Sarah Homes

I spent several years looking at homes to build and I kept comparing everything to the Sarah Homes Whitely 180. So I decided to build it. My dream has always been to have a beach house to live in. I knew nothing about building. Sarah Homes helped me every step along the way. They adjusted the plans and materials to suit what I wanted. The Building Supervisor was so helpful and kept me informed of everything that was going on. He even provided advice and help for the other things outside of building the house, like rainwater systems, suppliers in the area and all the other little things a new home builder/buyer doesn't know. Even when and external contractor let them down, they wouldn't compromise on quality and insisted on replacement of the materials until it was 100% right. In the long run, the time delay was worth it for the quality of the finish. Overall, I love my new home and would recommend Sarah Homes to friends.
Quality results, dependable communication, helpful all the way and the building supervisor had great local knowledge of the area, conditions, standards required by law...
Timeline blew out due to delays by roofing contractor who had to replace roof 3 times due to quality issues.

We built the Lawson two storey. From the start our experience with Sarah homes was great, our sales consultant was very helpful and we felt very comfortable with him. The selection process was also quite easy, although we had a bit of trouble when wanting to make a change to a tile colour but that all got sorted out in the end. Our site superviser was fantastic and kept us informed all the way along which we really appreciated. We are happy with the structual standard of our home but were a bit disappointed in some of the painting, there were a few drips in the outside and inside there were areas that were very thin. Overall, we are happy with the end product and would be happy to recommend Sarah Homes to anyone looking to build.
good communication from staff, value for money, good products used.

This is the 4th home we have built, and the first one with Sarah Homes. Very pleased with the look of the house which we designed along with our sales person. We took one of their plans and tweaked it to suit our needs, and we were happy with everything, particularly our supervisor and the workmanship. All the tradies were very good, polite, and tidy. The building process took a little longer than expected due to the area encumbrances as well as dealing with council. Only thing to suggest is to make sure you go over every detail on your plans, including the location of the electric meter box on the outside of your home, as well as the size of your bathrooms and showers, and the size of your garage if you add one. We highly recommend Sarah Homes to build your new home as they truly offer value for money as well as friendly and helpful staff.

Had the Streeton two storey holiday house built by Sarah Homes in 2008. Went through the usual process with the salesman who really didn't know what he was doing and didnt have answers to many questions. Anyway we went through the documents, spoke to a few people and were advised to select certain supervisor to build our holiday house.

We continued with the process due to the price and the floorplan, the end result was poor workmanship, and a poor product. We made a list of items to be repaired only to be told that they allow 40 hours for maintenance in the price and Sarah only repaired basic cosmetic items. We have poor flushing of joints in the gyprock, some stand out like the preverbial.

Painting is extremely poor in application and standard of finish. Cavity sliding pantry door that when closed has an opening of 1.5cm at the top, the trims to this door look like they were picked up from a second hand dealer.

We asked the plumbing to be inspected after we found a leak due to a loose plumbing connection but Sarah fobbed it off, only to go there one weekend and find the downstairs ceiling and walls soaked from upstairs plumbing connections that gave way. The repair works from Sarah was to tighten connections, let walls dry, and add a lick of paint.

These rooms now show signs of water damage. All toilet pans have had modifications to the sewer rises in the house as they were all placed in the wrong locations, I have never seen this before. the setic sewer systenm is almost at the same flor level as the house slab which affects our externak paving.

The upstairs floor bounces quite a bit, infact when some one walks past you can feel the floor bounce. We also discovered by accident that of our two front balcony columns which are significant structural elements in holding the roof up were not fixed to footings at the base, but were just burried in the dirt, Sarah were going to do a make shift repair but I insisted that they install new concrete pads, dowelled into the existing footing.

Down pipes were placed incorrectly and during heavy down pours water was soaking the the walls, sarah couldnt work out what was wrong until I worked it out some 18months later and had them repair it. Paid extra for building near the beach, but have recently replaced all external light fittings as they had corroded from the weather.

A lot more things were not done correctly so we have given up chasing them. The most disappointing thing is that the basic workmanship was not there and what was done was of a very ordinary standard. I dont think its the building owners job to look for defects, but the builder responsibility to make sure that they don't occur.

I have had four freinds ask me about Sarah homes, my reply is "here are the keys, go have a look for yourselves". They liked the design but couldn't beleive the standard and have all gone to another builder.
Price and Floor plan
Ordinary sales person, basic building errors which could have become major issues if not picked up early enough.

After a devastating house fire left me without my home of 30 years, Melissa Stanton made the process stress free and as seamless as possible. From the design process to selections. We designed a spectacular home while taking into account practicality as well as resale and value for money. She gave me some good tips and assisted me in sourcing my own flooring at a competitive price. Kirby in selections was a real sweetheart and very patient. My site supervisor Jake was a professional, approachable guy. He was always available when I had a query and amended any issues immediately without hesitation and found solutions to a electrical issue I had.
I am really delighted I chose Sarah to build my home. Being in my 70s, I didn't want to stress and fuss over my home. They delivered a well built, quality home for amazing value at lightening speed! Thank you to the whole team!

If you are thinking of going with this builder forget it, take your money and run NOW!!! Or in the process of building at every stage get a building inspection before any progress payments are made. I regret building with Sarah Homes and will never again. Quality is very poor, customer service is dreadful especially the building supervisor. Please do yourself a favor stay right away from these people.

After finally getting to handover of my new house, 6 months late I might add, I was spoken to with arrogance and rudeness by the site supervisor when doing a walk through of my home. After moving in and noticing more issues with the house I contacted the site supervisor who was incredibly unhelpful. I contacted the general manager who started off helpful but that ended quickly. I ended up writing a letter with photos of the issues and less than satisfactory workmanship and received a letter in return stating I would hear from my site supervisor within 14 days to arrange a viewing of the issues I have. It's not 22 days later and I have not been contacted. I have contacted the office numerous times and heard nothing from the site supervisor or the general manager. Issues with the house; doors don't close, crooked tiling, crooked walls (20mm over a 400mm length of wall), windows not flush with outside wall, bent window frames, wrong toilet trap outlet installed, uneven floors, nails sticking out of floor, gaps around external doors.....
Not impressed to say the least. Contacting consumer and business services will be my next step.

**Update**
I am yet to have anything fixed or repaired. I have however had a visit from the site supervisor who was just as rude and arrogant as last time. Another 5 weeks passed with no word from them, no phone calls returned until a month after his visit I started calling the office daily. The general manager finally called me back which was a complete waste of time! He has only just found out about what has been going on even though I have been calling and leaving messages for him for the last 4 months. He said he didn't call me as it has noting to do with him. He refused to answer my questions and said I have to wait until the new construction manager gets back on the 14th of October for anything to happen. He knows nothing about building or construction. These people are a joke!

After getting mucked around by another builder, we came to Sarah homes to get our dream home built. The build was completed in record time and we are very happy to be in our new home. Leigh was very helpful and made sure we understood each part of the contract and inclusions before we signed it.

We loved the Haybrough 3 design nine years ago, and after looking around again we still came back to the same design when we were finally ready to build. It has the perfect proportions to the living space compared to the sleeping areas (which are good). The team were happy to move things around to make things even better for us. A lovely house with no regrets.
Price was an important factor in our choice of builders as we were keeping to a tight budget. Nothing was impossible for them. Regular contact.
Only hiccup was that we are a stand alone solar household and when we checked the gas stove and oven, it had an electric grill not a gas one.

Everything from contacting the New Homes consultant to the way she handled contracts, build deals, and any statements that we may need more elaborate information on were spot on! Our New Home Consultant was and is extremely helpful in every way we could possibly imagine! My partner and I are very happy to have her as our New Home Consultant! If I may drop a name, her name is Melissa Rowsell. Just an amazing woman to get the job done!

Sales consultant very helpful, decor advice also very helpful-some pricing aspects open to debate (zone allowances, standard footings not actually a reality), building supervisor extremely helpful with the final deadlines-but overall-very happy with the home and the way it utilises our views and the block. Energy ratings requirements also another unwelcome surprise-these things need addressing as every Sarah Homes client I know says the same thing! Wrote to General Manager about this but he wasnt really interested.
The design -especially with our modifications, energy efficiency and appearance
Zone allowances-when all the tradesmen were locals-stndard footings allowed for are way below most specifications-so everyone gets a big footings bill. Painting prep not a strong point.

After buying land for a holiday home a year ago we approached Sarah Homes and were impressed by the great range of designs and the friendly, efficient service from our sales consultant. No alteration to the design seemed too difficult, the building process went smoothly and we're delighted with the finished product
Affordable, attractive house designs, well-suited to Australian conditions

We spent several years comparing builders and designs before finally settling on the Sarah Homes - Lindsay 4 design. We flipped and reversed the design to suit our site and made changes to the interior layout, with co-operation of Sarah's sales staff. Nothing was too difficult and their advise was very helpful.
The chosen design worked well with our North facing site, did not detract from the views and very energy efficient.
We experienced some minor problems that were rectified appropriately

The main problem was that the site supervisor by his own admission, seldom attended the build. So the quality was very bad because there was no-one supervising it. Eventually we had to go down to the property every week, find the defective work and email the site supervisor who would seldom respond. So many of these problems were still there at hand over time when they were not eager to fix them. One of the worst was that the roofing iron was not attached to the roof joists in one area and it had also not been cut to size. So iron was just flapping in the wind. When I raised it with the site supervisor at one of the hand over inspections he asked how I found it. I told him that I had climbed a ladder. He stated "I don't do ladders".

I need to mention the painting. Very poor quality paint used and very poor quality painters. I had to repaint the entire interior of the house.

The other big issue was the upstairs floor. We contracted with an Adelaide based company to install a wooden floor over the structa floor in the upstairs area. Fortunately, the business owner came down to check out the structa floor on the same day as our last hand over inspection. He found that the floor dropped by 10mm in the last metre before the window out to the deck, and therefore he could not install the floor in that area. So we pointed that out to the site supervisor who stated that he saw no problem with that and that the floor installer should just turn his floor around and run it parallel to the window. We and the floor installer almost laughed because it was so absurd. We reported the issue to the construction manager of Sarah Homes who stated that the issue was "within tolerance" and therefore we would have to pay to have it corrected. More threats of legal action and finally they agreed to pay for a tiler to level the floor. I have never understood how a floor can drop away like that and not be picked up by a site supervisor.

Eventually, they told us it was finished. It wasn't. We hired a building consultant who found a lot of incomplete or sub standard work. We gave Sarah Homes his list plus those items that we had found. They told us that they had addressed all of those issues and that we could commence the hand over inspection. Eventually,we had three hand over inspections because they would lie to us and tell us that they had fixed everything, only for us to find when we arrived that they had barely addressed any of the problems. We finally resolved that by telling them that we would be deducting the cost of our wasted time from the remaining amount that we owed them, and did so.

The salesman told us that the build time would be around 20 weeks. The contract stated a maximum of 36 weeks. When we queried this we were told that the 36 weeks was only stated in case of unforeseen problems such as weather, acts of god etc. Fair enough. Once the actual build time approached 36 weeks without any unforeseen problems occurring and the house was nowhere near finished, we tried to communicate our concerns. Numerous emails and phone calls went unanswered. They even withdrew from the site for 6 consecutive weeks without any notice or explanation. Finally, we threatened legal action for breach of contract and that got some response. In the end the build time was around 39 weeks plus the abovementioned wasted hand over inspections.

The next set of problems arose when we presented our list of problems found in the first 3 months of ownership. There were a lot of items, some superficial, some more serious. Despite the contract stating that these would be promptly attended to, they were not. Many months went by and many communications were again ignored. Finally, they arranged to send a local handyman down and he was very efficient and fixed most of the issues. But we had to persist to get that.

The same terrible customer service has been a feature of all later problems that have occurred. We would contact them, we would receive an email stating that someone will contact us within 14 days, and that is it. No such contact occurs. Subsequent contacts promise action that never occurs. Do they think that dissatisfied customers will lose patience and get the problems fixed at their own expense?

Any person thinking of using Sarah Homes should be aware that, based upon our experience, the sales process is by far the most efficient and professional component. So do not be mislead into thinking that that level of efficiency will continue throughout the entire contract period. You may be lucky or you may suffer an experience similar to ours, which will be very stressful and we would not wish that on anyone.

So in summary, we would never use Sarah Homes again and would never recommend them to anyone. It is a pity that they have such a poor customer service ethos because the house itself, once all of the issues were addressed, is good, so far.

Hats off to [name removed] for her friendly and very helpful manner in helping us choose our ideal home for our retirement near the beach.Nothing has been too much trouble for her as she has given great lengths of time and suggestions to us all along the way.

As retirees, and only ever having the one home for 42 years, we were somewhat initially nervous at taking on such a project at this time in our lives.However, [name removed] has put our minds at ease with her obvious interest in us and bringing about our dream.

Many thanks.
We love the open space design,particularly the huge balcony of the 'Emily 4' and raked ceiling.
We've changed the configuration of the stairs for better access.

Sarah homes did a good job on my first ever home. They helped me throughout the process of securing my property and the build itself. Greg the sales consultant did a wonderful job creating and modifying the Drysdale 3E design to my personal specifications. The only fault I could find with Sarah homes was the communication at the head office. There was only one time where I though the communication wasn’t the best. But after a while of hassling I got answers which explained the communication drop. Overall the communication with the builder and the site manger was awesome! The builder (Rob) was an absolute weapon completing tasks quickly and building to a high standard. My site manger Jermy was excellent with keeping me updated and also following up on jobs that needed to be done in a quickly manner. At handover I was over the moon with how good my house looked and was pleased that it all came together well. Also the enjoyed the wine. Sarah homes is a great builder for first home buyers keeping designs at affordable prices and not keeping you in the dark with extra costs. I actually got a refund at the end of my build of approx. $2500 because provisional sums came in under budget. So I was happy they didn’t pocket this themselves. I would recommend Sarah Homes to anyone who is on a tight budget or just a first home buyer.

The whole experience was great, from the time we spoke to mark at the display home to the end product, we could not have asked for better, no problems at all and no cost blow outs, thank you Mark Taylor for your tips that have made our home perfect and Jake the supervisor for keeping everything running smoothly, you employ top tradies

From our first contact with paula of Sarah Homes in victor harbour she guided us through the process and listened to our needs for our new home and came up with ideas and plans that suited our needs an excellent representative for sarah homes would recommend her to anyone.Then onto the build our supervisor (Jeremy) was excellent the finished product was exactly as we envisaged and maybe a little better than we expected he listened to our issues and acted on them accordingly as did we to him, he went above and beyond with his help for our solar needs recommending an excellent local company. We are currently in our 90 day any issues period and there are no major ones to report so far, as for costs they are what we planned for so all in all i would recommend the team from sarah homes we had to anyone .

We built 7 years ago with Sarah Homes on Yorke Peninsula. The house was fantastic and anything that we noticed at handover was attended to quickly. At that time the sales staff and our supervisor were great.
We have opted to build our home at Marino with Sarah Homes as we have just sold the beach house. So far the sales staff member and the office staff have been more than helpful and made it easy to finally have approval from council. We are more than happy with our experience with Sarah Homes as our block was a difficult one to be able to fit what we desired in a house plus to fit it on our difficult block. Can only thank our sales member for helping us so much. Looking forward now to the start of the build.

we have recently completed our beach house that Sarah Homes have built.
Very easy process, agree what you want and lots of homes to review to help influence best option for you. We went with a Whiteley but there are lots of design options and great VFM. You can also personalise the style with different additions, we went with a really large balcony facing the ocean and none at the front, since we didnt want front balcony the design team contacted us and suggested how to improve the front appearance.
No hidden costs and once agreed they go and build. I would use them again.