Hotondo Homes Questions & Answers (page 4 of 5)

Hey Jim
I have been building with the smith bros. Our house is almost complete.
Unfortunately i can not give you good feed back.
We have had a terrible experience.
I will be posting our feedback as soon as we get the keys.

Can you give more details grace? We are also considering building with them. It's a definite "no!" then?

I'm sorry but I'm not to sure what you are asking? I don't work for Hotondo I only built with the Wallan franchise & I have no issues at all.....

Hi, I'm not too sure if they build in NSW, I built with their Wallan Franchise which is in Victoria, have you checked their website?

Hotondo homes built our home in the most cost effective way to suit our budget, from slab type to pier costing even our excavation.

Hi not sure if there is a Hotondo Homes Hunter Valley, but the guys at Hotondo Homes Greater Port Stephens look after the Maitland area. We have friends building with them at the moment. They have a sales suit at Hunter Homeworld Chisolm, might be able to help.

Stay well clear of the Smith Brothers Homes trading as Hotondo port Stephens
These owners have left a massive destruction of bad quality and have not paid many locals through out there time before taking on this franchise and even after we have heard of late they are not paying suppliers and court case are pending. Owners name are mud in the area still with Newcastle branch

Hes just disappeared off the face of the earth with everyones deposits!

He has also substantial unpaid debts to the majority of his trades.

Hi,
We have had a very positive experience so far with Hotondo Bathurst. That said, we arent yet up to the building stage but it will be soon. I cannot recommend them highly enough for their professionalism and speed in getting things done. Of course, its hard to say what the construction side of things will be like but we have our fingers crossed it will go as soothly as it has so far!

Our house was built within budget and finished on time

Our house was built within budget and is due for completion in a few weeks. Costs come down to how many customisations and upgrades you want to make to the finished design and fittings. Contract costs for most builders don't include essentials like driveway, fencing, landscaping etc so it's wise to get quotes for all of these separately to ensure you include it in your construction loan application. Always make sure you have a contingency for unknown costs. Eg our house is on a sloping site with solid rock. Excavation costs and removal of all materials to a licenced tip is an unknown and can be expensive. Even my estimated contingency was a couple of thousand off the mark for this. There are some up front costs that you need to pay out before they can give you a contract price, including survey of all contours etc. You will also need to have cash separate from any lending to cover a deposit. Good luck.

I also meant to add that although we were hopeful of being in before Christmas, the building contract timeframe is longer and we are still within that timeframe. Always anticipate delays. Each site has its own issues, whether access or even just prolonged wet weather.

Yes, I am building a significantly modified illawara 220. I modified it to add an alfresco and squared off a lot of the rooms and shifted the kitchen/open plan living and dining around. The shape of our alfresco also had to be customised to the lot boundary. I changed the window positions to suit our aspect and capture breezes and reduce glare. I also upgraded brick and used weather board on the upper level . I also altered that porch size and increased it to open it on the side off of our driveway. This increased the size of the robe in the second bedroom. The building is on a sloping site so part of our foundation is a steel frame with the garage and alfresco on a concrete slab . I am building with Hotondo Horsnby. We are due to move in March. Hope this helps.

Hi, I had a disaster home built through Hotondo Homes Newcastle and no response from the company head office either. Most stressful and costly experience ever.

We have just built at Toorbul with Hotondo Caboolture. We are very happy with our house, it is just beautiful. Kerry, Sherry and Shree went out of their way for us. The problems we did have were with the council, not Hotondo Caboolture. As we are on the waterfront on the Pumicestone Passage council made us build up and this caused our plan to change significantly. Kerry had al he dealings with the council and sorted things out for us.
We would not hesitate recommending them. The workmanship and finish is just beautiful.

We recently built with Hotondo homes Ipswich/Springfield (home in Brassall). [names removed] made it an easy Journey for us. They were very professional. [name removed] the colour specialist was really good as well. The good thing is the guys were very flexible especially with our design choice. We practically had our own design and they rolled with it, giving us suggestions and helping till we got exactly what we wanted. They were very patient and understanding. Communication was good all the way and they responded promptly to our every concern. We were able to go from time to time to see the progress of the home and make changes where necessary The site manager, [name removed] was easily accessible. Overall, we are quite happy we chose them. We have not moved in yet but everything looks awesome at the moment.

We used Hotondo Caboolture ph 0754281360 last year and they were very professional and easy to deal with. Everything was communicated very well with us and no issue was left unresolved. We would highly recommend them to build your home because of their knowledge and expertise in the building industry. This is a family run business as well so it makes for a pleasant building experience.
Joe and Josie

Hi Natieb,
We are building with another Hotondo Homes team in NSW so can only offer my experience with that particular office. Overall the choice and flexibility of Hotondo homes is very diverse. As a company I found them to be more more accommodating than any of the other house builders I researched and contacted. Everything from meeting us on site at a time that suited us to showing us round the interior of other builds nearing completion and providing us with a list of all houses that have built in the area, so we could drive by and see the quality of the finished result for ourselves. They also allowed us to practically redesign the interior of a 2 storey design so that it worked perfectly on our uniquely shaped sloping site. Now at build stage the whole thing is going very smoothly and communication is excellent, which is important to keep my mind at ease. We started on site end of June 2014 and the roof is due to go on early Sept (next week!). Hope this helps.
Good luck.

I would stay away from Hotondo Home Port Stephens due to court proceeding as we have been told they owe suppliers lots of money.
Smith Brothers Homes directors have left a trail of broken dreams through out hunter valley to Newcastle in not paying contractors or suppliers. Run by very rude and amateur owners giving the Hotondo Franchise a bad name in the area. We decided to go with a beechwood on our first home and we also know of several others that will not use them for investment port folios either due to the owner ripping off locals

We have used Hotondo Greater Port Stephens (Smith Bros) for four houses in Cessnock and were so happy we have commissioned them to build another two in Raymond Terrace. I think there may be some confusion here with Hotondo Central Coast whom I believe have gone bust.
There were some cost variations on our architect designed houses but the "catalogue" houses have been built to the original quote and within the original budget.