We're considering between Reserve Collection from Henley Homes, Affinitiy from Carlisle and Prestige from Porter Davis.
If you've directly build or know/heard of building with any of them could you please share your experiences about building, handover, workmanship, quality of work etc.?
Wouldn't every individual build be of varying quality above the minimum depending on the location.
My understanding is that the building companies just contract out.
Goto homeone forums and you will answers to all your questions and more…
My experience with PD was S.H.I.T.
Will never go to them again. Poor workmanship, excessive reliance on building code to excuse poor workmanship (eg: paint inconsistency must be present if seen from 3-5 metres but if it presents within 1 metre, its ok), installed water flow restriction without telling us resulting in second bathroom water flow more like drips, constricted the gas flow, squeaky staircase after 2 years, etc etc.
I've had 5 houses built for me in my lifetime.
First, second and third were all private builders. Fourth and fifth (combined townhouses) were a volume builder. All houses have issues.
I thought volume builder would have their own and better inspections/builders but it's no different to the earlier builds in that everything is contracted out.
In fact, it was harder to make adjustments with the volume builder as they were more busy and had more penalty payment clauses for changes etc. One negative example was that they installed the wrong carpet and it took ages to prove that I had ordered a different one to the one installed. Once they found the issue, the fixed it promptly.
Another issue was that they installed the wrong stairwell, yes, stairwell and rails etc. Like the carpet issue, I had to demonstrate to them that I was right and they wrong - I showed them the paperwork and they offered to refund me the cost of the stairs or rectify. To rectify though would've meant tearing out the stairwell, and bathroom and powder room and laundry to rebuild it.
I think you'll struggle to find a person that has had a house built from all those volume builders to be able to compare one to the other.
It's luck of the draw depending on who your site supervisor / project manager is. Just hire an independent building inspection service for all the various stages.