A fixed price meant a young family could upgrade their home with a second new build in Matamata.
Humz and Gabby Brooky moved into their Peakedale home a few months ago with their son Rocco (4) and daughter Billie-Mae (2).
Gabby and Humz are well settled in the Matamata community where he grew up and works as Traffic Management Manager for J.Swap Contractors.
When they met, Gabby was living in Tauranga, but she relocated for love and enjoys life in the Waikato as an early childhood teacher and part-time personal trainer.
They saved money on their first build four years ago by clearing their section themselves over 12 weekends. That hard work paid off and ultimately paid dividends when they wanted to upgrade and build again.
Unfortunately, an administration and accounting error by their first builder meant the budget they planned for didn’t go smoothly that time around.
“This time it was reassuring having a fixed price contract where we knew there wouldn’t be any hidden costs. Obviously this time everything was included which made it so much easier,” Gabby says.
There was also reassurance from Gabby’s father, who thought the Generation Homes contract was very good value for money.
“When I was young, my dad built and resold homes. We must have lived in about nine. He’s a project manager for a large commercial building company and has his head in the game.”
Gabby’s sister also gave a significant tick of approval when she visited from Christchurch recently.
“She had the most horrific experience building and she never wants to build again. Literally, when she came here she fell in love with the house. She went home and started looking at Generation Homes.
Gabby: If we ever build again we will definitely use Generation.
HUMZ
We hoped that when it comes to resell, a new house would pay dividends and ultimately that’s what happened.
GABBY
People can think buying an existing home is so much easier – but that’s not the case as you don’t get exactly what you want. With design and build you plan what you want.
GABBY
It’s stage three of a big subdivision. It’s a nice area. We’re in the town but it feels rural as we have a farm along our back boundary. We are elevated and there’s a beautiful big tree out the back on the farm. It takes us five minutes’ drive to get into the main township and the school is two minutes down the road.
GABBY
We were originally going with a different company and we had put a deposit on a piece of land that was a lot bigger. But it was quite a while before we sold our home (early in 2023) and then everything in the meantime had dropped in price, including the price we got for our house. We approached the original builder saying we had to put our price down, but they weren’t willing to budge so we were able to get out of that section.
In the meantime, we were introduced to Jon Turney and he had sections for sale. Jon was experienced in the building industry and advised us that our plans with the original company just didn’t sound quite right. He had worked with Generation Homes many times before and believed they would be better for us. He introduced us to Scott, who highlighted many loopholes and showed our original building contract was very unsafe. Scott priced the build for us and it was a ‘no brainer’. It was amazing. If we hadn’t got our section through Jon, we could have been in a very different situation!
HUMZ
The whole fixed price budgeting was really handy because you know what you’re paying at the end. When you build there are so many ways people can hide costs or blame inflation for higher costs. Knowing that fixed price was our main takeaway.
HUMZ
Everything was exactly as it was presented to us – all the timeframes, everything on the Gant chart was as it was. Week by week was exactly where it needed to be. Other builders work Monday to Friday. With Generation, they catch up on a Saturday or Sunday to make sure they meet deadlines. It was nice to know that when you spend that money on a house you’re going to get that product on time.
The timetable was 100% important. It was exciting, too, to know each step along the way and not to be left wondering what was happening. We were ticking off our little chart. As we were in a rental, we were planning our life around that timetable. We moved in the weekend after we had the handover of the keys.
GABBY
We’ve been here for four months and we’re meant to be compiling a detailed list of any defects. But literally we have found nothing. It’s a real quality finish. My dad also said the team did an amazing job.
Our first home was a basic building. We had lots of paint cracks. For this place the standard is insane. The project manager was on the ball and had an eye for detail. Any issues were quickly perfected as we went along. It was really good.
HUMZ
It was seamless, professional and there was amazing time management. We can’t speak highly enough about our experience. There was no stress.
GABBY
They were good to deal with. They built a real relationship with us and we got to know each other pretty well.
HUMZ
We really liked the design we had in mind as a starting point and we were able to manipulate it and add in a few extra little things. We wanted the living area to be more spacious and open. I wanted a nook style office that did not impede on too much space.
GABBY
We have so much storage in the house, we used the storage cupboard space in the garage for the nook and it is tucked in the corner.
HUMZ
We added more space in the living area and made it open plan with stacker doors and there’s great airflow in the summer. I come from a family of six and I always want to entertain for the Warriors and rugby games.
HUMZ
I really like our bedroom. We have sliding doors going out to our spa and every night we are out there. It’s a nice big size with a walk-through wardrobe and an ensuite. We can escape the madness of these little kids we have. I also like how open the house plan is. When we are entertaining we can have people chilling in the lounge, or chilling up on the kitchen bar, or chilling at the table.
GABBY
My favourite space is the living area that opens outside – just having that extra space for the kids to play. When we have Humz’s family over it doesn’t even feel like we’re crammed.
GABBY
My number one learning was not to have black carpet. In our first house we’d done concrete patios so all the dust looks horrific on it. One of my non-negotiables was we’ve now got all hardwood floors in the living and dining area.
HUMZ
My learning was getting a good heating system and air conditioning. Our last house had an air conditioning unit which was fine in the winter, but the way that house was positioned the sun just came in beaming in summer and it was hard to cool the rooms.
GABBY
The sun was also something that we considered when choosing the layout of this house. We’ve got two bedrooms on either side with a living room in the middle and we wanted our daughter to be close to us because when we moved in she was really young. The sun beams into our living area here and we got tinted glass and we can open the doors up to cool it down. Our one real luxury was the ducted heating system which goes into five zones.
GABBY
Figure out what your budget is and then find a home within that. Because we had the fixed price, we knew that we had a little more room to move. We started with a basic home then we added in the variances to a point where we knew we could move to. We got nicer curtains and blinds. You have to make sure you add everything in as once the bank’s approved a mortgage, they’re not going to budge.
HUMZ
Once you have a fixed price, you’ve also got to allow an extra $10,000 to $15,000 for lawyers.
We were running a separate spreadsheet on the extras so we knew what we were actually going to be dealing with. And it got pretty tight to be honest. There were about six weeks when we were paying full mortgage and full rent.
