cost': wisdom is $65K and Metricon is $37K. Part of site cost Metricon explained that there will be $12K for 14 months fix tender price. I assumed wisdom will provision $40K for fix tender price, because they couldn't explain to me why the got huge site cost ;( Anyways, we are now waiting for Washington 32 and Glendale 38 ($7K difference) tenders. Both builders knew they are competing. Wisdom homes said they will beat other builder for $1K Apple to Apple. Logically I am with Metricon but my wife's heart is with wisdom. We're just waiting now for the best value. Once again thank you guys for the contribution. Regards, Navy navylion Building a Wisdom Homes Manhattan 35 in Sydney North West MyBuildTimeLine: http://navylion.wixsite.com/mybuildtimeline Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1555Feb 16, 2016 8:04 am Cariz, Thanks to your contribution too, good luck with wisdom. Navy Carix Greg_K Hi NavyLion, In the end its really down to how much you like the design of the house and if there are other alternatives you can/will consider. I would say you get good and bad with every builder and in terms of cost most tend to add on in terms of pricing. To give you our experience, the only house we liked was the Ambassador and it didn't matter how many other display homes we saw, we kept coming back to that one design. The costs with Wisdom seem higher compared to other builders that i have read about in these forums. The admin process was slow and at times painful but we have been pleasantly surprised by the construction process. We have also been very happy with the workmanship so far - we have had an independent inspector (Housepect) come out and inspect the slab and frames and they found minimal issues all of which were fixed by Wisdom. If i had my time again and i had a few house designs i liked i would have tried to do 2 or 3 tenders (and hopefully get them to wave the $1k fee) and then go from there but given you have paid the initial deposit i guess that doesn't really help. We also really liked the ambassador but still got a 2nd tender from Metricon on the Liberty. Metricon was more expensive. We had the same requests on both in order to try and compare apples with apples. I know Metricon has metal frames whereas wisdom has wooden frames which will make it more expensive. I felt the unused space above the garage of the Metricon home was a wasted space and the use of space in the Ambassador was better so we stuck with Wisdom. One of the beechwood homes had a similar layout but the quality wasn't as good and we liked some of the Rawson homes too but the base price was much much higher. So we stuck with Wisdom Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1556Feb 16, 2016 9:00 am Hi msjovi, We put it towards the retaining wall as well as the one big advantage with Wisdom's landscaping department is that everything is supposed to be completed before handover. On the driveway we found them ok relative to other quotes but were concerned that there were a lot of provisions within the quote so we thought there was a risk that costs would escalate. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1557Feb 16, 2016 12:56 pm Thanks shudda, really appreciate your help. Navy ShuddaBeenATradie NavyLion Hi guys, Just some questions for the upgrade costing please: - How much did you pay for air con upgrade (cost effective energy rating)? This is about 5-6k for a 32 square home. I paid 5k for a 27 square home so you probably have the size up from me. - Installed shower to the ground floor toilet for $2500? - How much for extra 15 down lights did you pay? $1875, they're $125 each. - How much did you pay for timber look walkin-robe in master suite in lieu to standard wire frame? We paid $4k for a timber look laundry fit out from Timpelle which included stone bench, top/bottom cupboards and a broom cupboard, I would guess the joinery for a master walkin robe is around the same ballpark Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1558Feb 16, 2016 7:21 pm Hi Navy, We initially went to tender with Metricon for a similar house (grandview 37) and wisdom (prominence 33 - both unfortunately not available anymore). At the time that we went to tender with Metricon the base price for both houses were similiarish. Our site costs were slightly more with Wisdom but we found that there were a lot more inclusions with Wisdom that we weren't getting with Metricon, or if we were to upgrade the upgrade price was a lot more with Metricon. This was nearly 2 years ago now so am curious if Metricon comes in better for you or not. BTW to upgrade our WIR to dark laminate timber was 1400. We already had a tower of drawers and shelving included, we got an additional one, increased the double hanging and added shoe towers. cheers Lou Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1559Feb 18, 2016 5:56 pm hashem2k3 How much is the fee for independent inspection? Hi hashem, it depends on the size of your house but on a 4 bed 2.5 bathroom it was $2169 for us if we pay for 5 stage inspections up front. Re: Building with Wisdom Homes 1560Feb 18, 2016 6:06 pm Greg_K Hi msjovi, We put it towards the retaining wall as well as the one big advantage with Wisdom's landscaping department is that everything is supposed to be completed before handover. On the driveway we found them ok relative to other quotes but were concerned that there were a lot of provisions within the quote so we thought there was a risk that costs would escalate. Thanks Greg and Exteme, We have decided to get them to do retaining walls as well, as we need 50m or so which is costing quite a bit. We got another quote for the driveway and it was $5K cheaper than wisdom! The actual driveway price within our property was about $1.5K more with wisdom and to be honest we would've forked out the extra just for the convenience of having it done before handover but what they wanted to charge us for the crossover and layback (as its a knockdown rebuild and driveway is moving to opposite side) was ridiculously expensive - Plus there were a lot of PAs within that quote so yeah, only retaining walls through wisdom for us. Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 11966 In fairness nobody gave a crap about the ACCC and the gag clauses continued in the pro forma templates of a few other builders after the ACCC took on Wisdom, and more… 20 57527 Hi Everyone, I am exploring builder in NSW and received a very tempting quote from Wisdom home for their momentum series. I just want to know experience of building… 0 3542 |