Stellar Homes

Quality Workmanship – The choice to build with Stellar Homes was easy for us. The quality workmanship and finishing on their display homes, coupled with positive feedback received from family and friends who had previously built with Stellar, meant they were our first and only choice. From the very beginning the staff at Stellar provided us with special attention in… Read more

transforming our hand drawn plans into our dream home. They were responsive and accommodating to all our needs and requests. They were also attentive in ensuring that we were involved in the building process from beginning to end. This was extremely important to us, and made building our home an enjoyable experience.

The quality workmanship provided by Stellar’s reputable and friendly tradespeople was critical in achieving the customisation and attention to detail our home required. This provided us with the satisfaction of seeing our vision for our home come to life.

Since handover, we have received many compliments on our home and we would like to congratulate and thank the team at Stellar for the special interest they invested in this project. We would have no hesitation in recommending Stellar to others as a high quality builder, as we are confident that they can apply their skills, expertise and commitment to excellence, to create first-class homes for their customers. Special attention, responsive, accommodating, quality workmanship

Wonderful – This was the first time building a new home for me, and second time for my wife. I thought Stellar did a great job in having their allocated supervisor go through the different stages in the building process. We were kept informed and we were happy with the outcome of having a wonderful home. The supervisor was also thorough in checking that the… Read more

quality was achieved in all the different areas of our home. We also liked the beginning of the whole building process. We designed our own home and their architect just made it better by giving us their suggestions and recommendations. It saved us money and we got what we wanted. After the house was finished, we did not have many issues with the final product but where there were issues, Stellar has done well to fix them in a timely manner. But overall, the issues were a minimum and small. Stellar are transparent and easy to work with. easy to talk to

Not Happy – We decided to build with this ' custom builder ' in 2012. Getting to the end of the project was dotted with lack of communication and as it was a rural property little thought to the challenges of buildign in this location. Verandah has no to litte fall [ not to code ],and tiled over the bottom damp course with no weep slits to front facade.The… Read more

plans were not detailed enough, electrician, first fix carpenters and roofers were the most average. Have since paid to have mains box and circuit board redone by a true A class tradesman. Circuit board had blue points installed ' not to code'. Have entered into correspondence with Stellar homes but to date no reply that addresses the problems..

the code for exterior tiling was supplied by the very helpfull SA planning which clearly shows it is not laid to code. Have sent this to Stellar homes months ago and no response. Often a builder can redeem themselves by way of their attention to customer care after the build...not so with Stellar Homes thus far. Very poor business procedure. Most of the trades spoke very low of them, which worried us in the start but then your signature is on the bottm line and its too late to stop. Thankfully I was there most of the time and was able to bring it to the attention of the site supervisor of the day.

He atleast showed more interest although that did not address the fall problem either. Constuction manager at the time seemd disinterested. Workplace safety was also lacking. Best trades were the insulation layer, bricklayer, stone mason, painters and second fix carpenter. I am still waiting in hope that Stellar Homes will contact and atleast show some signs of interest in resolving the issues and rebuilding some confidence with their client. it seems our patience and courtesy in this case are showing no returns. A real shame as the house is visually appealing and generally a good standard with the exception of the above. I suggest use a independent building inspector to check each stage and have Stellar remedy any issues before progressing any further and get everything in writing. Its easy to become comfortable with the initial friendly atmosphere. Good Luck Selections persoanl was efficient Lack of communication and no after service

Don't sign on the dotted line!!! – Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Beautifully frustrating. How I wish I didn't ignorantly sign on the dotted line, or naively fall for the too-good-to-be-true sales spiel and sweet talk. If only I had researched building a home (my first build) and more importantly researched this builder, more thoroughly before embarking on this project (read:… Read more

disgraceful epic in poor Customer Experience).

Mumster, bozoeggman, Fish master, JimC500, saheen and kaboomade are spot on with their reviews and comments, with my "journey" being no different. In fact, it feels as though my experience has been a nightmare combination of a lot of what they have detailed. Ask yourself, is seven different people over 6 reviews all saying the same thing a concerning trend?

Unfulfilled promises, lies, cutting corners, even theft, and a distinct lack of communication have been dotted throughout my build. Building a new home should be an exciting experience, not what I (and clearly others) have endured. Comments like "outstanding dedication to customer service" and "a vision with clear goals and paramount customer service" seem to be only buzz words on business cards and the company website. I have found no substance and action behind these words where this builder is concerned. We are nearing 12 months of construction on a build that the contract states will be done in 25 weeks. No legitimate reason has been given for the delays. Numerous requests addressed to Senior Management for a formal response to my concerns have been dodged with such consistency, it almost seems standard procedure... Like complaints are way too commonplace for this builder. In fact the only time Senior Management have responded is with empty threats of legal action after I posted on the Stellar Homes Facebook page early in the piece, questioning their commitment to customer service as per their Mission Statement/Vision. Key trades jumping ship and suppliers imposing stop-credit terms is, in my mind, another fair indicator of why they are consistently behind the eight ball, as well as another insight into how this company conducts its business overall.

I am now pursuing recourse through Consumer Affairs and our lawyers. Those lawyers are also investigating the option of a class action to stop this company in it's tracks and prevent them from ruining anyone else's dreams.

In closing, I'm going to shamelessly plagiarise other reviews in reiterating Stellar in name only... Stay away!

Stay away – 4 years after we moved into our house we regret ever falling for the sales spiel. There is absolutely no positive about building with Stellar. We spent over $400 000 on a house that was built to such a poor standard that the real estate agent we asked to value our house said that we would be better off pulling it down and starting again rather… Read more

than selling and moving. Once they have your money they give lip service to the guarantee, we got tired of waiting, phoning and emailing and decided to start fixing things ourselves. Still waiting to get our sagging eaves fixed, the leaks under the majority of our sinks, to replace all our skirting boards ( they were installed so badly), rehang doors so they actually fit, repaint because that was never completed correctly ( nobody ever heard of cutting in, in the company Stellar used).

We should have pulled the pin when we observed that they didn't use gravel to elevate the foundation before they dug foundation trenches. When we queried this practice ( we had been watching other houses being built in the area) we were told it was unnecessary, now however we have so much movement that we are going to have to relay our flooring as you can drive trucks through the gaps in the floorboards, not to mentions the large cracks in the concrete In the garage.

Too many things to itemise

Communication is everything (or nothing) – Wonderful service up until the point of signing the contract, then no contact from them for 2 months after signing the contract and paying the deposit (other than "I'll get back to you", which they didn't). I also had not reached build stage, Stellar hadn't submitted anything to council in the 2 months post contract, but Stellar were full of… Read more

excuses when I cancelled the contract (that was the only time post contract that they contacted me... a lot!). I ended up paying them out the amount they demanded for breaking the contract while receiving similar threats as "mount_barker_resident" but I still haven't excluded taking legal action against them for what I consider, in my opinion, to be a failure of Stellar Homes to honor their contractual commitments and their apparent refusal to communicate with me. My decision to break the contract was not taken lightly, however I thought if this is how they communicate and they haven't even broken ground yet, how bad is it going to get during the build?!?!

I ended up taking my business to Scott Salisbury Homes who developed a floor plan with me and built a bespoke home to similar levels of fit-out for a similar price to the Stellar fit-out/price. I'm due for handover in 2 weeks and while any build for a custom home is going to have it's challenges, I've been very happy with the service I've received at SSH and the the quality is excellent.

For me, "Stellar" in name only. Pre-Sales service, suggestions and recommendations Post Sale, no service/communication, threats

OK – I love our house, it already feels like home. I just wish it hadn't been so stressful. I have learnt a lot and would perhaps find it easier and cheaper to do it myself. We chose Stellar because we had our own house design and very few builders were willing to accommodate or even quote. I found them very flexible in making our dream house become… Read more

our house and not a cookie cutter house that has been built a thousand times before. It is nice to have a unique house. The customer relations person is a lovely and helpful person. I felt she really cared about our plight when things went horribly wrong. We are 6 weeks in our house and we have had numerous tradespeople in to rectify the things that should never have gone wrong,Stellar to their credit haven't just wiped their hands and said "tough" deal with it yourself. The promise was a quality build, but this has not been reflected in the finished product. The tradespeople they use seem to be of the mindset "she'll be right" instead of doing things properly in the first instance. We still have tradespeople trudging through here on a daily basis, today the painters, but we have also had Stegbar, tiling, sinks and toilets replaced, roofing guys, heating and aircon guys (oops do you have to actually connnect it?, security and the list goes on. Some of these tradies are on their 4th and 5th visit, to fix stuff that shouldn't or wouldn't have been needed to be atended to if things were done properly the first time. Check your invoices carefully, we found quite a few errors when it was time for the final payment. Keep every bit of paper, and if you can document everything by email, as it quite often became a "he said she said" arguement. The supervisor never seemed to care that things weren't right. It ended up we had to project manage the supervisor. All of the issues we raised came to a head and he acknowledged that we had a right to be stressed, this after 7 holes were cut in our ceiling because the electrical guy misplaced the light battens. This issue was raised and others and our concerns were often times ignored. Over quoting on add ons, for example Stellar quoted $7500 for our balcony and stair balustrade, we purchased it for $4500 from the same supplier.

Good – We have been in our home a few months now and are very happy. There was a lot of problems initially but all our issues were eventually dealt with and resolved. It was extremely stressful and we felt like we had to site manage ourselves but all this was resolved with a change of supervisor. The trades that came in after lock up were great guys… Read more

and we cannot say enough about the tiler and painters and their attention to detail. Had heaps of problems with the electricians and plumbers and all that came down to was a failure to read the plans. Our supervisor was very easy to deal with and always answered any query we had. Unlike other customers we had great service from the office and everyone always rang us back. We have built before and realise that there is no such thing as a perfect builder but at the end of the day we believe that Stellar have built us a quality house at a good price. I think the key is to be reasonable with your expectations and always keep the lines of communication open. Overall I would recommend Stellar above other project builders and if you dont have the money for Medallion or Scott Salisbury etc they offer a good custom designed alternative. Finished product is great. Value for money compared to other custom builders. The time taken. House took a lot longer to build that anticipated. Poor supervisor communication to start with.