Thoughts on house building companies.

14 comments

1. I personally like Daiwa for their steel frame homes.

2. No lie, they all start talking crap about each other. I suggest going for the style esthetic you like while considering price. We looked at so many housing companies. 

   Mitsui House was nice, they use old wood. But unfortunately out of our price range. 

   Sweden House looked nice, but upon seeing the model houses, I felt the bedrooms were cramped despite the high ceilings. And the front door is made of solid wood, it was super heavy opening. 

   We chose Ichijo in the end. It was simple enough and in our price range.  

3. Panasonic was great for me, especially after service. Whenever I have any problem/concern, they come to explain or fix it for free very quickly.

   Also remember that you can heavily negotiate the price with builders.

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5. Quality wise they are all similar, good construction but not much freedom on design and materials.

   I would highly recommend going through an architect office, it will be more expensive but it’s worth for the custom design and material quality. This is where you will spend several years of your life, makes no sense to cheap out. I would recommend browsing Houzz or suvaco before deciding on buying a standardized house

6. They all overcharge.

   Cheapest way ahead is an architect and then hire a local builder. Most if not all builders are fully capable of doing anything up to passivhaus standards; it’s just about how much you want to pay for their time. Making an airtight house is all about time and materials for the builder.

7. I built with Sekisui Heim. Was a good experience overall. Their aftercare has also been fantastic. We considered a smaller company but my father in law warned me against it, the guy they used years back went bust and didn’t make good on aftercare promises.

8. Can you please share the different cost range of building a house from these seperate companies you mentioned?

9. My parents built using Serara Home. They use real brick for the facade and have really good insulation, floor heating, etc. You can request a night’s stay in one of their model homes so you can get a better idea of what it’s like.

10. We had our house built 8 years ago, and started the process way before. We just visited as many open houses as possible, taking notes and pictures of things we liked and disliked. At the end we picked 3 makers (2 local, and also Sweden house) and asked them to give us an estimate for our specifications. With the estimate in hand, we went to each of them to see what they could do better or cheaper than the others. We ended picking a local mid size company and have been very happy with the follow up care they have provided over the years.

11. We used Berk House and they were mostly great. We did have an architect that we found through the building company. It’s’s an interesting process, they ask you what you want in a house and you have an interview with 3 different architects. They then all come back with a design proposal and you nominate the architect you want to work with.

    During the planning phase we were able to make significant modifications with the house being completely custom. We built a very western style home in Tokyo and we were able to add hidden rooms, a workout studio for aerial/cirque, western style garage and driveway for 4 cars.

    They helped us understand building restriction laws and how we could make the most of our living space. An example would be Fireproofing, your living space to land ratio can be increased if you have a section fireproofed. As most council’s have restrictions; for example we have a 220sqm block of land and we can only build on 50% of that per floor of the house. We also have a 2 story build limit meaning we could have 220sqm of living space. They told us a garage, basement and rooftop don’t count as living space, we used their knowledge to end up with over 300sqm of living space.

    In the end we were happy with the outcome and now live in our dream house.

    I said mostly great at the start because there were certainly areas for improvement, the prices are very high and they could use some improvements in their finishing but it’s nothing worth getting upset about. They were able to address my concerns and resolve any open items after we moved in.

    I’d highly recommend them, they can create whatever you want, if you have the funds to support it.

12. Demolished our house September, housing company still hasn’t started despite it supposed to have started in January. I’m more than pissed off because I’m paying rent for my wife’s parents untill it’s built. It’s become a nightmare.

13. have you checked hinokiya?

14. I wanted a single story house built (land already owned)…. A lot of the national companies were really expensive.. I went with a local company that was much cheaper.. Basically all the designs were pre-made and I could choose options for the small things.. They did alter my house in 1 major way, but it seemed like something they didn’t do often. I had concerns about the quality(is cheaper really okay??).. but 10+ years later and not a problem yet..