Our confidence on Eden Brae

As soon as we found out the actual face of Eden Brae, we get scared. We had the chill feeling - we are gambling with our whole life savings.

I often tried to stick with the Site Supervisor (SS) and the Customer Service Administrator (CSA) to peruse them to do the right things (there were countless mistakes and defects - will come to them in the future postings). 

My wife got very scared and told me several times - "Don't tell them anything, don't argue with them, else they will build us a bad home" :-(

That is the confidence she has with Eden Brae.

Target is to swallow you

Don't hurry in signing or putting any deposit. Literally, the target of EBH was to get me into the mud and then swallow in stages.

Their Sales person offered me a $2,000 discount if I sign within a day. That was the first wrong decision. Please look around - take your time before committing to anything. By taking time and careful pre-selection you will save much more then this mere $2,000.

The sales people also give you impractical cost estimate to make you interested. We have talked to Eden Brae Sales Consultants every weekends and some week days over a month to find out the right home that will fit my budget and expectations. After long discussions, a number of modifications (these project homes are so generically designed - if you take the garage to the west, all wet areas end up in the east) and with the price estimates from the Consultant we have decided to go for the Tender.

But what we found in the Tender is of a huge shock to us. It felt like we are talking about entirely different products. In some cases the price quoted by the Tender presenter is more than 100% to that of the Consultant.

Now we are asking ourselves why we have wasted the time on initial costing? Was the initial prices quoted to us just to make a false impression?

It doesn't feel good to learn that we have worked on a product that is not fit for our budget, especially learning after the deposit.

Below are the differences in some of the quoted items both by the Consultant and by the Tenderer.

What we do now? Stress our budget? Waste another month looking for another home? we are slowly waking up from the dream.

Sl.	Description	Consultant's price	Tender Price	% increase
1	Provide rendered and painted brickwork to front portico	$3,500	$6,528	86.5%
2	Provide a roof extension (8260x2400) at the rear with lining	$7,500	$14,038	87%
3	Provide a 500x800 Skylight on top of stairwell	$1,300	$3,355	158.5%

Moreover there are site related costs that are bigger in size, but because of variations in wordings I am not sure how to compare them. The site situation hasn't changed, when I first contacted the Consultant I new from them that the site has a 3.5m fall which is still the same in the Tender. 

Preface

I have a terrible experience building with Eden Brae. I am in the process of writing up my journey not just to tell you another story, but to give you some idea on what to look for when you are building. 

It's not that I did not have any good experience, but they are very few - almost negligible. Initially I will only add the events along with the lessons learned. I will update as I go and add to the content if the readers want me to do so.

Hopefully this will help you to identify appropriate builder and avoid the bad builders before you commit.

"I barely survived building with Eden Brae, you may not"