Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 27, 2019 6:47 pm Hi all, Your help is much appreciated. So we had a browse in the studio today as our colour selections appointment is in April. Like everyone else, I'd like to be prepared. We are hoping to build a 2 storey home, 52 squares. We are after with 600 x 600mm gloss tiles for our ground floor but all the samples are in matt finish. I've asked if we can go direct to their supplier instead to choose but was told that those are the only range that they can offer or we do it after hand over. We've signed up for the promotion as 400x400mm floors tiles have been included as reduced price and was told that we can upgrade in our studio appointment to our preferred tiles. If we won't be able to use it then it's a waste of money. We prefer not to do it after hand over. We really like the lay out of our house plan but finishing touches are also important to us. If there are very limited options in our studio selections (flooring, stone benchtop, vanity, taps etc) do we have an option not to go ahead as we haven't signed a contract yet? And any suggestions if we like to go ahead should I insist to go direct to their supplier? We've paid $3k deposit so far, but after the selections then we need to sign a contract and pay 5% deposit. Our land isn't titled until June 2019 but was told we can start preparing now. Thanks After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back out 2Jan 27, 2019 7:28 pm Hi, Whilst I’m in Sydney, this is only my advice. 1. If you like the builder and quality of the work and design of the house, this was the most important factor for us. 2. Personally shiny floor tiles would be a nightmare to keep clean. We went Semi Matt finish. DiLorenzo were the builders tile supplier. 3. 600x600 tiles size were available from our builder but the cost to lay were much higher. Seems to be the 400x400 upgrade is the sweet spot for tilers. Have you spoken to the builders preferred Tile Supplier to see if they have something more to your liking. 4. Shouldn’t be any issues having your tiles do this post hand over TBH. Just make sure the kitchen installers know what tiles you plan on installing so they have the proper heights. 5. If you were to pull out you would probably lose your $3k deposit. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 3Jan 27, 2019 8:54 pm GLO Hi, Whilst I’m in Sydney, this is only my advice. 1. If you like the builder and quality of the work and design of the house, this was the most important factor for us. 2. Personally shiny floor tiles would be a nightmare to keep clean. We went Semi Matt finish. DiLorenzo were the builders tile supplier. 3. 600x600 tiles size were available from our builder but the cost to lay were much higher. Seems to be the 400x400 upgrade is the sweet spot for tilers. Have you spoken to the builders preferred Tile Supplier to see if they have something more to your liking. 4. Shouldn’t be any issues having your tiles do this post hand over TBH. Just make sure the kitchen installers know what tiles you plan on installing so they have the proper heights. 5. If you were to pull out you would probably lose your $3k deposit. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Thanks Glo, yes we really like the design of the house so pulling out is not the best option but I'm worried with the limited options available. I'll go back and check again with the builder. Our current home has 400x400 gloss tiles and I find it easier to clean but I should have listened to my hubby when we built our first home to go for 600x600 so we are going for 600x600 now. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 4Jan 28, 2019 6:38 am Melbournevic GLO Hi, Whilst I’m in Sydney, this is only my advice. 1. If you like the builder and quality of the work and design of the house, this was the most important factor for us. 2. Personally shiny floor tiles would be a nightmare to keep clean. We went Semi Matt finish. DiLorenzo were the builders tile supplier. 3. 600x600 tiles size were available from our builder but the cost to lay were much higher. Seems to be the 400x400 upgrade is the sweet spot for tilers. Have you spoken to the builders preferred Tile Supplier to see if they have something more to your liking. 4. Shouldn’t be any issues having your tiles do this post hand over TBH. Just make sure the kitchen installers know what tiles you plan on installing so they have the proper heights. 5. If you were to pull out you would probably lose your $3k deposit. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Thanks Glo, yes we really like the design of the house so pulling out is not the best option but I'm worried with the limited options available. I'll go back and check again with the builder. Our current home has 400x400 gloss tiles and I find it easier to clean but I should have listened to my hubby when we built our first home to go for 600x600 so we are going for 600x600 now. You can pull out but you will probably loose all of the $3k (we did this and walked away before signing the contract) make a list of all the finishes /fixtures/ materials that are not negotiable and see if they will accommodate you. I know it’s not ideal to do flooring after hand over but it is quite common. I wouldn’t compromise on this it is a massive space and changes the whole look and style of the house. If everything else on the list works I would do it after hand over Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 5Jan 28, 2019 10:02 am Melos Melbournevic GLO Hi, Whilst I’m in Sydney, this is only my advice. 1. If you like the builder and quality of the work and design of the house, this was the most important factor for us. 2. Personally shiny floor tiles would be a nightmare to keep clean. We went Semi Matt finish. DiLorenzo were the builders tile supplier. 3. 600x600 tiles size were available from our builder but the cost to lay were much higher. Seems to be the 400x400 upgrade is the sweet spot for tilers. Have you spoken to the builders preferred Tile Supplier to see if they have something more to your liking. 4. Shouldn’t be any issues having your tiles do this post hand over TBH. Just make sure the kitchen installers know what tiles you plan on installing so they have the proper heights. 5. If you were to pull out you would probably lose your $3k deposit. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Thanks Glo, yes we really like the design of the house so pulling out is not the best option but I'm worried with the limited options available. I'll go back and check again with the builder. Our current home has 400x400 gloss tiles and I find it easier to clean but I should have listened to my hubby when we built our first home to go for 600x600 so we are going for 600x600 now. You can pull out but you will probably loose all of the $3k (we did this and walked away before signing the contract) make a list of all the finishes /fixtures/ materials that are not negotiable and see if they will accommodate you. I know it’s not ideal to do flooring after hand over but it is quite common. I wouldn’t compromise on this it is a massive space and changes the whole look and style of the house. If everything else on the list works I would do it after hand over Thanks Melos, I'll make a list and will contact our CSR about it. We try to avoid doing most of the stuff after handover most especially the big ones as we would prefer them included in the loan but if we don't have a choice then it looks like it's the way to go. Should I let them know that we may pull out if they aren't able to supply what we are after so at least they can try rather than just saying no to all our requests? Losing the $3k deposit isn't that much for them compared with losing us as their client. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 6Jan 28, 2019 3:04 pm Melbournevic Melos Melbournevic [quote="GLO"]Hi, Whilst I’m in Sydney, this is only my advice. 1. If you like the builder and quality of the work and design of the house, this was the most important factor for us. 2. Personally shiny floor tiles would be a nightmare to keep clean. We went Semi Matt finish. DiLorenzo were the builders tile supplier. 3. 600x600 tiles size were available from our builder but the cost to lay were much higher. Seems to be the 400x400 upgrade is the sweet spot for tilers. Have you spoken to the builders preferred Tile Supplier to see if they have something more to your liking. 4. Shouldn’t be any issues having your tiles do this post hand over TBH. Just make sure the kitchen installers know what tiles you plan on installing so they have the proper heights. 5. If you were to pull out you would probably lose your $3k deposit. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Thanks Glo, yes we really like the design of the house so pulling out is not the best option but I'm worried with the limited options available. I'll go back and check again with the builder. Our current home has 400x400 gloss tiles and I find it easier to clean but I should have listened to my hubby when we built our first home to go for 600x600 so we are going for 600x600 now. You can pull out but you will probably loose all of the $3k (we did this and walked away before signing the contract) make a list of all the finishes /fixtures/ materials that are not negotiable and see if they will accommodate you. I know it’s not ideal to do flooring after hand over but it is quite common. I wouldn’t compromise on this it is a massive space and changes the whole look and style of the house. If everything else on the list works I would do it after hand over Thanks Melos, I'll make a list and will contact our CSR about it. We try to avoid doing most of the stuff after handover most especially the big ones as we would prefer them included in the loan but if we don't have a choice then it looks like it's the way to go. Should I let them know that we may pull out if they aren't able to supply what we are after so at least they can try rather than just saying no to all our requests? Losing the $3k deposit isn't that much for them compared with losing us as their client.[/quote] It really comes down to if they are deal breakers or not. You are spending a lot of money on your house and you have to live with the selections you make. Starting the process again from scratch with a new builder put us back 12 months but now I’m so glad we did it. Good luck I’m sure you will work it out Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 7Jan 28, 2019 8:49 pm Melos It really comes down to if they are deal breakers or not. You are spending a lot of money on your house and you have to live with the selections you make. Starting the process again from scratch with a new builder put us back 12 months but now I’m so glad we did it. Good luck I’m sure you will work it out Thanks again Melos. May I ask what was the reason why did you have to pull out? Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 8Jan 29, 2019 4:45 pm Melbournevic Melos It really comes down to if they are deal breakers or not. You are spending a lot of money on your house and you have to live with the selections you make. Starting the process again from scratch with a new builder put us back 12 months but now I’m so glad we did it. Good luck I’m sure you will work it out Thanks again Melos. May I ask what was the reason why did you have to pull out? Our solicitor advised us not to sign the contract. It was very one sided. Rawsons response was always management says no and there is no discussion. We felt that if they wouldn’t at least talk to us at the preplanning stage then how would discussions go if there were any problems during build, especially when the special conditions are so one sided. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 9Jan 30, 2019 11:09 am Melos Melbournevic Melos It really comes down to if they are deal breakers or not. You are spending a lot of money on your house and you have to live with the selections you make. Starting the process again from scratch with a new builder put us back 12 months but now I’m so glad we did it. Good luck I’m sure you will work it out Thanks again Melos. May I ask what was the reason why did you have to pull out? Our solicitor advised us not to sign the contract. It was very one sided. Rawsons response was always management says no and there is no discussion. We felt that if they wouldn’t at least talk to us at the preplanning stage then how would discussions go if there were any problems during build, especially when the special conditions are so one sided. That's no good if one sided. Builders should value their clients. Your decision was right. You lost the $3k but it was really the lost opportunity for them. They could have earned a lot more than $3k. Our only option is to do tiling after hand over as our builder confirmed that they cannot supply 600 x 600mm gloss tiles. My only worry is that we have signed up for the promotion package where we pay $36k for the additional upgrades worth $60k to also cater for the flooring. I have just emailed our builder if they will allow us to change and select a new lower amount from their promotion package, otherwise we have no choice but not to go ahead as we will be wasting a lot of money. Hope they will come back with a good response. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 10Jan 30, 2019 8:24 pm What was the variation cost they offered you back if you did tiling after handover? Assuming that tiling was already in your contract price. Will that cover cost of tiles and laying? Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 11Jan 31, 2019 11:25 am Steve4216 What was the variation cost they offered you back if you did tiling after handover? Assuming that tiling was already in your contract price. Will that cover cost of tiles and laying? Our CSR hasn't got back to me but in our home proposal they quoted us $10k for ceramic 400 x 400mm floor tiles 133.4 sqm in total (family, kitchen and study). We are not into contract yet. The $10k is included in the promotion where we can use $60k worth of upgrades but only pay $36k, so around 40% in savings. During the sales quote, we were advised that we can upgrade to 600 x 600mm tiles and just pay the difference, but since there's no gloss tiles then we have to do it after hand over. We have signed up for the bigger promotion as we are hoping to include the flooring but since we cannot, I'm requesting our builder if they can allow us to choose the lower amount of upgrades so we will only have to pay $20k+ instead of $36k. I'm still waiting for a response. I haven't asked though if we can supply our own tiles then the builder to install. I am unsure if this is common or if the builder will allow. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 12Jan 31, 2019 12:50 pm That's the problem with the "promotions". Unfortunately there's a lot of these advertised and you aren't actually saving any money, as they add it in elsewhere, or have a limited choice of stock as they have bought clearance or cheap items in bulk to cover the numerous builds using the promotion. They should still take the $10000 (or the full allowance not including the promotion) off the quoted price, then it's up to you if you wanted to check with a tiling company on installation after completion.. 600x600 tiling is usually more expensive to lay rather then 400x400. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 13Jan 31, 2019 5:09 pm Steve4216 That's the problem with the "promotions". Unfortunately there's a lot of these advertised and you aren't actually saving any money, as they add it in elsewhere, or have a limited choice of stock as they have bought clearance or cheap items in bulk to cover the numerous builds using the promotion. They should still take the $10000 (or the full allowance not including the promotion) off the quoted price, then it's up to you if you wanted to check with a tiling company on installation after completion.. 600x600 tiling is usually more expensive to lay rather then 400x400. Thanks Steve4216, yes marketing strategy I guess. Agree, they should take the allowance off the quoted price. I haven't received a response yet from our CSR as I think she is communicating our request within their management but hope to receive good outcome soon. If they can't consider our request, then we have no choice but to pull out. We are not in a hurry anyway since our land isn't titled until June 2019. They were the one who rushed us since after we paid the deposit because they have a timeline that we need to meet even if the land isn't available yet. I just feel frustrated as I spent so much time with the house lay out. We did make a lot of changes and I'm happy with how it turned out. Also feeling sad if we aren't going ahead as our previous sales consultant had to spend so much hours with it too. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 14Feb 06, 2019 6:02 am Just an update that I have spoken with someone who happens to be building with the same builder as ours and they were able to use the included tile promotion to their bathroom and ensuite walls. The promotion says tile flooring but I didn't know that it is allowed as well for the walls. We will have 4 ensuites so might use the promotion there instead for the walls. The included promotion is for 400x400mm tiles, to upgrade to 300x600mm it would be $65 per sqm additional. The 600x600mm gloss tiles for the floor we have to do after hand over. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 16Feb 06, 2019 9:41 am DamNita Do not get shiny tiles. I repeat do not get shiny tiles. Absolute nightmare to keep clean, especially with kids!! Thanks DamNita, mine's a teenager so all good for me. We have shiny tiles in our current home and I find it a lot easier to clean. Maybe this works for me. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 17Feb 06, 2019 10:22 am I loved my 600x600 rectified edge, shiny tiles! Ive just moved into a rental while we build again and we have Matt tiles (Ive been here a week) and I hate them!, everything looks dirty and hazy. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 18Feb 06, 2019 10:52 am Melbournevic Just an update that I have spoken with someone who happens to be building with the same builder as ours and they were able to use the included tile promotion to their bathroom and ensuite walls. The promotion says tile flooring but I didn't know that it is allowed as well for the walls. We will have 4 ensuites so might use the promotion there instead for the walls. The included promotion is for 400x400mm tiles, to upgrade to 300x600mm it would be $65 per sqm additional. The 600x600mm gloss tiles for the floor we have to do after hand over. That seems extremely expensive to go from 400x400 to 600x300? That's almost my allowance for my tiling from scratch (Not just upgrade) and mine includes 600x300.. If thats what they are charging for that "upgrade" then I'd be double make sure I have EVERYTHING in my original contract that I want, as upgrading anything may cost a fortune... Others with more experience may have different views. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 19Feb 06, 2019 11:28 am gogo65 I loved my 600x600 rectified edge, shiny tiles! Ive just moved into a rental while we build again and we have Matt tiles (Ive been here a week) and I hate them!, everything looks dirty and hazy. Good decision for us then to have 600x600 shiny tiles. Thanks, I won't change my mind. Re: After Studio/Colour Selections - is it too late to back 20Feb 06, 2019 11:34 am Steve4216 Melbournevic Just an update that I have spoken with someone who happens to be building with the same builder as ours and they were able to use the included tile promotion to their bathroom and ensuite walls. The promotion says tile flooring but I didn't know that it is allowed as well for the walls. We will have 4 ensuites so might use the promotion there instead for the walls. The included promotion is for 400x400mm tiles, to upgrade to 300x600mm it would be $65 per sqm additional. The 600x600mm gloss tiles for the floor we have to do after hand over. That seems extremely expensive to go from 400x400 to 600x300? That's almost my allowance for my tiling from scratch (Not just upgrade) and mine includes 600x300.. If thats what they are charging for that "upgrade" then I'd be double make sure I have EVERYTHING in my original contract that I want, as upgrading anything may cost a fortune... Others with more experience may have different views. Ohh really. That is no good then for having this promotion which we will end up paying more. I'll probably do my research on the cost for different tile sizes so we have an idea. Our selection appointment is in April but it makes me worried with the upgrade costs. For the other ensuites, I'll probably go with 400x400 standard so we don't need to pay a fortune. How much are you ahead in payments compared to where the build is at? Have you fully drawn down the loan? 5 11928 I would suggest you simply go and talk to council about your proposal, most councils are getting onboard with ancillary dwellings. There is no benefit in keeping it… 1 4114 Like I said the Occupancy Certificate is not the tollgate that marks the completion of the house. The contract defines… 7 10749 |