Are you building with Alkira?

We're on our 3rd "serious" builder ... and that's Alkira. We've gone further down the path with them than with anyone else.

Long boring backstory; loved a display-home (at [url=http://www.homequest.com.au]Homequest at Bella Vista[/url) by a custom builder, it had everything we wanted. Took us 9 months to not think about it & prepare for the plunge ... and meanwhile they went broke. So we started looking around for someone who could build us a light comfy airy eco home; which nobody else will do without charging an arm & a leg, as it turns out. Search for another custom builder resulted in a $1.2m estimate - ack! Decided on a project builder, looked around, got very serious with Rawson Homes, but since giving them the original brief their business seems to have boomed and they no longer want to do something largely custom; which took us 8 months to find-out. So the next round of questions we had for project builders were very very specific; a few builders didn't get back to me for various reasons, but in the end the only two (who did respond) who could/would do what we wanted were Alkira and Jandson Homes.

We ended-up with Alkira (thus far) & submitted for tender mid December, no real reason apart maybe from their display homes looking better finished. We're going with a quite-modified Olivia (with the study & spare bedroom of the largest Elyse 15 downstairs, upstairs completely rearranged to have a big lounge & our bedroom facing north, and a separate shed in the back yard). So where we're at is our colour & electricals meetings are next week, kitchen selections the week after, we're awaiting council's driveway-levels and because I've got some unusual requirements for the backyard shed we're awaiting an engineering design on the slab. Floorplan is pretty-much finalised.

So far we've been a lot more impressed with their customer service than Rawson. Yes it's taken a long time to get to where we are (faster than Rawson), but the person doing the work on each stage is in contact with us & asking questions, whereas at Rawson that person would either make assumptions or go through the (pleasant but busy) salesdude.

I can't say if I can recommend Alkira until we're finished, of course, but it's looking most likely we will build with them (I'd say it was definite we were building with them if we'd not encountered so many extended false-starts before).

One comment; their sales people seem empowered to actually give you a price on most things you'd want, so the tender process takes a week or two rather than a few months.

Another comment; getting extra stuff done (over standard) does seem to be expensive with them. This could be just because of what extra stuff we're getting (the shed with special slab requirements, double-glazed thermally-broken-frames windows/stackers, Hebel flooring upstairs so we can lay tiles, lots of etc). Depending on what you want, of course, you may not want this "extra stuff"; and their standard designs seem to be fairly solid but expensive ... and example a friend encountered with another builder was being told that removing the upstairs cladding and replacing with brick was an expensive job because the upstairs wall wasn't directly over a downstairs wall so a lot of reinforcing would be needed to cope with the weight of the bricks, yet the Elyse (for example) has upstairs walls not over downstairs ones & comes fully bricked as standard (I'm sure they're not the only builder who builds like that, but it did make me feel a little better than the house sructure wasn't too weak to cope with bricks ).

A final comment; don't get too attached to the imported French hardwood flooring in that Elyse 15 at Homeworld ... Oh My it's eye-wateringly expensive (can't recall exactly but $200 per lineal metre rings a bell, and the boards are about a foot wide so if I'm right on that cost it'd come to ~$600/sqm!!).

i am at plan stage with Alkira, we choose it just because ELYSE 15 suits our block. Only problem found now is slow. It took us more than two month to fix plan, wish won't cost long later

I think our site costs are a little high, but on our tender they're also bundling pretty much anything not related to either the base house-price or house-related options into 'site costs'. So while it still seems high compared to what others are saying, it's difficult to tell.

*edit*
I've changed this because I've got the tender here ... ours is actually about $47k in total.
It includes:
* Machine Hire and Site Preparation to house area only
* Power Connection: Overhead to property pole then underground 3 phase mains cabling up to rear of meter box
* Piering - screw piers for up to 'H1' rated site classification, regardless of depth.
* Concrete pump for ground floor slab
* Sewer - Connection to existing sewer main within property boundary.
* Stormwater Drainage Connection – standard connection of roof water to Rainwater tank with overflow to street
* Diamond saw cut to kerb and metal kerb adaptor (stormwater connection to street)
* Telstra conduit & lead in wire for future telephone connection by others
* Travel & Zone allowance
* Provide up to "H1" rated site classification suitable concrete slab
* Provide Siltation and Erosion Control measures
* Provide Temporary Access Driveway
* Provide site security fence to comply with O H & S requirements
* Provide roof safety rail to comply with WorkCover Authority requirements
* Hydraulic design for Rainwater / Detention Tank
* Site Analysis Report required by Council
* Council Development Application (D.A.) fee
* Standard Sydney Water Authority Approval fee
* Construction Certification inspections and fees, and Long Service Levy

As for prices on changes, we're finding it pays to ask for a price on anything we can think of; it's nearly impossible to guess whether the price you'll get is super-ridiculous & double street-price, or relatively inexpensive.

Make sure you get anything you want, and which isn't included in a package or installed in a display-home, in your tender. We were initially told we could have anything which could be supplied by Home Options Gallery; when it then came to interiors & kitchens they wouldn't let us change the kitchen sink from one of the standard offerings in the package (or we could also go with the one from the standard inclusions). So clarify anything non-standard before assuming you'll be allowed to pay extra to get it.
The flexibility was a large part of why we went with Alkira, so it's a bit odd they've gone this way. Or maybe the Home Options Gallery person was misinformed.

Our experience was kinda different to that; noting that the majority of threads are older than an alleged restructure which took a lot of that costing work away from the salespeople. I think that restructure worked!
We found that the saleslady had access to costings on a lot of things, which needed to go away to the estimations team for getting prices with other builders. Not much of our requests needed input from estimations, which is probably why we had a cost-estimate within about 2 weeks for something which (for example) Rawson took 3 months to get half-right.

We're now past anything that was discussed in any threads I found; they were almost all related to to-and-fro with the sales team, and as soon as we signed the initial tender we were passed on to someone different. Things have slowed-down a bit now admittedly, but at least they're actually talking to us every day or two so we know there's some progress (and know why everything takes so long). Having a 3-month wait where the only contact is you begging the salesguy for an update is much more frustrating than getting asked questions about options & requirements every 2nd day.

Chumlee, when you say you signed the tender, I'm not quite sure what you mean (we've signed various versions of the damned thing at least 4 times now ... ).

Do you mean you've signed the agreement, to pay the money and get them to issue you a tender? The fastest we had any builder give us a tender (ie. this situation) was a week, we had all surveys etc to give to that builder (they didn't have to organise any surveys or reports) so all they had to do was plonk their standard house on the block & price it. Alkira took about 2 weeks to do the same thing, if I recall correctly; although in the Alkira case it included a lot of extra stuff.

What, exactly, are you waiting for?

Hrm ... I suspect I know who you mean, and I reckon she needs a personal assistant or something ... yeah, what you've described in your meeting sounds pretty much what happened in our tender presentation, she went through everything we'd initially discussed and then she added extra bits & pieces which came-up during the discussion (most of which she already had prices, but some of which did need to go away to estimating).

I suspect you do need to get the revised tender out of her, yeah, because she's going to have to be the one to type-in her written changes. I must admit I can't remember how long until we saw it; the stage you're currently at was over Christmas so everything in builder-land was shutting down (and there were things only the estimator could cost).

You're just about to be handed-over from the sales team to the paperwork/organising teams though (I have no idea what they're called). I think the delay in your case may just be one person not quite getting around to it, but it might be worth giving their head-office a call and telling you that you'd read that your file was possibly already handed to someone in admin & you're wondering what it's up-to and you really need your updated tender etc. Then you're not talking to just the one person.

also, the customer service lady says my file has been handed off to construction and will go through their process which should be much easier to deal with...
here's hoping!

Thanks for the tips.. Will now have a good think

Just to clarify I was only waiting on the the scanned copy of the written version that was supposed to have been given to us. I do understand the typed version might take awhile.

Chumlee, it's only an agreement if they said in writing that they would put steps in down from the alfresco. If they said this, then you have course to complain to them. If not, then probably you'll have to wear it. They do seem flexible though.