Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jun 24, 2017 7:00 pm Hello. Is there anyone took a house and land package from Orbit Homes or is there currently building a new house from Orbit Homes in Queensland? Thank you. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 2Jun 24, 2017 7:08 pm Is there anyone asked for an upgrade into their homes under Orbit Homes? Thanks. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 3Jun 24, 2017 7:20 pm We're going to build a new house under Orbit Homes in Springfield Rise Park Lane 9. The land will be ready by October 2017. Seeking advice regarding their contract. Thank you. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 4Jun 25, 2017 9:09 am Hey Jeff, Hopefully I'm not too late to give you my advice on these guys. Honestly, if I know now what I knew when signing my contract, I would've avoided Orbit Homes like the plague and ran for the hills. In the 8 or so months since the build started, I have had a total of 3-4 site managers (at least). The first 3-4 times I had a site meeting, it was a different guy. When I brought up issues with him, it would usually be 'well that was the guy before me'. I had a very major issue at the beginning of the build, where Orbit basically poured the slab too short, and then tried to build over the short slab. It wasn't until I brought this up with them that they tried to fix it. Their fix was horrible. I pretty much had to threaten them with bringing independent certifiers and inspectors to check that slab before they actually took action. The fix was totally horrible, there is still a large overhang in the bricks because parts of the slab are still too short. In other parts the slab is too long so there is just a chunk of concrete sitting out. When I brought this up with them, they said the engineer had approved the slab fix. This was the same engineer that approved the original faulty slab. When I asked them to show me documentation/specifications for the slab fix, they were unable to show me anything. Instead they showed me drawings done before the slab was ever actually poured. Their work quality is poor too. I honestly feel like I'm going to need to do re-painting or renovation as soon as I move in in the next couple of weeks. The painting looked like a 14 year old apprentice did it with no supervisor, damage everywhere. They say they will repaint certain areas of the home, but I have my doubts. They have broken promises multiple times before. Other issues include: - The fridge space was not expanded as per my specifications. I will now have to get a different fridge that fits into the smaller space. - The alarm module was put in the wrong place, I paid about 2K extra for the alarm system. - I paid about $400 extra for a shower niche. I have now noticed in the variation that they had only given a height and width specification, no depth. The depth of the shower niche once it was made was about 1 inch. It is completely impractical and can't fit anything in there. The shower niche item was added later on in the contract stage, so I gave them clear instructions on what I wanted to use the shower niche for. - Front facade was horribly damaged, with holes and nails sticking out. They claim the nails are meant to look like that in the cladding. But a simple walk around my block and I can't see any other house with cladding that has nails prominent like that. The list goes on but those are the most major issues. During the sales phase I really liked the Orbit display home because it seemed very simple and almost a what you see is what you get situation. Which I liked as opposed to other builders that would show you a lavish display home that costs an extra $150K to build on top of the base. However, the actual build has been one long headache. Best of luck if you do decide to go with them! I hope your experience is much, much better than mine. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 5Jun 25, 2017 10:00 am Hi Vn88, thank you for the heads up. We're still in the process of signing the contract and now having doubts. Because we want an extra features to our new house like high ceiling and ducted air con and they said that we need to sign the contract now and add the extra features as a variations with no extra cost later on. Just a quick questions about signing your contract because we have doubts and uncomfortable in signing ours. You requested an extra features like widening of the fridge space and a shower niche, was it included i.e. written in your contract before you sign them? The copy of our contract that they sent to us was just the basic contract without any extra features written as we requested. Thank you. We already paid $5k down for the land and house. I hope that this is not the most expensive mistake that my wife and I will go through. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 6Jun 25, 2017 12:52 pm Hey Jeff, This honestly sounds like a sales tactic. They did similar things to me in not being transparent in the pricing for regular things, and only telling me after a large deposit was given. They should at least be able to give you a preliminary pricing for the higher ceiling and air con. All of the things I mentioned were discussed before the final HIA contract was given. The problem is that Orbit do not seem to have a good file storing/management in place. There were several times during the sales process where I was asked to sign documents I had already signed and given back to them. Other times I was emailed older documents that had already been superseded by different documents. The fridge space and shower niche were not included in the written HIA contract, it was in a variation document which I believe was signed at the time of the HIA contract signing. The problem is, I don't believe some of those documents were given to the site supervisors. There were other instances where shelving which I wanted removed had not been removed, upon asking the supervisor he showed me an older floor plan that he was going off. If you do end up going with them, make sure you have record of everything that is discussed and signed. They will make you sign countless documents over many different dates. Just make sure that you don't miss anything which they may not have included. If you miss it, they surely won't care. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 7Jun 25, 2017 12:55 pm Also, depending on your agreement. You may be able to get some of your deposit back if you are re-considering. I think my deposit was about 4K, but that was made up of something like 1K for admin, 2K for site inspections, 1K for colour selection...or something along those lines. So if I cancelled before the colour selection, as per my agreement, they'd have to give me back a remainder of the deposit. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 8Aug 13, 2017 5:46 pm Hi vn88, Upon discussion and experienced dealing with Orbit Homes, we decided to look for another builder. Hopefully, the next one is a better one. Thanks again! All the best! Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 9Aug 13, 2017 11:17 pm Hi Jeff, We looked at Orbit just recently too and I found the quote to be a little lack luster and the sales staff useless. We also looked at Bold Living but found them pricey, the admin faze with Coral gave me cold sweats and Plantation build in our area. We have opted to build with Metricon again and feel a hell of a lot safer with these guys. Best of luck finding a new builder, Clarendon would be a very good option to look at, I would love to build with them but they don't come down our way, (we are down in the scenic rim) Metricon is another good one. Mc Carthy Homes build beautiful homes too. Look forward to your update on who you decide to build with Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 10Aug 14, 2017 12:52 pm Hello Tribe7, We're considering CJHomes as they have a good spot of corner land in Park Lane Springfield Rise and fit in our budget. We wanted to consider Metricon when we saw their display homes in Springfield Lakes but none of their offer fits in our budget. I'll do some research on Clarendon and McCarthy Homes as I'm not familiar with those two. Thank you and good luck on your build as well! Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 11Aug 18, 2017 11:24 am Just an update that you can get the full refund on the land deposit through Lend Lease but you can't get the refund that you paid in Orbit Homes even if you haven't sign the contract. So, it is one of the most expensive mistake that my wife and I have to deal with. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 12Aug 19, 2017 10:55 am Oh Jeff that sucks big time. When you paid your deposit to Orbit did you sign anything to say your deposit wouldn't be refunded? I don't know much about CJHomes, are you looking at them because they are offering house and land? Maybe a option would be to look at buying land and then having a builder of your choice cost up a plan. Metricon house and land packages are madness but if you look at putting a house on your own land it works out a bit cheaper with Metricon. Defiantly have a look at Bold Living, the sales rep James from Ripley is very good. I found Stylemaster pricey and Simonds very pricey (I was gob smacked they where more expensive than Metricon) Good luck and let us know how you go. Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 13Aug 20, 2017 1:33 am I agree with tribe7. If you get your land by yourself your option will be open for builder. When we started to look for our house we found house and land package are more expensive than what we are getting now bigger land and bigger house. And you can save some money if you do your own floor, electrical and landscaping. I know stylemaster has got a new package "walk right in "which is little bit cheaper. We are building with fresh homes. Their price is cheaper but I wouldn't recommend them as their customer service is very bad! Re: Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 14Aug 21, 2017 11:00 am Hello Tribe7 and Peter112, We knew about the non refundable deposit verbally as we're in a hurry to made a deposit due to $20K grant which was supposed to be due on end of June but we didn't sign any contract about the non refundable home deposit. Anyway, my wife and I learnt to let go of the $3K and that money that we gave to Orbit Homes gives us a piece of mind and less stress in building our own and own designed home. We managed to settle a deal with CJ Homes as we're on a strict budget. Their requirement is only to deposit on the land for $2K and you can refund it if you change your mind. The first time we met the staff of CJ Homes, we felt easy, less worries and relaxed with her and she's very knowledgeable when it comes to building our dream home. She never said "NO" to our request in altering the plan and she response to our queries shorter that we imagined. We'll arrange and do some of the non structural build after the handover which saves us a lot of money and CJ Homes are open with it. I'll post another trend on our build with CJ Homes. Do you have any link or post on your build? Thanks for all your help and good luck on our build! Building a new house with Orbit Homes in Queensland 15Aug 30, 2017 9:49 pm Hello Jeff, Did you create a build thread for your CJ build?? I checked out there website and they have some pretty good acreage designs. Good on you guys for getting on with it, $3k in the scheme of things isn't much and to build with a company you feel confident with is far more important so you guys made the right choice. I've got a thread Jeff its called housing the tribe, it's a bit large so just go to the last page we built almost 2 years ago with Metricon on the coast, we have sold that house and have brought an acre in the scenic rim, we did pay a deposit with Metricon only a month ago but we fortified the deposit as there site costs where disgraceful. Working on a new builder now . Looking forward to hearing how everything is going. 1 10481 I think you are getting different numbers because they all just based them on "other jobs" even though each job is unique. Often, with builders, unless you're speaking to… 3 3231 Building Standards; Getting It Right! We bought a house in 2015 advertised as a 7/2/2, 4br up, 3br down (7br), and to date, it’s a great house. However, we’ve just had it valued and it’s come in as a… 0 11986 |