As first home buyers, we walked through the Armstrong Creek displays for Kingsbridge homes (a sub company of Hermitage) in the first week of opening in early Feb 2018 after failing to find a design that suited us from any other builder. We fell in love with one of their designs on display- the Nelson. It was exactly what we needed and was affordable. Beau, our sales consultant, was lovely and knowledgeable. He went above and beyond with getting information for us. We signed up within a couple of weeks and we found titled land but held off with our settlement date to get our finances in order. However, soon after, Beau left and our experience went from great to pretty average. The sales consultant who took over our file took quite a bit of time to respond to our queries and also failed to attend a pre-arranged appointment, only notifying us by email very late the night before. They didn't work full time and so it was difficult for them to be able to take over new clients as well as their own, which is understandable, although we didn't feel like our home mattered to them at all. It also meant that the displays were open at unpredictable times and this was partly due to weekly meetings where staff were expected to travel to Melbourne and back on these days. I think this issue has since been rectified. At times, it felt like the displays were opened before they were ready- there were no print outs or colour boards for us to look at in advance and the printer wasn't working and so it made it difficult for us to send in/ provide documents as required, even when we attended the displays. We didn't change anything structurally from the display and even opted for some of the upgrade finishes provided in the display home. However, this proved confusing for the estimators and drafts people as we would receive different prices for identical items in between different versions of tenders, even if we were asking about something else. They also struggled to understand what we were asking for, even though some of these items were in the display and despite us providing pictures and mark ups on their own plans. This was unfortunately quite time consuming, and as result, we weren't able to be booked in for our colour appointment until May 2018, just before our land settled. We were required to take a day off work as we had to travel to Beaumont tiles in Melbourne. Our colour consultant was quite helpful although we had already pre-chosen most of our selections that we could (thanks to photos of colour boards from Beau!). Despite this, our colour appointment still took the full 4 hours! We did want some unique options for tiling etc and they were quite accommodating with this, allowing us to customise our design in each room, which we struggled to negotiate with any other builder. However, I would advise for you to check, double check and triple check your final tender, plans and colour selection as this can sometimes get lost in translation. There were also a number of discrepancies between the documents when things got updated which was time consuming because we had to constantly point these things out to get fixed and sign off on them. This took weeks. Finally, we signed our contracts and we were forecasted to begin in October 2018. However, this was again delayed because of permits. Despite me following up with the contract administrator after the advised time frame, they failed to chase up the permit. When I asked again a few days later, we found out that the permit had been passed and made available weeks before- another unnecessary delay. Despite our contract saying that the build had to begin within a particular time frame from receiving the permits, our build was delayed by another week due to "lack of trades". We later found out that there were several other Hermitage homes being constructed around the corner in a newly released stage. We now began to think that perhaps our build and contracts were delayed on purpose to allow all the trades to begin working in the same area at once... Due to these additional homes which ended up beginning before ours, we only really had trades at our block for 1-2 half days a week maximum and we would go for days at a time without any progress. Further, most of the trades are from Melbourne and so travel time needs to be considered. This was quite distressing as we had made it quite clear from Day 1 that we needed the build to be done by March 2019, due to our living arrangements. I even spoke to the head of Kingsbridge about this after much resistance from the contract administrator. This was ignored. Further, we told them that the contract end date listed as June 2019 was going to exceed our 12 months from our land settlement which makes us ineligible for our stamp duty exemption as first home buyers. They did not seem to care about this and told us that it was bad luck, despite the evidence I had of the delays being on their part. We paid the fixing stage payment at the end of February 2019 and it is now the beginning of April 2019 and our house is up to completion stage, although it is still forecasted to be another 8 weeks until handover- potentially making us ineligible for the stamp study exemption. This is quite stressful as it is likely that we will be out of pocket $9K despite our efforts to get the house done within the 12 months from May 2018. This will take our total time with Kingsbridge to a total of 16 months from signing up to handover. Throughout the build itself, there have been a number of errors regarding the trades and ordering which have added to delays (e.g. January was a write-off for us as there was an error in the ordering of door hinges). This has included but is not limited to: a wall being installed back to front in the frame stage (so that the door was in the wrong place), pipes and drains having to be moved after being placed underneath walls in the frame, insulation not being installed in places that it had to be installed to meet the energy rating (plaster had to be removed for this to happen after we pointed this out), incorrect height cavity door slider being installed and plastered over (this has had to be removed which has delayed painting in this area too), incorrect tiles being laid in certain areas despite meeting with the tiler for a tiling appointment, standard items being installed instead of those included in purchased upgrade packages, incorrect painting finishes (gloss instead of low sheen). Other things that we have become aware of that we wish we had have known before our colour selection appointment include options for finishes. Optional upgrades such as TV antenna installation, blinds, soft close hinges etc were not offered to us. As first home buyers, these are some of the things we didn't really think about and so unless you know what you want and what you need, then you will be unlikely to be offered the option. This is a shame because we would have paid for the convenience of having many of these things done. I have to say at this stage, the quality of the finishes (from what I have seen), is really quite high and the communication we have had with our site supervisor has been good. We have been able to schedule on site meetings as we need them, and can request updates as we want. We have found that voluntary updates only occur after the completion of each stage which to us, was too little information. A suggestion for Kingsbridge would be to put together a "welcome pack/ pamphlet" which outlines the process, particularly for first home buyers, although it could be provided to all clients. I have found at times that I have bothered the contract administrator with questions about how things happen or when in the process things happen because I have been ignorant and haven't been able to source this information online. I will provide another update post-construction to let you all know of the finished product, time frame and experience from completion stage to handover. At this stage however, we are glad that this is our "forever home" as we wouldn't want to build with Kingsbridge again.