The Needham family live in rural bliss on a hill near Te Kuiti in a beautiful house that comprises two homes.
One home is for Anna and Jared and their two primary school-aged daughters Neika and Luuca and there’s an adjoining place for Anna’s mum Lynne Benefield.
Anna and Jared first built with Generation Homes in a Te Kuiti subdivision in 2016.
Their experience was so good and their build so straightforward that they didn’t consider any other builder for their second home, which is situated 10 minutes outside of the King Country town.
The family enclave also includes Jared’s brother and his family so the girls have their cousins as neighbours.
“It’s pretty much all the family that lives on this driveway, so it’s pretty cool,” Anna says.
Their family doesn’t have any animals, yet, but her brother-in-law has about 600 calves.
“We’ve been feeding calves this afternoon and the kids have been having fun with their cousins on their motorbikes.”
The land was sub-divided from Jared’s father’s lifestyle property.
ANNA
In Te Kuiti there’s a narrow choice of houses and neighbourhoods. When we chose to build with Generation the first time, we liked the new subdivision and it was one of the safest places to live. It was nice to have new houses around us. But then it just ended up getting too built out in the following years. There were just too many houses around us. So, we sold it and built again in our rural location. My father passed away three years ago and they had a big family home in Te Kuiti. When we were planning our place, Jared suggested to Mum to come, too. So, she sold up the family home and came with us.
ANNA
In 2015 to be honest I just Googled group home builders and I came across Generation. They had so many plans compared with what other companies offered. I was pregnant when we first built and had a 12-month-old, so it was pretty rushed from our side.
Paul (Marshall, Generation Homes Central North Island Managing Director) was one of the few people to call me back. He not only rang back, he came over straight away. Nothing was ever too much for him. He would pop over – and that’s about an hour and three quarters away.
When people didn’t respond to my calls or emails to their websites, it gave me a bad impression and I decided I wouldn’t be bothered with them. Te Kuiti is quite out of the way for some companies I guess.
For this home, the reason why we decided to go with Generation is that we fully trust Paul, especially in the Covid times when we were signing the contract and the uncertainty at that time. We were happy with the quality of their work and it’s just a trust thing.
The fixed price was important for us for both builds. The first time I wasn’t working and we needed it to be a fixed price. The second time when we were dealing with the uncertainty of the world, we heard that so many companies withdrew their fixed price because of Covid. Paul offered a fixed price – that was huge for us.
The guaranteed delivery date was important for us the first time with our young family. For this house, we were more flexible as it’s really two houses, but Paul still gave us a schedule and they stuck to it.
ANNA
The first time our home was the Alpine design and we didn’t have any modifications. It was great. We liked the Tongariro design of the Taupo show home and that is the basis of our second place. We just played around with the design to add in my mum’s side. Once I explained to Paul what we wanted, he literally sent me an email the next day with a plan. We rearranged the position of a few doors, but that was it.
There are two sides to our house – two houses connected under one roofline. We have a four-bedroom home around 250 square metres and Mum has a two-bedroom home around 150 sqm. We have separate entrances.
ANNA
There was open communication. It was just easy.
During the Covid lockdown there was a border between the King Country and Taupo, so we had to wait until restrictions were lifted to go to Taupo and pick the things for the house.
I thought they weren’t going to be able to source products but I can honestly say throughout the whole thing there was not one glitch with materials, despite the Gib crisis. We were very lucky.
We had a really bad winter last year. It was a very wet and up here we get extreme winds. Our builders were incredible. The wind and the rain were shocking but they kept to the schedule. There wasn’t a day that they weren’t here, even though they had to moisture test for ages before they could put up the Gib. They worked weekends. They said they wanted us to be able to move in by Christmas and they gave us the keys on 22 December.
ANNA
The first time around we only dealt with Paul. Over the years Generation Homes has grown and his team are very good. This time it was clear that he was overseeing the build, but he has an amazing team. I don’t think I’ve really worked with people like that before – Fiona (Home Consultant) and Brad (Construction Manager) were just amazing. The communication was fantastic. I could ring them any time. They always got back to me. It was easy.
JARED
They were very efficient, on the ball, honest and very reliable.
ANNA
You hear things on the news and you read things about building contractors and things going wrong. Nothing was ever a problem with Generation. Paul went the extra mile to help us. He got surveyors out to make sure we could position the house where we wanted. He had PlaceMakers visit to ensure their trucks could fit down the drive to the site.
The after care is also great. They stayed in touch once the build was finished and I know if anything went wrong they’d be here the next day to fix it.
ANNA
The kitchen and living area. At the moment, Jared is watching the football on TV and the kids are lying down in front of the fire. They have their own lounge, too. We don’t have to have curtains in the main lounge and the house is positioned so we can look out at the beautiful view. It’s all open plan and I say to people it’s very easy to live in. Mum says she pinches herself every day, waking up to the view that we have and living in a new home.
ANNA
Extra budgeting is about the upgrades. For our first home, we had the standard fixtures and the fixed price contract and we were happy. The standard features are of a high standard.
For this home, I guess we upgraded with the plan we chose. It has a pitched roof included. To be honest most things are standard spec, but the quality is so good people have asked us if we upgraded. We opted for tongue and groove on the doors and a bigger oven.
ANNA
We waited until the first week of January to move in as that was less of a rush for us. We waited to get the concrete poured for the driveway. We did all the outside work – the decks, the earthworks, the lawns, the landscaping – all that kind of stuff.
