This review is slightly lengthy but hopefully useful to anyone considering building with Stroud Homes Brisbane East. This review only relates to the company and its management as it was when we had our build completed in 2024 and the subsequent 12 months maintenance period in 2025. As all Stroud Homes Businesses are franchised, this review only pertains to Stroud Homes Brisbane East as it is run by David and Lisa Adams. Should the franchise be taken over by another individual/entity then this review should be disregarded.

This was the second time my wife and I have built with a Stroud Homes business, and due to our positive experiences with the first build, we decided to look at building with them again. The build process this time was extremely complicated due to multiple factors and at one point we were uncertain if we should even go ahead or simply sell our land and buy an existing house. This process was complicated for us due to building in a post-Covid environment where pricing seemed to jump rapidly and building quotes were changing and many businesses were going under.

During the process of finding a builder, we looked a many different companies and even almost signed with another Stroud Franchise, having plans drawn up and sent for quoting. Unfortunately, due lack of transparency from the franchisee and other factors, we were unable to continue with them and needed to continue to explore other options. Proving that each Stroud franchise is run very differently to each other.

We were ready to abandon the building dream but were then recommended to look into Stroud Brisbane East by a friend. From the moment we visited their display home, we were blown away by their sales team who were eager to help and promised us a price estimate of based on our plans within 2 days. Even more impressively, they actually delivered this, securing our interest. For reference, the other Stroud Franchise took several months to finally get us a price and the price was then almost double the initial verbal estimate despite being aware of the budget we had advised.

Locking in, we started the process by creating a new set of plans. Drawing inspiration from their other acreage plans, we were able to create our own unique build based on a combination of houses. We were heavily involved at all stages of the process and ended up with a house plan that fit exactly what we needed.

The custom quoting part of the process was next. We had an extremely specific design idea when it came to the build and wanted certain products that due to our connections with the building industry, we were able to obtain ourselves. Like all builders, Stroud East have their own suppliers that they use (which were still excellent but not what we wanted) but they were willing to work with us to remove various items from the quote and allow us to supply ourselves exactly what we wanted such as all internal tiling and custom light fittings/fixtures. The end result was a design that looks extremely custom and personalised but at a fraction of a boutique builder price tag.

The building process itself was about as good as one could expect. Obviously it was frustrating because all every home builder wants to do once starting to build is to move in as soon as possible and everything seems to take so long. But each stage moved along quickly and there were no real areas of concern that we had throughout the process. This is partly due to the incredible communication that we experienced with the team, in particular our site supervisor Matt, who I understand has sadly moved on to another role at the time of writing this review. Regardless, communication is key to all large projects and by being in constant touch with our supervisor and overall team through the Voxer app, any and all issues were immediately discussed and rectified as they were identified. We received handover inside the contract time of 1 year which again was impressive considering the size and complexity of the build.

Stroud provide a building examiner for the inspection of all stages, although we did end up using an independent building inspector for the final stage of the build as well as their inspector. We felt that any company who is regularly employed by a builder cannot truly be independent and the safest option was to use our own. There were a few additional items that our inspector picked up but overall there were minimal issues and certainly nothing major which is a testament to the building quality overall.

We delayed to write the review as we wanted to complete the 12 month warranty period first to make sure that any issues were fixed before we provided a review. There are still some outstanding problems that need to be corrected but this is only due to logistical issues surrounding scheduling trades during a Christmas period. Overall there were very few things that required correction at 12 months, mostly just movement issues/small cracks in skirting and some painting issues.

Overall, we were extremely happy with the overall care that Stroud Homes Brisbane East as run by David and Lisa Adams provided to us and our dream home. We do not hesitate to recommend them for anyone looking for an honest and excellent builder in the Brisbane area. Again however, due to Stroud Homes being a franchise, I stress that this review only applies to Stroud Homes Brisbane East and only with it being run by David and Lisa Adams.

As an aside, I should mention that the build quality was so good that our house was nominated for HIA and other building industry awards.