Browse Forums Building A New House Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 4Aug 22, 2008 2:19 pm Thanks for that, yeah I think its the people who is working on your house that makes the big difference, whether being its PD, Hen or Met, it all boils down to getting the good ones from the bad.
I do really like the house (Mercer), as we have made a few changes to the standard. All I want is a good quality home in the end that does not take longer than 9 month to build. WELL I HOPE If anyone else out there has good or bad experiences please chuck in your two cents. Thanks Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 5Aug 22, 2008 4:52 pm sorry, i forgot to mention
one of my colleagues is also building with Met, she is building Grandview 30. Few days back she told me that they were now at lock up stage and she is very happy with them so far. whenever i speak to her, she crosses her fingers and says " so far so good" So, i think really it depends on people you get to deal with and depends how patient and calm and composed you are to deal with their mistakes because we know all of them are going to make mistakes, some might make more and some might make less. So SonnyG just go with what your gut says. all the best Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 6Aug 22, 2008 5:06 pm Hi, we're in the eastern suburbs and will be moving into our new house in 2 weeks time. It's taken exactly 6 months to build (Santorini 29). Our headache was mainly with the pre-build and we were misled over siting costs and delayed for ages, mainly due to lack of communication..
I think they build good houses but our experience of their customer service has been shocking. I think we've had one phone call from our CSC during the entire build. It's always left to us to do the chasing. They've caused me quite a lot of stress and anxiety by just never letting us know what's going on and being very cagey about dates - it's like a huge secret when they've booked tradies in. I have to say though, I've not met anyone who has built with them in Vic that have gone over contract, I think our build contract ends in November so they've finished well ahead of time. Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 7Aug 22, 2008 5:15 pm Hi Pod
How did they mislead you over site costs? Did they charge you more than what was in the contract? Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 8Aug 22, 2008 7:54 pm Sonnyg,
We are building with M and our house is at fixing stage. Hmmm... what can i say? Our 1st SC was great, but when we started changing the house, we realised that there was a better SC than her (he was very good with Signature houses) so we requested for an SC replacement. It took a long time to change SC because the 1st SC was claiming she did a lot of work for us already. But we were able to get a better deal with the SC and he was more knowledgeable with all the upgrades. We even spoke with the SM just to insist that we want the new SC. Then goes the contract stage.. we went straight to contract as we were already late in building (needed to build within a year from land settlement and it was 1.5 yrs already and we haven't started building!). There were some errors with the plans during contract signing, but we only signed on the agreement that all the errors would be fixed post contract, and they did! We had lots of variations with the colours, tiles, etc (after contract signing) and our colour consultant was more than willing to change them. Our only complaints are as follows: - our CSC during building only responds to emails after weeks of follow up. once we follow up and cc her manager, that's the time that she calls us - issue with the slab overhang, which was fixed afterwards - some drawing issues that were only realised during the build (e.g. needed to make the bulkhead to HT smaller due to the high doors that we wanted, location of the fridge power point, etc.) What worked for us was that we always inform our CSC (although response has always been late) as soon as we find any issues with the house. If we don't receive feedback and we feel that it's major/urgent, we copy furnish the CM and CSM to ensure that higher management is aware of our issues. The most important thing is, we LOVE the house and it's the perfect house for our block (due to orientation and addresses most of the design guidelines. When we joined this forum, we learned that - no builder is perfect - building a house involves frustration, stress and a lot of emotion - you could get your builder's attention once you elevate the issues to the higher management - it's worth to get an independent inspection There was a time that we were so stressed and almost felt giving up. The forum members here helped us a lot to handle the situation. Over all, we never regreted our decision to build with M. I believe all people who builds a house experience some kind of stress/frustration along the way. Fingers crossed though.. as we still have 4 weeks to go before handover.. Let's see what happens within that 4 weeks. Good luck on your decision on which house to build. the most important thing is, you like the house that you are going to build. after all, you're going to live in it for so many years! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Built the Nevada 42 Next project - landscaping! Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 9Aug 22, 2008 8:35 pm homeishome Hi Pod How did they mislead you over site costs? Did they charge you more than what was in the contract? Hi, our initial SC was good in that she helped us choose the right home for our block, but I distinctly remember having to really drag a site cost estimate out of her, she said she couldn't say, I asked for a rough idea and she said 'about $5000'. They did all the soil tests etc, and we did Studio 501, went for our PC signing to find that site costs had come in at $22000. They basically missed out an entire step of their flow chart in that we didn't have any feedback about site costs, I think we should have had a proper quote from them once they got all the tests back. We refused to pay that amount. So followed about 8 weeks of them going on a wild goose chase and trying to blame everyone else for the expensive site costs, even suggesting we go back to the land developers as they'd put too much top soil on the land or some such nonsense. Denied that the SC had ever told us an estimate and then said the responsibility was with us for never asking for an exact estimate of site costs, apparently we'd only ever asked if they could actually build on our block of land. Complete bollocks, but their word against ours. At this point my OH flipped and sent them an email listing all their promises that they boast of on their website and pointing out how they'd failed at each step. They phoned him about 2 minutes after he'd sent this email and finally did something - spoke to someone higher up who worked out if the house was moved 800mm to the side this would save us about$8K. Then we cut a few other upgrades out (like air con) and got back to within budget (just about ). So that was the saga - this was all exactly a year ago! I'm kind of resigned to their rubbish customer service now, I don't get as stressed as I used to about it and I've got used to phoning/emailing and stating very simply what I want and expect rather than ranting. Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 10Aug 23, 2008 10:49 am Yeah we had a similar story to the site cost pod, but our was charging too much for a little cut a fill. Our initial Sales Consultant ran a fixed site cost calculation and came to $17,500, which I new was wrong as our land is pretty much flat. The land did rise in the front 5 metres but after that it was level. Then she said that the cost will change after they do our soil test and the exact cost would be shown in our pre-lim contract. Then on our pre-lim contract we noticed that the cost didn't change and our customer service said it was a fixed cost and couldn't be change. Looking at the engineering report all they had to do was shift 100mm from one side to another and they wanted to charge $17,500 for that. Said that we were not going to pay that for such a little job that it'll take them 30 min to do. She saw her manager and brought it down to $12,500, which I still think is expensive. I think that it should of cost on around $8K - $10K, they explained as well about our slab was 'H' class, reasoning why it cost so much, but in the end we just went with it as we wanted to build that house and they were the only ones who were going to do it.
Tell you what, they really know how to make money off us from an easy job. Once the building starts hopefully in October, I'll keep my eye on them like a hawk (GO THE HAWKS!!!) and like everyone says, rough it out, keep on them and don't take any crap. Thanks guys Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 11Aug 23, 2008 9:15 pm Hi Sonny,
We are building with M3tricon in regional Victoria, based out of their Traralgon office. We've had a pretty good run so far (we get handover in a week) but it helps to be a bit assertive along the way. I'll even give them a conditional plug: IF we were to build again, AND we could use the same sales reps, supervisors, customer service and front office people, AND certain tradespeople were not used again, THEN we wouldn't even bother looking for a different builder. Geoff - Decophile. Re: M3tricon in Victoria - General consensus 12Aug 24, 2008 7:16 am Hi,
We built the mercer and we're very happy with it! Started in June last year and house was finished in Dec. We didn't move until Feb because we we're waiting on flooring being finished. Overall very happy with the build. We got Kevin to do pre-plaster and final inspection - I think this was important. The builders agreed to fix any problems that were identified. A lot depends which area you're in, which contractors you get etc. Keep on top of things, keep an eye on the build and raise any issues immediately with your csc and I'm sure you'll be fine. Good luck with your build! Metricon Alfresco Debate 13Sep 02, 2008 6:54 pm Hi
I was looking atbuilding with another builder and did some searching. Apparently (found all information on-line through the Age) PD are sueing them and a number of other builders for copyright. Check it out by searching through Google. Friends of ours built with them and were not too happy. I think no matter who you build with there will be headaches! LL You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 14473 For reference, this is the Austlii reference. My take on this is, that they would be breaking the law denying access to a homeowner in Victoria, or their agent from having… 1 9580 Hey everyone Not for me or anyone I know, just generally interested. For a single allotment house, are you allowed to take the fence on both sides of your house and… 0 21267 |