The Porter Davis Sales Stage

We parted with our $1000 deposit for the sales stage late last year. Here's some tips for anyone else who hasn't paid up yet

1. Visit other builders to compare prices (not just the base price, but also ask about upgrades, changes to floor plan options, timber bi-folds, double glazing, etc., etc.,). This will give you an idea of where Porter Davis sits compared to the competition. In our comparisions, 'most' of the PD upgrades were cheaper
2. Get ALL your changes in the sales quote - structural AND internal selections. Even if the sales consultant has no idea on the price, just get it written down. Once we paid our deposit, we were told all changes must now be made at Tender. Needless to say, our Tender took a FULL day (9am to 5pm) with a 1.5 hour lunch break in between AND there were open items that had to be deferred to Contract because pricing wasn't available that day. The only way to have a short Tender appointment is to be more diligent and included everything early during Sales so the people putting the Tender together already have all the info they need to estimate and price. 
3. The prices quoted at the Sales stage can pretty much be ignored. It is likely to be wrong. To give you an idea, our $800 feature window went up to over $3400 even though it was reduced in size. Our $2000 timber stacker doors went to $3500 for aluminium when Timber is actually meant to be even more expensive. 
4. Visit Hopetoun to get an idea of what is there to choose and also visit the other showrooms for other builders to compare. Hopetoun is by far the worst showroom with the most limited range. You can however pick from the Reece website instead for Bathroom fittings. The hopetoun colour consultant will tell you that you need to stick to what they have on display so the tip is to get all your 'special' Reece selections included in Tender (ie. before the Colours appointment)
5. Bargain hard to get some freebies. Compare them to other specials running with other builders. Eg. Metricon aren't charging a $10k 'build zone' surcharge, Henley are offering free Timber Bi-Folds, etc.,

This $1000 deposit we are told is a refundable deposit (less any costs incurred). In fact, all the way up to Contract, the money paid is refundable. They just deduct costs for things like drawings and soil tests (not sure about consultants time). Apparently if you do decide to pull out, they will give you the invoices to everything to justify the costs incurred. When I asked at one of their Knock Down & Rebuild seminars, their General Manager presenting at the time said it is usually roughly be around $7k. That's pretty reassuring but I've actually not seen this written down anywhere... Hopefully I won't need to.