Hall & Hart vs Better Built Homes

Hi Speakers. Never heard of better built homes myself, I am with Hall & Hart and happy so far. So far I am finding most of the H&H customers are fairly happy. Probably the same with the other mob too...? Sometimes its down to your gut feel, house design for your block, or if you really cant decide do a tender with both!

That's no good

I had a chat with them as well. Get mixed feelings with BBH. Seems very good and professional, but can also see a bit of classic sales there as well...which is fine I supose. Just stood out more than H&H or even Eden Brae.

I think the person I'm qorkingiwtj at H and H has been great. Had 3-4 face to face meetings, multiple phone calls and no mention of signing anything or tender so far. All about what I want and how to stay within budget.

Did they builder say why they recommended BBH?

Just wondering what criteria you used to narrow it down to BBH over other builders? With the pricing between project builders you mentioned, was that based on initial discussions with the builder?

I've been talking to BBH and H&H and BBH seems to be more flexible with floor plan designs if you bring your own. Price wise I'm finding them to be very similar. H&H might be a bit more expensive but their customer service has been better and less pushy, at least from my experience so far.

I will share my experience with Better Built Homes last weekend, I walked in to there office at Oran park NSW, the girls at reception directed me to sign in which is now pretty much mandatory with everyone no smile just a straight face all good for me now , I then walked in the display home had a look came out , she handed me the brochure for their plans , no word, I then asked if they do have a price list, she said we dont have fixed price list and I will need to sit down and talk to the sale team, by then a sale team member was with a customer next to me did came over to us and said are you details written in the check in form, I said yes, he said OK then we will contact you , see you , bye bye, i was like are these guys really wanted to sell me their service , oh well....

That's really insightful! Where are you in the building journey?

Thanks for the feedback , really appreciated, I'm in the process of choosing a builder and was at BBH display and didnt find them very good in regard to my fist impression for Customer service, in your post you said you didnt find them good too in this regard however you still went a head with them?

Hi All,

With either builders, any idea what the actual process/build time is from tender to handover?

I want to get a quote from HH but their standard layouts just don't work for us!

Sorry this is going to be pretty long...and I don't have much to add re H&H since I never got to tender with them (although their sales person was great to deal with and didn't feel pushed in any way, but we couldn't find their plans to work for us).

I also wanted to add my experience with BB H. We ended up paying for a tender after being pushed into it and ultimately pulled out after we got the tender. This was mainly due to the difficulty of dealing with the sales person. We like to get into details, and look at rules, and consider all our options. We had lots of questions, usually as to what various terms meant or what the rules allowed etc, and felt that our questions weren't answered very well (lot of evasion) and felt like we were being troublesome by asking them or challenging the responses. We also found that responses to our emails were hard to decipher and felt awkward to have to clarify our understanding each time, adding to the feeling that we were being bothersome. It was like the complete opposite of every other sales person we have ever come across - there's a certain "harshness" that put us off so much. We also read the great reviews and that's what attracted us to BB H. However we could not understand how the reviews which spoke about the great sales experience at Oran Park could be so opposite to ours.

Since it was our first tender, we couldn't compare the price with anyone else.
Some good things about BBH: their tender process turnaround was very quick (about 1 week or so after the file was sent off) and their tender price looked "fixed" except I think if they hit rock, and they appeared to have good inclusions.

After pulling out, we decided to try our luck with Wisdom Homes and paid for a tender with them since their promo looked good at the time. The sales person there was fantastic to deal with and answered all our questions to our satisfaction and all their email responses were substantial and in sentences which did not leave the meaning in doubt. However their administration process were soooo slow and it took 3 months to get to tender after our file was sent to head office....I was very unimpressed at this time frame, and even more so when I found there were still so many items included as provisional sums in the tender price... it was almost identical to the initial quote except for a few things like windows.

Since Wisdom was not moving, in the meantime we reached out to Kaplan Homes and ended up signing the contract with them. The experience has been mixed to be honest, but recently seems to be getting much better. We are building one of their designs which has been heavily changed so there has been a lot of back and forth on this which is mainly the reason for this mixed experience - I don't think this would have been the case if we stuck with a standard plan and made common changes. Their sales person was great to deal with, not pushy but very helpful and wanted to give me ideas to make the plan work for me. He now works in the head office and is no longer front office. But overall, their prices and inclusions, in my opinion are better than both BB H and Wisdom. I've been able to upgrade most things and still the price is less than the other two. They have completely fixed site costs for falls up to 1.5m included in their base price (including if they hit rock), which is already low. It's clear they run on lower overheads and are not as flashy in terms of showroom and display homes but if you know what you want through your own research, then it can be quoted even though you won't see it in the showroom for example. They also allow you to price up everything at tender stage (if you know what you want at this stage) and it's free to get a fixed price tender. They also have $1000 per week liquidated damages and a 30 week build time guarantee for double storey. These points, their good online reviews and actually speaking with people who have built with them (through this forum and Instagram) and hearing of their good experience is what swayed us. Currently at post-colour appointment stage and fine tuning a few requests. Looking forward to getting started on our site after a long journey.

Sorry for the essay-length response...but I hope this helps anyone at research stage.