Now it’s time to choose the perfect house for the perfect block

Every weekend, we make it a point to visit display homes in different areas of Melbourne. From the Southern area of Melbourne, to the Northern and Western areas, name the builder and display centre, we’ve been there.

By going to different display centres, we were able to gather information as to:

• what parts of the house do we really need as a growing family
• what kind of finishes do we like
• how much would be the cost of upgrading some items
• which builder offers the best deal in terms of inclusions, best quality for the price, and best customer service

After months of searching, we finally decided to go for a single-storey Hayman 34 of Porter Davis. We put a deposit of $650, which would cover the soil test. It took us months of dealing with the very nice sales consultant of PD. But when we went to our tender appointment, we couldn’t sign the tender. Probably not the right house yet?

Then we saw this very nice house built by Metricon - the Grandview 36. It’s a bigger house than Hayman, and considering the orientation of our block (back is North-facing), we felt that it was a better house for our block. It would be best if we put all bedrooms to the front of the house (Southern area) and all living areas to the back of the house (Northern area). The house was perfect, so we put an initial deposit (again) of $1,000. Unfortunately, the land developer didn’t approve the plans, as it doesn’t address one of the requirements for a corner block - ie stagger to the side of the house facing the secondary street. The builder tried to address the requirement by putting a stagger to the side of the house, but the cost was too much that we decided to cancel the job. So we left…

Found another builder that offers quite affordable and quality double-storey houses. We got interested with AV Jennings’ 335. The house would definitely address all the requirements so we decided to go ahead with the job. We paid another $1,000 (for the 3rd time!) for the soil test. We had major changes to the plans and it took us around four months to realise that there were some parts of the houses that we didn’t like (in particular, the very small home theatre room size). So when we told the sales consultant that we no longer want the house, she offered us another design - the Savoy 36. That was really our 1st choice, but she kept on pushing the 335. Again, we did major changes to the house, as we thought that we won’t be needing any formal areas anyway. It took us almost six months to wait for the final plans and contracts. Unfortunately, the relationship between us, the sales consultant and the contract administrator went sour during the last few weeks leading to the contract signing. This is due to miscommunication between the contract admin and the sales consultant, the increased prices on some items in the contract, and their inability to commit on the building commencement date (which is very important for us, as we were approximately a month away from the agreed commencement date). After so much frustration and anxiety felt, we decided to cancel.

We went back to Metricon, our preferred builder, to look for a double-storey house that would fit our requirements and budget. Finally decided to go for the Nevada 39, one of their signature collection houses.