Building the Bella with Homes by CMA in North Harbour, SEQ

I haven't been able to find any blogs from anyone building with Homes by CMA, so I am starting one

Timeline:
4 Aug 16 - met with sales rep, decided on a house and a block and paid deposit for drawing up plans etc
10 Aug 16 - met with the builders sales rep and discussed alterations to floorplan and additions to the build, got prices
10 - 12 Aug 16 - continued asking questions and seeking clarifications and quotes from builder
13 Aug 16 - met with land sales rep and signed the land purchase contract. Provided builder with final list of inclusions for the build contract/floorplan
16 Aug 16 - land sales rep contacted me to confirm my contract was counter-signed today, so my 21-day countdown has officially begun. Builder's sales rep advised that I should have final price quote and floorplans by 23 Aug for mortgage broker to get everything approved
25 Aug 16 - received the first draft floorplans from builder, and the fixed price quotation (which includes an allowance for slab change depending on soil test results, and for retaining walls in case the yard needs any... these are all refundable if not used)
26 Aug 16 - sent off the floorplans and quote/inclusions list and land contract off to mortgage company for unconditional finance approval to be granted
4 Oct 16 - after a few delays with getting the land surveyed, we finally got the unconditional mortgage approval granted. Yay! The bank is going to build me a house!
29 Nov 16 - colours appointment
Mid Jan - Land developer sent off to get land registered at council
16 Jan 17 - Soil tests done
19 Jan 17 - Soil tests back, no retaining or piering required yay! Decided to flip the house on the block to get better garden space
27 Jan 17 - Final floorplan and variations document plus HIA contract received. Sent to lawyers for review
30 Jan 17 - signed house build contract
2 Feb - my land registered My 14-day settlement clock has now begun
7 Feb - Countersigned build HIA contracts provided to lender for FHOG application
8 Feb - FHOG application submitted by lender
9 Feb - house plans sent off for covenant approval
14 Feb - FHOG paid to lender for use at land settlement
15 Feb - Initial plans rejected by estate covenant for side of house material, fence material, fence layout (need to have cutouts for garden beds in my side fence??????), must have 4 trees 1.5m tall or higher
16 Feb - Land settled
21 Feb - Amended plans for covenant approval submitted with some changes
24 Feb - covenant approval granted
24 Feb - plans sent off to council for approval
13 Mar - council rejected plans
24 Mar - new engineering report requested for slab amendment due to floorplan changes
27 Mar - plans got approved by council :) Sent off approved plans and all of the relevant insurances etc to broker to issue the Authority to Commence
31 Mar - received the Authority To Commence
18 Apr - site work started - site cut
29 Apr - slab pour (Stage 1 complete)
5 May - frames, roof trusses, wrapped (Stage 2 complete)
22 May - electrical rough-in, met sparky onsite to discuss some additions/alterations to electrical plan for cash
23 May - my private inspector found 4 framing issues which he requested be corrected
28 May - owner-installed soundproofing insulation on the bathroom and ensuite walls with SS permission
1 June - plastering and bricking both commenced
7 June - plastering and bricking both completed
9 June - garage door installed - I'm now officially locked out - enclosed invoice not yet received though?
12 June - Enclosed invoice received, but rejected, as when I went to check the house, the rear wall of the house hadn't been put on yet
13 June - internal doors hung
14 June - kitchen and bathroom cabinetry install
16 June - rear wall cladding has been put on (Stage 3 Complete)
19 June - Meeting with tiler on site today - tiling started!
19-27 June - tiling
19-23 June - rendering & guttering
30 June - last of the tiles have been grouted (Stage 4 Complete)


28 July - PCI booked
9 Aug - Handover (total guess - and hoping this is sooner!)

Finished floorplan and block siting, after making a few small changes







Changes made were:
- Extend front entrance portico
- Extend garage by 1 metre
- Extend main bathroom by 1 metre
- move loo into main bathroom
- where separate loo once was, is now a walk in linen closet
- extend kitchen pantry
- where linen closet once was at front door, remove this, and enclose the space into the garage instead (for me to add shelving/cupboards/whatever at a later date)

Hahaha I have just finalised the list of questions that I have for my builder tomorrow when we meet..... 127 things to ask him about / get quotes for / ensure are included in the first draft of my plans!!!

Methinks he's gonna hate me...

But it's not my fault! I only have that many things to ask about because I read the massive "Things you forgot" thread!

Is anyone else as pedantic as me and had over 100 things to ask about on your first planning meeting? I *really* don't want to be a PITA client...

I'm looking forward to getting quotes on everything from him tomorrow, as it looks like I only have about 10 days to get everything sorted (including plans drawn up) because I need to get the mortgage approved within 21 days of signing the land contract. Which means land contract plus fixed price building contract must be complete so the mortgage co can get the valuation done. Aggghhhhhhhh that was something I was unaware of until today!

Going to push the signing of the land contract back until Saturday (as conveyancer can't get back to me until Thursday anyway) and also ask him for a 21-day finance approval instead of the 14 days he had originally put on the land contract.

It's going to be a bit of a rush job... but that's OK as I already have a good idea of the changes I want, and my upper budget is absolutely unmoveable so I only have around $17k up my sleeve for alterations to the base price... I know I'm gonna dump $1k on power points, and probably another $1k on data cabling... everything else is secondary

First - congrats on starting a thread and starting on this exciting journey!

Don't worry about it - when you're dropping that kind of cash, you are entitled to ask a few questions! Much better to over-ask and annoy a builder you'll never see again after the project is done then hold your tongue and spend years in the house thinking "I should have asked if I could change that".

I'm a lawyer, so I asked HEAPS of questions, and even struck out a few things in the final contract that I didn't want to agree to.

Never ever take "we'll fix that on the next version" or "just sign it and we'll change it later for you" as an answer!

We spent about $70k in changes to the base home, but your builder might have more inclusions than ours or cheaper upgrades, or you might simply not want some of the things we did. Our home is a bit bigger too. But you will be surprised how fast you can chew through that $$! If you can, visit the display and interior centre before you commit so that you can get an idea of what the basic package includes and how much your upgrades may be. Or go through a display centre and have your sales person point out all of the upgrades - the display model of one place we looked at had $212k of upgrades and that wasn't including the $85k of landscaping!

We went a bit backwards in our build - we fell in love with a design and had to find a block it would fit on, rather than bought a block then hunted for a design. Because of this, I put a clause in our land contract that it was subject to our design being approved by the covenants administrator for our estate and subject to the siting being approved by our local council - had to get approval to build the garage on the boundary and it was 1.5% above their guideline for house:land ratio.

I've never heard of homes by CMA before .

Is your land already registered?

Congratulations on getting started
We are the annoying clients too, mostly due to us asking those many questions and being given misinformed answers by our builders sales staff, which has now proven costly for them! And basically every step of the way querying every little detail. Our build base price didn't include much at all eg no flooring everything was a priced item so we at contract had 40k in "modifications". We are waiting on final finance approvals and can begin building with gj in upper caboolture.
We asked about all the choices ay the start and weren't told anything advised no this is done later and thats that- being first time builders/ buyers took it as the process but now know thats not the case and would definitely recommend pushing to find out before signing a build contract as Chaton said. Good luck

How is everything coming along scubabe?? I have to admit I haven't heard of CMA either. Your happy so far?

Agree 100% with Chaton ask now and fix it first time, no regrets or expensive changes down the track then.

Good luck

Oh yay! I didn't know I'd had any replies (I mustn't have ticked something I was supposed to for notifications) so I haven't been into this thread for a couple of days, but I have been all over other threads reading and absorbing and thinking

Thank you so much to all who replied!

chaton : yeah the builder already includes pretty much everything as standard so I am very lucky there. I think I'm looking at about $14k of upgrades I think... just waiting on some final numbers to come through and then I will decide which ones I want to take them up on, and which ones I will do myself post-handover.

shortnstumpy : yeah they have been around for 8 years but until recently have only done like 20 houses a year... they're ramping up now though and did over 100 last year and are on track for maybe 150 this year so they're getting bigger. I like them because they're local, and family owned, and the owners live in the same developments they build in (albeit in much larger houses LOL).
Land is not yet registered, no Due for registration in October, the diggers are in there building roads and putting in guttering etc at the moment so it looks to be on track (I hope)

buildingonup : I was lucky all the basics were covered in my base house price, I'm only paying extra for extensions and upgrades and extra lights and power and networking etc.

Tribe7 yes I'm super happy all my questions are being answered patiently and promptly and they're working really hard to get the contract done quickly (apparently most people design the house first and then buy land... I've bought land and have a very small window in which to get the fixed price contract for the mortgage valuation to get approved! LOL

I will update again on the weekend after I've finalised all my upgrades - yaaaaaaay nearly at floorplan approval stage!

Ahh I know the frustration. Our block is in council at the moment. I just want it to register already so we can settle and submit build plans

So I went in on Saturday and signed my land contract, so I am now on a 21-day countdown... in the next 21 days I need to:
- get the fixed-price house contract and plans drawn up by the builder
- have my lawyer review the build contract
- submit both the land and the fixed price build contract to my lender for valuation
- have the valuation come back as higher than what I've agreed to pay
- get the mortgage approved unconditionally

Yikes! That's a lot to get through!

Luckily I have finished the list of alterations to the house contract that I wanted. It contains things like moving the loo into the master bathroom and turning what was an aful loo position into a walk in linen closet. Extending the master bathroom and the garage by 1 metre. Lighting, electricals, networking. Upgrading to a bigger stove & rangehood. Upgrading from flyscreens to security screens.

I will be supplying front door hardware (because I will be putting a smart-lock on the door and a video doorbell so that I can answer the door and unlock it from anywhere in the world - so I will supply all door hardware to ensure it's all compatible). I will also be supplying my own ensuite shower fittings to ensure I can get a bit of luxury while not paying $700 for the builder's upgrade!

All up, my upgrades come in at $12405 (I'm also getting credit for a few things - like blinds - I will do all window coverings for the house myself - it should come in cheaper this way, and I will be able to get exactly what I want instead of just chosing from a limited range that the builder supplies).

All up, with house, land and the additions to the contract I have asked for, I'm still $4k under budget so I'm very hopeful that the mortgage approval will be straightforward. We're talking a very bottom-of-the-range house and land package, it's only 150m2 on a 377m2 block, so it's not like we're talking big numbers here!

Step 1 : I'm waiting on the builders to do plans up and finalise the contract so I can review it with hopefully enough time to make any last-minute changes (but I am confident that I have given the salesperson enough info that there shouldn't be any changes!).

Please keep everything crossed for me!



In other news, I spent a few hours yesterday going around a display village near me. I got some great ideas for colours and furnishings, so I will continue visiting display homes until I have to do my colours appointment, just to get more ideas... I'm snapping pics on my phone of everything I love and hopefully in time a bit of a pattern will emerge and I can lean that way for colours in the house.

Good luck!! You sound like me I like to keep track of everything as much as possible and am not afraid to diy or go cheap. Our builder wasn't very flexible with owner supplied items, either have their options or nothing so we have taken out as much as practical to make a nice house and will do bits after handover.
Re colours that's what I did just a lot of googling and Pinterest etc

Hehehe yep that's me too. Glad to know I'm not the only one!

I know for a fact that I can get better quality blinds from Spotlight in their Boxing Day sales than what I can get from the builder, and for a lot cheaper. Things like front door hardware and my shower rose I can get what I want, rather than being stuck picking from the best of a bad bunch that the builder offers by default.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! I get that they can build cheaply because they have a warehouse with bulk-purchased items in it. But if I don't like those items, it costs a bomb to go outside their range... I'm happy to shop around and DIY

Hello! We are going planning a build in Brisbane. It is with a smaller builder so can't find any others building with the same group on this forum so I thought I could follow some people that are at a similar stage to us. We are hoping to sign contract shortly. Looking forward to your build!

Definitely scubabe I'll be hitting up Bunnings and masters for my plantation shutters and installing myself after handover, same with turf, washing line and letterbox

Scubabe, all the best with your build. I've heard of Homes by CMA, and also visited a display home they had in North Lakes, i believe.
I don't have any further idea about them, but one thing about their display home which struck me was that it was unfurnished and not jazzed up. They said, we would prefer customers know about the standard inclusions, rather than see and like a house which has been upgraded in every way possible.

I am not sure if they have a similar process everywhere, or if i had gullible written all over my face.

Ooooh I haven't seen their North Lakes display home. Only their North Harbour display home. And it is certainly furnished.

What I loved about walking through their home is that everything was standard. High ceilings, window coverings, freestanding bathtub, stone benchtops in bathroom and laundry... everything they showed was included. I think there were a couple of small changes but they openly discuss those as they walk you through the home... I think on the one I viewed, it was an upgraded front door, ducted aircon (though their houses come with split system aircon standard), some pendant lights and a whole bunch of upgrades to the ensuite bathroom.

But everything else you saw... standard.

It was awesome, and was what sealed the deal for me. None of these "sure we can build you a house for $180k... but ohhhhhh no do you seriously want a concrete base on your alfresco? No, you don't want floor coverings do you? Really? You like tiles and carpets and things? And honestly, you want a driveway and letterbox are you crazy? And shock horror you want us to turf the back yard as well as the front? Oh well if you're gonna be all picky about things, then that's just gonna cost an extra $85k thank you very much" LOL

With Homes by CMA you get what you're looking at. All of it. And that, to me, rocked!

Update : My plans and HIA contract were due on Tuesday. I didn't get them.
It's now Thursday, and I may get them today.

They're not leaving me very much time for reviews or alterations in case they made any errors...
The whole lot needs to go to my Mortgage guy by the start of next week so that we can get the finance approved before the land contract's 21 day finance clause is up...

*sigh*

If only the land contract didn't have such a stupid stipulation!

But oh well I'm trying not to worry, I'm sure it will all work out in the end. It's all just so new to me that it's a little bamboozling and I hate being rushed to do things. Another place I was thinking of building didn't have such a silly 21-day finance clause... they were happy to let me pay a deposit and then take my time to sort the house plans and things before going for finance. This land developer is not as relaxed and that frustrates me. But oh well the frustration is mine and I need to own it!

That would frustrate me too! Our contract was delayed by a week and a half getting stuff finalised (with still more variation tweaking at no cost to follow)