Bradford homes sa- any experiences?

Has anyone had any experiences building with them? They're the more affordable spinoff of Scott Salisbury (premium builder) and apparently use the same tradespeople.

Bradford homes seems about maybe 20 percent more expensive than dechellis and others.

Did you eventually get Bradford to build?

Still trying to decide. Both bradford and dechellis apparently had their salespeople move on so that kind of slowed things down with designs and quotes.

Are you in the pre-contract stage?
Wait for your good news

Still pre contact and looking at a few options simultaneously. Incredibly difficult to compare on price though which is troublesome.

Are they not making quote on the basis of what you need? Their quotes should contain the same content for comparsion if you give them the same brief

I know your feeling, I am a stickler when it comes to weighing up value for money. I compared many builders, asked around (i.e. contacted independent building inspectors) and in the end was left feeling that industry needs a shake up as it's all too muddy for my liking. However, i did get some good feedback on Metricon and Dechellis. I narrowed those two down and ended up going Metricon. I can tell you from first hand that Metricons 'Freedom' package is on par or better than Dechellis (as a closed friend of mine is building with Dechellis and we compared packages). To most people, Metricon appears expensive on the surface but that's because their packages contain more than the average builder. In my opinion, if you went with their Designer Luxury package (which saves you c 10%) and a promo, you will get a lot more value than most builders. M has good buying power and are very flexible in regards to what work you can do externally (you'd be surprised at what they will let you do). Happy to give you contact if you like as I live in Adelaide. Also, request specifically for the best consultant at whichever builder you go with - reason being they have the best negotiation power with the State Manager and can get you better deals.

Just in case this sounds like a sales pitch, I do not work for M.

Not particularly. I think the problem is that the inclusions levels are different, and it's hard to get them to match the same level of inclusions.

In retrospect it would have been more helpful if I drew up a pre-existing plan, went with a set level of inclusions, and simply asked each one how much everything would be. The issue is that I've been going to a few and asking them to draw up roughly the same plan based on my ideas. I think this puts things muddy from a copyright perspective if I'm not mistaken (although I haven't shown them each other's plan), but also slows things down and means that you get subtle differences between them.

So far format is the only one who have given me a price / finished drawing up a design / costed it. Pricey though, coming to about $1500 per square meter (at admittedly quite a high level of spec / turnkey), which I assume will balloon out after selections.

Dechellis is still re-making a plan after having the person move on without telling us (which I suppose is a sign of poor communication) and bradford told us their person moved on and things kind of stalled after that, although they have technically given us a costing for a smaller house than the one we've asked for.

I should probably try asking metricon / rivergum.

We are building a modified Felixstow Alfresco with Statesman, cost so far is around $1,350 psqm but that’s before selections.

Really starting to look between format and dechellis. Any thoughts from anyone out experiences?

have you thought about simonds?

Im building with Format, we signed contracts in early June 2018, and will hopefully start site works this week.
The process has been frustrating and tedious so far, and not at all helped by having a useless 'customer liason' to deal with.
Hopefully the build is better..

Can you elaborate?

Sure. they do not appear to have any urgency, or care factor about us. I find my self constantly begging for updates, delays in responses or having questions blatantly ignored. quite a few times when following up an item that was due the week before i was told 'oh, this just came across my desk, Ill send it now' etc. I have expressed my concerns to management, and this was also ignored.
Our council approval took 15 weeks (house a few blocks down took 4 weeks) do to the application not being completed properly, and then not followed up, despite my repeated emails asking for updates. Simple questions about items on our quote taking multiple emails to have answered, and a few things left off in the end as i got sick of asking for them to be included.

Im not sure if this is normal, as this is our first build, but we are paying a premium price, and it certainly does not feel like we are receiving premium service.

then the delay in the build - we received bank approval December last year, and they are still unable to provide an actual start date.

Wow, 8 months in and no work started on site? That is very concerning and I would assume, not the norm for project home builders.

The footings contractor has been overseas due to a death in the family, and christmas didnt help... it was more the unknown that annoyed me. All i recieved for the first few weeks of the year was 'dont know, maybe next week' but no actual effort to follow up or explain.

But complaining on the internet seems to work, recieved a call from SS just after i pushed send.... we will have soil delivered tomorrow, and trenches next week. Yay!

Yes, i heard about that. Not sure if it's good that they've chosen their footings contractor so carefully or bad.

Bradford Homes are amazing, they build great homes and give good customer service, their price is very competitive I would highly recommend

Haha Brian, you actually think someone would believe this post? You’ve just joined the forum, you have commented on two posts saying the exact same thing about how wonderful Bradford homes are. The posts are over a year old, so just two random posts praising a builder, no examples of work, no good and bad, no stories about the process.
I really hope the readers of these posts aren’t as gullible as you obviously think they are.

That doesn't look at all suspect, Brian!