It appears that Porter Davis work under a shroud of secrecy when it comes to setting out the cost of our new home. Each stage of the process underestimates the pricing to get you 'across the line'. First our sales consultant underquoted a number of upgrades we were considering - thus luring our $1,000 deposit.
Prior to tender we visited Hopetoun to get an idea of which items we would like upgraded. It's impossible to get pricing or even an estimate for these items from the staff at Hopetoun prior to your colour appointment. They are well trained and have been instructed not to discuss the price of any items. Again, keeping everything top secret.
Then we got to tender - our initial tender document appeared to have similar TOTAL pricing to our quote, however many things had gone up and other things had been omitted from the document to compensate for the increases. We were methodical in our approach to the document ensuring we ticked off every item to our initial quote which is how we found all the missing items and increases. In all, $8,000+ had been added to our tender without any material value.
We had also asked for the upgrade costs for a number of additional items to be sent to us prior to our tender appointment (seeing we couldn't get them from Hopetoun). We wanted to consider and make an informed decision on these items including their affordability. We asked several times for these things but we were not provided with them.
We asked about our list of upgrade items again at tender and were told that the purpose of the tender meeting was not to go through upgrades but to discuss structural changes we required. Upon our insistence we were provided with an allowance in our tender document for the items we had inquired about. We were told the allowance would more than cover the items on our list and if we didn't spend all of the allowance we would be refunded the difference. So once again, we paid the next deposit payment thinking we were finally reasonably close to our final construction cost.
You guessed it! The allowance is nowhere near the amount required to cover the upgrade costs. In fact, one item alone, completely utilised the full allowance.
We have not yet attended our contract appointment and we are considering whether to cut our losses and walk away from Porter Davis altogether. No doubt there will be further additional costs added to the contract too. Despite what PD think, we do not have an endless supply of cash to keep tipping into this building project without receiving any additional value.
If you are considering building with PD I would suggest you make sure you budget a significant allowance for incidentals and underquotes and expect to receive nothing for this money. You will also need to allow an additional $50k to $60k if you would like just a few of the upgrades shown in their display home.
I hear you!!! We've found this frustrating too. We're still waiting for prices and info. Our contract appointment was meant to be this morning but we had to reschedule it. I hope we can get the info before hand.
It's also ridiculous that pricing can vary so much between initial quotes, tender, colours appointment and contract. It's not petrol we're buying!
You don't go to buy a car without doing your research and knowing all the prices for upgrades before hand - and this is much, much, much more money being spent than on buying a new car!
Two Things
1. Walk away, if they are not playing on your terms, simply walk away. I managed to get a complete quote down to the last razoo for the cost of $1000.
No Tender, No Contract, Just a meeting with a allocated BC, and a Hopetoun Colour and Electricals, only then did we proceed.
2. You are in the box seat. The building industry is on its knees, grab everything you can get, and demand freebies, or walk.