We started our house hunting journey in early 2019. We were looking to downsize to our forever home away from the city. We couldn’t find anything we liked, having come from a fairly new house.
It had been suggested we build but as we had not built before we were a little reluctant to take on a project. However, we visited a number of show homes at Paerata Rise and when we stopped in at the Jennian show home we met Louise Court. From our first conversations with Louise she assured us we had a good budget and could afford to build new which we had not expected. We had already been looking at sections at the Kahawai Point subdivision as we loved the area. Our initial visit was only to explore an idea, but Louise followed up and offered to meet us to look at a couple of building sites in our preferred location. Vince Costello came with Louise and they gave us their professional advice around what site would best suit our needs. From this point we secured our section then moved to the planning stage.
Louise listened to our ideas and came back with an existing plan that, with some minor adjustments suited our site and vision perfectly. We had been warned by friends that it was easy to go over budget, but we found that all the products in the Jennian range provided a good selection for our fixtures and fittings and we have ended up with a beautiful, quality built home. We had a contingency fund and whilst we did end up using some of this, it was to used for some extra things that made sense to include during the build. This was easily added as a variation. The PC sums Jennian allowed for in the contract were fairly accurate for items such as excavation and retaining walls so the build cost was kept within budget.
The whole project from the outset was well managed by each member of the Jennian Team, taking away any need to worry. The biggest push came as a result of the government announcement that we were moving into Lockdown under COVID-19 Level 4. We were so grateful that handover was then brought forward, so we were able to make our new home our lockdown bubble.
We cannot thank the Franklin Team enough for helping us achieve our dream retirement home.
— Robyn and Suli