Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 182Jan 23, 2011 2:35 pm Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 185Jan 25, 2011 9:53 pm House - Lockup completed 23rd December 2011 - Painters are in!!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37261&start=0&hilit=Blaxland Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 186Jan 25, 2011 10:08 pm House - Lockup completed 23rd December 2011 - Painters are in!!! https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37261&start=0&hilit=Blaxland Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 188Feb 08, 2011 9:50 am Deemaree Kyndylan Capers: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=46852 My blog: http://www.sufficientlysufficient.blogspot.com/ Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 189Feb 16, 2011 6:30 pm We are building with NBG. It has been a long process getting to the build stage. We changed house designs after a few months of planning as the site costs for the first home were going to be $35k. We changed homes from a 56sq to 50sq - reducing the size and presenting a compaction report lowered site costs to approx $24k (our block is flat but on fill). We changed & tweaked the plans to suit ourselves which is one of the things I loved about the planning process. Our consultant came up with some great ideas and nothing was too much trouble. We were extremely happy with the end result of the design. We first signed our contract in Aug 2010 and then went through the variation & upgrade process and then re-drafting etc. We have roughly spent an extra $25k on upgrades (this is our dream home - well one based in reality ) We had our appointment at Colourworld back in early November, this was pretty exciting and we were very happy with the service & help. We expected things to get a real move on after that however due to some extra council requirements, xmas and more council delays our block has been sitting pegged out since early December...then nothing . Our slab was supposed to be poured mid Jan. Pretty frustrated at this stage but we have finally got some excavation happening so hopefully it will now go forward in leaps and bounds (this is what our builder has told us) This is our 3rd build (1st with nbg) so we are no strangers to the process and at this point I would say this is slow compared to the others. Hopefully once it actually gets going we can start to relax about it a little. I do think the end result will be worth the wait here is my blog (some house details, colourworld selections etc. I thought I would have written a lot more about our build by now hopefully much more very soon). Just skip over the family stuff - I don't have time to do separate blogs . You are welcome to follow our build journey http://8eightisenough.blogspot.com/ http://8eightisenough.blogspot.com/ Link to thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=45130&p=744918#p744918 Building the Windsor 43E by NBG Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 190Feb 19, 2011 1:02 pm We are almost at the end of a NBG house build. -Hotham 26 (with lots of changes to the plans from us) and all i can say is thank god! Up to the point where we were handed over to our builder, Citiwest, the entire journey was long painful and rather heartbreaking at times, with us at one point, thinking we were going to lose our dream entirely. When they did the handover to the builder, they didnt bother to hand over the compaction reports, and until we were told by Citiwest that we needed 36 piers which would cost us in excess of $50k, we would never have known! This was the heart ache that we were talking about. As many of you here are first home owners like us, im sure you can relate to the fact that money is not something that is plentiful, so when we were told that we needed all these piers, we were at the point of losing our deposits and having to sell our block. Thankfully, our next door neighbour in the estate is a builder and suggested asking CW weather they had compaction reports, since he figured it was impossible that we needed so many piers, when there were only 2 houses in our entire street that he knew of that needed only 2 piers. We asked, and thanks to our neighbour, discovered NBG stuff up. They forgot to hand over some of the documents! In the end, we ended up having to put to piers in on one side... that was all. A lot less to try and find finacially than $50k. Citiwest on the other hand... OMG, these guys have been fantastic and the site Manager has been fabulous! We are at the Fixing stage - so almost done. We are doing our own flooring - Bamboo and carpet and installing our own heating and AC through Plum since NBG were so expensive in comparison for a less quality product than we have found. It is amazing though, reading through all the posts here, the different expereinces that people have had, though i guess its the same with every builder. Me personally, if i had to deal with NBG thr entire way through this build, I would have definately never dealt with them again, and would probably been committed by now. The only issue we have had to this point is that we wanted our skirtings to be supplied but not installed, so we could do the flooring first, which NBG said we could do, only to discover last week, CW would not do. So, that has caused an unexpected cost to use to have these removed for flooring to be done and reinstalled. Other than that... everything else has run rather smoothly.. We have been told that we should be done by the end of march... Bring it on! Building the NBG Hotham 26 (altered by us) through CitiWest Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 191Feb 19, 2011 7:06 pm That's interesting Sandra. We had heaps of piers and that is where a real cost blow out occurred with us as well. It wasn't until our neighbour asked if we had submitted a compaction report that we were even aware of it. Turns out our nbg consultant suggested getting the report also a day or so later but this is after we had already gone to our first quote - just thought it was something nbg would have been on to right from the start (would have saved us from the heart attack we had) Number of piers went down after that but we've still got a few unfortunatley. Hope the rest of your build is pain free! http://8eightisenough.blogspot.com/ Link to thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=45130&p=744918#p744918 Building the Windsor 43E by NBG Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 192Feb 20, 2011 7:45 pm im sorry that you had to expereince the same thing... I hope that the rest of our build is painless! Thanks for the well wishes.. i hope that the rest of the build will be pain free... goodness knows, we are only a few weeks away so really... im hoping they dont pull out a curve ball on us now! hahaha. Na... i think we are on the home stretch now... yay! Building the NBG Hotham 26 (altered by us) through CitiWest Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 193Feb 24, 2011 7:10 pm Hey Everyone, I'm another first home builder that is considering NBG, my partner and I are incredibly happy with the inclusions they offer (home cinema pack!) and we have payed the $500 holding fee. I'm a little worried after reading all the posts about how long it took to get the contract together, I'm hoping that because we're building in a new estate, the process shouldn't be as painful. I've submitted soil compaction reports, designer guidelines, and everything else I could think of that our Sales Rep (Jason) would need to get everything together for us. We did make some alterations to the design (The City 230E) however I don't think it was anything too major (just reducing the length of the house to fit the easement we have along the back fence line) ... plus NBG advertise that they are happy to make alterations to the designs. Is there anything else I should do? Or is it just time to play the waiting game? Everyone seems so helpful in these forums, it's great! Mat Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 194Feb 24, 2011 8:35 pm We are in between fixing and completion stage for our Buckingham 36. Building is never smooth, and we never expected it to be smooth. Just do your homework and remember it is a two way thing between you and NBG. We just made sure the communication lines were always open and although things are sometimes slow, they also seem to work out in the end. A few "nutshell" comments about our experience so far; 1) NBG sales rep. was very good. 2) Contracts process not the best, we did a knock down rebuild, and did not get too much guidance from NBG. Process largely driven by ourselves, and seemingly NBG were "learning" with us along the way! 3) Be very, very careful reading your contracts, don't be in a rush to sign on during your quote presentation. There can be quite a few mistakes in the initial quote. We had a fair few in ours, some of the younger staff in their offices can be quite error prone. Take the contract documents home and digest it well. If you work well with your sales rep you can also work through the contract with him/her. 4) Our Colourworld consultant was very good. Helpful and didn't rush us. 5) Our builder is very good with communicating and getting back to us on matters. Sometimes progress seems slow but most delays when you discuss with the builder are not unreasonable. Quality of build is good, we are happy. I do hope we finish soon! Can't wait to get in... Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 195Feb 24, 2011 9:00 pm Hey guys me and my fiance are just about to start building, our process with NBG has been pretty good through the whole thing.They changed our house plans with no questions asked, everything was done pretty much on time so i would recommend people going with NBG. Some people on this forum expect too much from builders so dont believe everything that is said on here. Their inclusions are alos pretty good compared to other builders Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 196Mar 04, 2011 1:41 pm We are building a Buckingham 320E in Eastern Suburbs, Melbourne. The main reason we chose NBG, is their flexibility of design and site access for owners works. Other building companies don't even allow you to step foot on site without a site supervisor being present at a scheduled time, let alone you do work there We signed up in Feb 2010 and took the 3 month price freeze. We used that time to thoroughly research all aspects of the NBG product and our site etc. NBG did pressure us to sign the Q&A by a certain date, and hit us for another $1k due to a 'so called' price increase. Initially I was furious, but then I saw that the base price of our house had actually risen $18k since our signup! We got off lightly. Contract times & payment stages are very generous towards builder - over 300 days to build a house. I would definitely change this and the payment options if I ever build with NBG or anyone again We made substantial structural changes, NBG were happy to accommodate these. Communication between departments is not great. The way drafting interpreted the written Q&A document into drawings was erroneous. We had 5 sets of plans before final, to weed out mistakes. In my opinion, if anything, NBG lack good communication. From a clients perspective, they are very had to get hold of at the best of times. Once you have paid your 5% and signed off you Colour Selections, you deal with your builder from then on. Which, in my case, is great See the 'My tips for NBG Clients' section of my blog for more info. Cheers Building NBG Buckingham 320E Eastern Suburbs Melbourne Knockdown & rebuild Build startup 28th October 2010 http://buckingham320e-the4ofus.blogspot.com/ Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 197Mar 07, 2011 12:45 pm We're with NBG too.....signed the contract in Jul 2009 and still waiting for the house to be handed over to us.... NBG's subcontractor Infinity has told us that they had applied for occupancy certificate..first inspection was done by the building surveyor on 22Feb and the FINAL inspection on 1st Mar. They say that the surveyor provides the report in 48 hrs. but we haven't heard back from Infinity (as usual)...Anyone knows how long it takes to get the occupancy certificate after the building surveyor has done the inspection....?? Has anyone dealt with Infinity before? Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 198Mar 10, 2011 11:18 pm Hi All, It's been interesting reading everyone's comments. I understand that building is never easy and there are bound to be problems. I am however frusstrated at the lack of expertise and knowledge I encountered from many of the NBG staff. Though my experience, I had to do most of the work and they still got it wrong, and I would have to keep repeating myself and checking their work until they finally did their job right. I don't blame my builder so much, I think NBG have assigned him too much work and he can not cope with the workload. On the positive side my slab has finally gone down! After speaking with consumer affairs I finally got some action. Let's see how things progress from here. All the best to everyone with their build! Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 199Mar 19, 2011 11:29 am We are building the Vaucluse 390E. Our experience with NBG and our builder has been incredibly time consuming, frustrating and disappointing. I have never come across a company with poorer communication and accountability in my life. As for the comment 'people expect too much of builders' - here's what I expect: - good, open, honest and timely communication - accuracy and attention to detail when dealing with drawings, quotes and contracts - that things are delivered or completed as promised - if there are delays or problems these are communicated - that the build progresses as a reasonable rate, per contract timeline - that building materials such as windows, doors and timber are not left sitting exposed to the elements for months (causing things like bent roof trusses and cracked, split, water damaged reveals) - that all work completed is of a good standard - that the site doesn't look like a bomb has hit it - that the building site is secure None of the above has occurred in our case (I'm not saying this is the case for everyone). I would NEVER use them again, I would advise against anyone else doing so. Re: Any comment on National Builders Group 200Mar 30, 2011 7:12 pm Hi All, we signed up in august 2010 and last week received final working drawings... i think its a case of squeaky wheel gets the oil.. in hindsight i should have squeaked alot more. ---------------------------------------------------- Living the dream.... yeap a mortgage... 4 15887 Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. We definitely wish to settle and get these people out of our life. They are trying to charge us interest on late… 7 15302 I would never build with Fowler homes. I built with them in 2021 and till date maintenance issues are pending. All their existing trades and businesses don't work with… 14 110962 |