Tender Appointment Update

We planned to take the train to the city at 10AM then have brunch at Supernormal before we attend our appointment at 1PM. Come 9:20AM while we were getting ready,  I got a call from our BC checking if we still plan to attend the tender which usually starts at 9AM! They messed up our appointments when they rescheduled our tender. Instead of booking us for whole day they booked us for half day only :-( So we agreed that we will leave the house as soon as we can and be at their office as early as we can. Goodbye to our lesiurely train ride and to our exciting city lunch! We didn't even get to eat any breakfast. The parking fee at Etihad cost us $49. We arrived before 11AM.

Porter David's office in the city in pretty impressive! Very sleek and modern. We've met our BC Rebecca for the first time and she left us with another PD consultant for the meeting.

As expected, there were a lot of additional cost to the quotation, a lot of under quoted items and a few unexpected cost such as:

• Site cost was increased from $20K to $29K. We were asked to provide a soil compaction report from our developer which they said might reduce the cost. This was not organised with us before tender.
• Additional bracing due to high wind zone area as our lot is in front of open reserve $2.5K.
• Local Government Requirements $2424. This was not included in our initial quote and should have been added as they were well aware that this is a regulation.
• Customised Grand Master Ensuite from $3900 to $4665. I was very disappointed with this cost as I was expecting the initial cost to be a little cheaper as it was for Forsyth 38 and requires a lot of modifications with the linen cupboard. The double vanity was even included in the promotion that we added.
• Upgrade of timber flooring laminate cost around $5K.
• Network controller to heating $494, this was just added to our quote without our knowledge.
• We got $7333 credit from the ceiling upgrade, timber flooring upgrade and grand master ensuite vanity. We requested for a breakdown as we feel we didn't get enough credits.      

They were very poor with communicating what was needed from us for tender appointment and what changes they need to make with our plan as below:

• Soil compaction report not requested before hand.
• We were not told that they need the fireplace dimension that day.
• They just changed the facade render plan without consulting with us.
• 3% deposit to be paid on that day. We thought we're required to pay 5% deposit after signing the contract.  

You can't rely on their document and need to be vigilant with checking:

• They missed adding our main entrance door upgrade.
• They were confused about our ground floor doors upgrade, double charging us for some of them. 
• The tiling cost was not updated when we had some changes post colour selection
• The electrical cost was also not updated. 
• The allocated carpet in our living room instead of timber flooring.   

We were over budget as expected and we needed to let go of some upgrades and do them after the build. We dropped the following upgrades:

• All Bastow Georgian mixer taps to vanities (powder room, bathroom and master ensuite)
• All Bastow Georgian bath mixers (bathroom and master ensuite)
• All Bastow Georgian shower mixers (bathroom and master ensuite)
• All Bastow Georgian bathroom accessories (toilet roll holder, tower holder and robe hook) 
• Master ensuite shower rail upgrade
• All cabinet handles
• Laundry cabinets
• Feature wall paint to cinema/lounge
• Over head cabinet on top of fridge space
• TV antennae
• TV Pre-wiring pack in game room
• Delete the alfresco fan and added provision only
• Delete powder room pendant and added provision only
• Delete 1 extra GPO in laundry
• Delete double flourescent light in garage
• Delete all external floodlights and put provision only. 
• Delete CCTV and add pre-wiring pack only

Some positive notes:

• We got 2 bedroom window sizes increased for just $86
• We don't need to add locks to sliding doors as they were included
• We don't need to add locks to aluminium screens to awning and sliding windows.

We are still anticipating additional cost to keep the 6 star energy rating of the house as it would have been affected when we raised the ceiling height, added windows or made them larger. Hopefully, it won't be very expensive!

Tender Appointment Today!!!

Finally, our tender appointment is happening today and it feels like going to the dentist. I just hope that it's not going to be a painful process where we need to cut down upgrades and our house will still remain as beautiful as we envisioned it to be. As expected, we didn't get any of our requested cost from PD and we'll just, hopefully know everything later. Hoping for pleasant surprises!!!

Tender Appointment Cancelled Today

I was supposed to work night shift last night and Elmer was on duty today, but we made arrangements and swapped our scheduled to attend our Tender appointment today. After all these, we were informed by our BC 2 days ago that they're not ready for our appointment as they don't have the engineering and soil yet :-(

I actually prefer to do our tender appointment at a later date as I have been telling our BC, I don't have the costs for a lot of big items yet such as:

• Site Cost
• 6 Star Energy Rating
• Bushfire Attack Level (BAL)
• Grand Master Ensuite
• Upgrade of timber laminate flooring from Cat 1 to Cat 3
• Confirmation of structural variations cost

I budgeted $25K for site cost, $6.5K for BAL, $6K for 6 star energy rating, $5K for timber floor upgrade and $3.9K for the grand master ensuite. These items alone has an estimate of $46,400 so most of our upgrades budget are tied up here. 

Our BC told us that we can't change anything after tender and as I was telling her, we will be leaving a lot of upgrades that we like if we go through our tender appointment  without knowing the costs above. I think it's in our favour that the cancellation of our appointment was initiated by PD rather than us so if there's any delay in our site start we can request to waive the late site start fee :-) 

Hopefully, with this delay will give them time to give us proper costings and we can also talk to our mortgage broker to increase our loan amount :-)

Cheers!