Our contract preparation and appointment booking went into stalemate since the Thursday of Easter long weekend. As soon as we have decided on which upgrades are worth keeping and which we will do after hand-over, I sent a message to my BC. My email came back with auto reply saying that she'll be on holiday 13 April to 27 April. There you go... and she didn't even warn us the day before I was talking to her on the phone!
I tried to talk to her manager and see if she can help us finish our contract and at least, book us an appointment, but I was unable to get hold of her on the phone. As I was sending my email to her, another consultant sent me an email to ask about our plan for the porch flooring, driveway material and letterbox to be included in the design plan for our DRP's approval.
I emailed her our plans and ask her if she can help us send our list of request to the draftee and estimator while our BC was away. She said that our lists looks extensive and the management told her to wait for our BC to avoid any miscommunication which was fair enough. I just hope that we'll still have enough time to finish the DRP and Council approval and start our house within June or we will incur $1000 penalty per month of delay.
My list was really long but the recent changes were really not many. The list just included all the errors and notes from our tender appointment to make sure that they'll all be corrected or updated.
Our BC should be back today and fingers crossed, she'll be able to attend to our contract within this week!
Join us in our journey as we work on our project and build our first home,the Forsyth 35!
Thursday 27 April 2017
Saturday 15 April 2017
Our Block was Overvalued!
Great news from our broker! Our land was overvalued at $13K more than our purchase price! We've read a lot of stories from our Woodlea residents FB page about their land and house being undervalued, so we're rapt that ours came back overvalued. This is one less headache for us.
We are now finalising our house upgrades in preparation for our contract appointment which was already rescheduled to give us more time to think them through.
We are now finalising our house upgrades in preparation for our contract appointment which was already rescheduled to give us more time to think them through.
Thursday 13 April 2017
Out and about in the West!
Our BC cancelled our contract appointment today because we decided to delete the flooring promotion package and the carpet underlay. We will keep the upgraded timber laminate flooring Provincial Range Van Gogh for most part of the ground floor, but we will have the carpet in the cinema lounge and first floor done after hand-over. She said she will need to have to order another 6 star energy assessment because we are changing the carpet and this won't be ready for the contract appointment.
We decided to spend the day to check out tiles, flooring and fireplace suppliers in Sunshine and Footscray.
Our first stop was at National Tiles in Sunshine. They have the tiles that we selected in our colour selection which was called External Alpine Latte. It's a porcelain tile, 600 X 600mm in size and made in Australia. For our porch floor, porch pillar and alfresco floor, it will cost us $793 for the tiles, $50 for the grout and $40 for cleaner. He advised us to talk to the the tiler first about the rest of the materials like glue and weather proofing before buying them. The sales man said labour cost can be around $1,500.
He reassured us that it will be an easy job and any professional tiler will be able to do the job after hand-over.
Estimated Post Hand-Over Cost : $2383 excluding waterproofing, primer etc
PD Charge for Porch Pillar, Porch and Alfresco Flooring: $5,000
We decided to just do the tiling after hand-over.
Our next stop was Western Distributors also in Sunshine. This warehouse has very good carpet selection. For a very good quality, thick carpet with thickest underlay the cost is $7,360.
We found their timber laminate flooring selection a little limited. For a timber laminate that has the same thickness as Van Gogh, 12mm with colour and style similar to it but not quite, the cost is $5,586.
Estimated Cost : $12,946 ( Upgraded thick carpet and underlay and thicker timber laminate flooring)
PD Cost: $9,999 (with Cat 1 timber laminate floor and Cat 1 carpet)
PD Cost: $16,026 (with upgraded timber laminate flooring and Cat 1 Carpet))
PD Cost: $8,116(for upgrade timber laminate flooring, no carpet)
We decided to keep the upgraded timber laminate flooring as we really love how it looks and blends with all our other colour selections and we will just do the carpet after hand-over.
Our final stop was in Sneddon, Footscray. We were asked during our tender to provide the specifications of our fire place and we thought we will just drop by this shop to view the models and ask about installations as well. As our fireplace will be in a small wall in the living room, we will just get a small unit which is around $4,500 to $5,500. Installation will cost $1,000. The mantel is around $1,000 and the stone at the bottom of the mantel is around $800, if we will buy these from them. It would be lovely to have this fireplace on our first winter at our home sweet home, but with the many things that we need to prioritise after moving in I won't stress if this won't happen!
We decided to spend the day to check out tiles, flooring and fireplace suppliers in Sunshine and Footscray.
Our first stop was at National Tiles in Sunshine. They have the tiles that we selected in our colour selection which was called External Alpine Latte. It's a porcelain tile, 600 X 600mm in size and made in Australia. For our porch floor, porch pillar and alfresco floor, it will cost us $793 for the tiles, $50 for the grout and $40 for cleaner. He advised us to talk to the the tiler first about the rest of the materials like glue and weather proofing before buying them. The sales man said labour cost can be around $1,500.
He reassured us that it will be an easy job and any professional tiler will be able to do the job after hand-over.
Estimated Post Hand-Over Cost : $2383 excluding waterproofing, primer etc
PD Charge for Porch Pillar, Porch and Alfresco Flooring: $5,000
We decided to just do the tiling after hand-over.
Our next stop was Western Distributors also in Sunshine. This warehouse has very good carpet selection. For a very good quality, thick carpet with thickest underlay the cost is $7,360.
We found their timber laminate flooring selection a little limited. For a timber laminate that has the same thickness as Van Gogh, 12mm with colour and style similar to it but not quite, the cost is $5,586.
Estimated Cost : $12,946 ( Upgraded thick carpet and underlay and thicker timber laminate flooring)
PD Cost: $9,999 (with Cat 1 timber laminate floor and Cat 1 carpet)
PD Cost: $16,026 (with upgraded timber laminate flooring and Cat 1 Carpet))
PD Cost: $8,116(for upgrade timber laminate flooring, no carpet)
We decided to keep the upgraded timber laminate flooring as we really love how it looks and blends with all our other colour selections and we will just do the carpet after hand-over.
Our final stop was in Sneddon, Footscray. We were asked during our tender to provide the specifications of our fire place and we thought we will just drop by this shop to view the models and ask about installations as well. As our fireplace will be in a small wall in the living room, we will just get a small unit which is around $4,500 to $5,500. Installation will cost $1,000. The mantel is around $1,000 and the stone at the bottom of the mantel is around $800, if we will buy these from them. It would be lovely to have this fireplace on our first winter at our home sweet home, but with the many things that we need to prioritise after moving in I won't stress if this won't happen!
Wednesday 12 April 2017
PD Contract Appointment Cancelled Today!
There's no more looking back once our contract was signed and keeping this in mind, we have been reviewing our selections and our budget. We also want to pay 20% deposit of the total house and land value plus whatever will be undervalued by the bank to avoid paying any Loan Mortgage Insurance (LMI).
As a standard practice, changes are no longer allowed after the Tender document has been signed. Our building coordinator sent me an email after our tender appointment that she will still let us make changes. This could be because she knew and understand that we were caught off guard during our tender appointment after they added around $15K cost (additional $9K for site cost, added $2.4K for goverment requirements and added $2.5K for more bracing due to high wind zone area). We came in prepared with want we want and what we can cut-down. We were also expecting some more cost but not that much.
So, the day before our contract appointment, I thought of just leaving the flooring package that we chose and just do it after hand-over. I've read in other blogs that this can be done and there could be a few work involved but it can be done. This will cut our cost by arounf $16K. (Flooring Promotion $9999, Carpet Underlay $1211, Upgrade Flooring to Laminate Provincial Van Gogh $8116) Less: Credit of $3300. After checking the cost with some suppliers, I found out that cost can be cheaper and quality even better. I told my BC that we will do this.
She also told me that our 6 star energy rating cost is $3.5K and our main entry door was $4K.
After talking to her, the thought that we will not have the timber laminate flooring that we really love was breaking my heart. I don't really mind the crappy carpet that goes with the package. With this in mind, I thought why don't we remove the flooring package ($9999) and the carpet underlay ($1211) and just keep the Provincial Laminate Van Gogh and this will only cost us $8116. We can have a better carpet installed later. I talked to my BC again and she said this is OK She will need to know the specifications of the carpet for another 6 star energy assessment.
She said that we can't have our contract appointment without the 6 star cost. She's not seeing any changes with the cost as it will still be carpet, but they just need to have it reviewed again. We agreed to cancel our contract appointment today!
I sent her a carpet specifications that I saw on the internet for 6 star assessment last night and we spent today visiting National Tiles (for our external tiles), Western Distributors (for carpet and laminate flooring) and Sneddon's (to get our fireplace dimensions).
As a standard practice, changes are no longer allowed after the Tender document has been signed. Our building coordinator sent me an email after our tender appointment that she will still let us make changes. This could be because she knew and understand that we were caught off guard during our tender appointment after they added around $15K cost (additional $9K for site cost, added $2.4K for goverment requirements and added $2.5K for more bracing due to high wind zone area). We came in prepared with want we want and what we can cut-down. We were also expecting some more cost but not that much.
So, the day before our contract appointment, I thought of just leaving the flooring package that we chose and just do it after hand-over. I've read in other blogs that this can be done and there could be a few work involved but it can be done. This will cut our cost by arounf $16K. (Flooring Promotion $9999, Carpet Underlay $1211, Upgrade Flooring to Laminate Provincial Van Gogh $8116) Less: Credit of $3300. After checking the cost with some suppliers, I found out that cost can be cheaper and quality even better. I told my BC that we will do this.
She also told me that our 6 star energy rating cost is $3.5K and our main entry door was $4K.
After talking to her, the thought that we will not have the timber laminate flooring that we really love was breaking my heart. I don't really mind the crappy carpet that goes with the package. With this in mind, I thought why don't we remove the flooring package ($9999) and the carpet underlay ($1211) and just keep the Provincial Laminate Van Gogh and this will only cost us $8116. We can have a better carpet installed later. I talked to my BC again and she said this is OK She will need to know the specifications of the carpet for another 6 star energy assessment.
She said that we can't have our contract appointment without the 6 star cost. She's not seeing any changes with the cost as it will still be carpet, but they just need to have it reviewed again. We agreed to cancel our contract appointment today!
I sent her a carpet specifications that I saw on the internet for 6 star assessment last night and we spent today visiting National Tiles (for our external tiles), Western Distributors (for carpet and laminate flooring) and Sneddon's (to get our fireplace dimensions).
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