Sterling Homes Questions & Answers

Sorry, I don’t really know. Maybe try Sterling and see what they say?

Did you end up building with them? We are considering them for our build too.

Hi we end up building with them biggest regret in our life . They under quote you and also sweet talk you to hide their lies, they told us between 6 &8 weeks before they start building it been 12 weeks since we settled our land and they stil say waiting on council approval to me that is a lot off poo
I wil never build with them again even if they pay me to and neither recommend them

I'm sorry to say we engaged Stirling Homes Queensland to build our home and it has also been a nightmare. They promote that it's Stirling with an "I" as obviously the other Sterling Homes in Adelaide seems to get a lot of bad reviews but they both sound about the same. Sweet talk and cheap price at the front end and nothing but lies and incompetence once you are signed up and they have a hefty deposit and you have nothing much to show for it. I wish we had never heard of them. How they continue to do business is because people like me didn't look into them properly. A mistake I will never make again and probably the best advice I can give a potential owner is do your research- check the QBCC website, google them, ask for referrals which are not by staff members with an alternate surname, and go on to sites like this and ask others about their experience. If I'd done those things I would have run a mile! I think product review needs to create a seperate listing for Stirling with an 'I' (for Incompetence) - so people can share their experience and not get caught out like I did.

Yes that sounds like sterling homes to me and glad I am not alone.
I believe that is how they make their money.
At first the house and land build price is good better than other builders but I feel when all the extras are added to your account it brings the build price up on par with other builders and maybe even slightly higher.
After all my estate was completely developed by sterling yes they brought the fill they planned the house positions they planned it all.
They will tell you Actium developments isn't part of sterling homes but if you ring the developers office who would believe the receptionist at Sterling homes answered your call.

Just an update, Sterling where asking for extra cable above their 10 m allowance, measured from pit to house, 4.8m ground to box 2m, allow .5 m down and .5m up for below ground component. That totals 7.8m well less than the 10m allowance, could this be classed as an attempt to obtain extra money by false pretences?

Hello Everyone, I applied to work for Sterling Homes as a sales consultant. Whilst I have not heard back from them yet, I did have concerns about most of the comments here that were all similar to each other, as in the negative comments about people's experiences. Whilst I can understand the frustration of most of the comments on this site and can relate to all of them as I have built myself (not with Sterling Homes though). On the flip side of most of these comments, I did realize there are only 43 comments/complaints about Sterling Homes in this forum. Most of them were over a 4-5 year period. I feel terrible for all the people that had a bad experience Sterling Homes as it should not be this way when building a home. But you have to ask yourself as I have done after reading all the comments, this is a company that builds 800 plus homes per year. Maybe I will not hear back from them as most of you have said LOL (said with tongue in cheek). However, if I do, I hope I can turn things around for the better. One thing is true though, a building company can be let down or even destroyed if it is only as good as it's tradesmen. Cheers

Footings are not part of the fixed price. They only give you an allowance. It depends what comes back on soil testing to what needs to happen with your footings. Most banks don't physically send someone out to inspect. They might on the final installment if they want to revalue the property. The bank payments happen when you sign off each progress payment as they come in. You are within your rights to not pay until you are happy with the the work and that it has been finished. much to the builders protest. We are happy with the final product. I was the process and how we were treated by the builder.

You were lucky then. Process was terrible and final product after about $60,000 of upgrades was still cheap and nasty. Please dont count on any followup they just put you off till warranty finishes. Most of you guys wete lucky after signing and getting council approval they didnt start build for 2 years and guess wat they have a $5;000 fee even if their fault if build doesnt start within 2 years. Found out later that they bought the block next to mine and were waiting to get another customer so they could build both at same time. We waited 2 years to start and next door 6 months
KEEP AWAY FROM THEM PLEASE

i guess all builders has the same issue. ours was they promised to comeback to fix the edging paint of each windows ( not professionally done) plus u guys need to check and ask them about water heating system coz they will just install small capacity of water heating unless u told them that u want a big one that two showers can be use at the same time. check ur ceiling coz they did not properly installed the insulator on my roof, so u check properky the ceiling make sure thst before u sign the final checklist, they ( sterling) fixed the unfinish work or else u will just wait for nothing for them to comeback. thats my bad experience with sterling homes. ohh make sure that the salesman ur dealng know everything about building a house in suburb u want. goodluck

Yes they are fairly competitive with their pricing and our end product is of a good quality.. We had problems with them trying to charge us an extra $15,000 for footing after we had our final sign off. This delayed our build by 3 months trying to sort it out. Our build process was horrible. heaps of delays, lots of excuses from the head office as we weren't allowed to contact our site supervisor. 3 weeks to put the frame up, 4 weeks to brick, 3 weeks to put the tiles on the roof. Be careful with your selections we didn't get choices on upgrades to our bathrooms and window finishes. We have two showers that are standard selection and not what we wanted as it wasn't an option at selections. We expected 3 of our feature windows to be flushed inside with plaster. They have window ledges and look horrible. This is standard, but we weren't given a choice, we expected what was in the display home. I hope this helps. Good luck

Hi well I think yes sterling home price comes in cheaper than other builders but when u do a few upgrades in selections brings them not too far off the competitors price.
In my estate I had no choice but to build with them the house is not to bad only a couple of things I have noted in my three month warranty list it's now three weeks since handing it in I have chased it up only this week still no response from them just as I figured.
Hidden costs well I was quoted $19000 for footings as I have built the norwood. Was told it's a new design with over and above standard footings so should only be about $15000 for them. Well final bill for footings was $25000 yes after final sign.
Slab was poured I also received a bill for rock that was found even though soil test said no rock bill was $2500 then a bill for 13 tonne of rubble for sewerage pipes $1400. Next was electricity cabling an extra 8 meters bill was $850 so be prepared you might get bills for these. My eldest daughter has built in the same estate and got similar bills to during her build time.
All in all I like the house and the finish isn't too bad at all. If you build with them you need to check progress every day when building starts and make sure you check everything before you pay the final bill. Good luck I still think it's worth the stress to get the house finished and coloured how you want.

Hi Doug, I am near handover too and believe me I will not be paying the final progress payment or signing off until everything is up to my expectations. I know of someone that has taken them to court before and won the case. You need to stand your ground, its a good idea using a building inspector so you I would take the matter further if they choose not to fix what is required. It all comes down to the building code and if they don't comply, then you may have a valid case. It still makes me wonder why after all the poor feedback on this forum people still choose to build with Sterling Homes. Good luck will be interested how you go.

Didn't take them to court but did have to chase them and threaten to get them to do things. The scaring thing is that people I have spoken to who have used other builders seme to have the same problems, even some that have used the more upmarket builders, so it seems that most builders need to lift their game.

Sorry can't give you an answer on this. Extra charges for foundations are one way costs go up. I suggest you get it in writing just why they want to tack on this extra charge. A definite answer, not a vague "because" answer. If your not satisfied or want clarification go to Consumer Affairs and they will either tell you what it's about or can point you in the direction of someone who can.

Im sorry but they will do watever they want to do and You will pay.That's their motto

I would suggest contacting an independent electrician for advice on this, personally after having experience in building a number of homes it sounds like they are misleading you.

Because we divided a block and had the section the pit was not on we had to pay a lot extra for connection to power. Sterling then tried to tell us that we would have to arrange land line telephone connection ourselves which Telstra told us was going to cost us about $1000 as a trench would have to be dug and cable laid. I refused to accept that they would not connect us to an essential service and threatened to take the matter further, meaning speaking to consumer affairs about it. Next day they sent out a couple of workers who make the connection in 1/2 hour without the need for trenches or extra cable and at no cost to us. The point to this story is MAKE A FUSS AND DON'T JUST ACCEPT WHAT STERLING SAYS. Don't get angry, get what you want and remember that the Consumer Affairs Dept are always there for advice that doesn't cost you anything. Use the service.

Cant help with that but can tell you this is just the start there will be many many more costly variances

As you would expect, Sterling use a large range of suppliers for their homes. They have set up a large display centre so that you can make your selections easily, their also provided a design consultant who was very helpful.
The bricks they use are PGH and the brickies complained the whole time about them, the bricks were all different sizes making in difficult to get straight mortar lines, some sections we made them pull down and do again they were so bad. The slurry coating also washed off too easily when the dressed bricks were cleaned allowing the base colour to come through.
The PGH premium licorice bricks we got for the main feature walls chipped very easily and looked so bad we had to spend another $6000 after hand over to get the feature walls rendered.
For the fit out for the bathrooms, kitchen etc we paid to up grade all of them to very good quality items that were picked out by our own interior designer, we paid about an extra $30000 for this upgrade
Hope this helps!

You've just scared me to be honest, but yeah thanks for the heads up. Sorry to hear about your nightmare. So basically what your saying is your not satisfied with the building materials, which some were upgrades, and also being over charged because of this reason?

I know they use Beumont Tiles for all tiling, but unless you pay for an upgraded you have basically a choice of white or grey. Solver paint is used but once again all you get to pick from is white, grey and beige. You can supply your own paint but this will cost you more. What it comes down to is if you want something different you have to pay a lot more for it. We had the place painted pale grey and repainted ourselves in our chosen colours as this worked out cheaper. We had a different door put in by them and later found it would have been cheaper to have the standard door installed by them and then bought and installed the door we wanted ourselves. What I would do if I did it again (and I wouldn't) is get them to supply the basic stuff and then upgrade myself as in most cases it seems it would be cheaper.

Yes the PGH bricks were awful in fact our feature stair tower looked so bad that we spent $6000 having it all rendered

Not had any trouble with the bricks, thanks the gods, but did have a great brickie working here. My only suggestion would be to contact Consumer Affairs and tell them about it all. We did this for a problem they didn't want to know about and within days of getting an official complaint things were fixed. They will be able to advise you on what to do.

We counted 240 cracked bricks at the weekend with more appearing all the time. We have requested meeting with company owner (Sterling Homes owner) on site so he can see the extent of the issue, which our building manager told us last Friday they were going to do nothing else about this issue!!!!!!!!

I too am concerned after seeing all the reviews.
Very long and slow process from signing on to getting started, often wondering if anything was actually happening.
Once the timber frame started, it has been all go with roof, bricks and now the electrician done. Bricklaying looks ok so we can only hope that all the trades following, gyprock, paint, second fix etc do a better job than what some reviews describe. The office staff can test your patience but the supervisor and the guys on site have been good.

Thanks for the report emaruu,I have not signed up as yet.Am getting a price from a local builder,probably a little dearer but will give me more peace of mind.Anyhow good luck with your home.