Jamie and Moana Rajek are experienced property investors who have built their forever home with Generation Homes in Taupo.
The pair came to Generation Homes with plenty of expertise in the building industry, including investing in a property portfolio, undertaking renovations and have even been landlords.
Their experience also extends to new builds. Jamie’s company – Roofing and Water Proofing Taupo Ltd – has built many rooves for Generation Homes in the central North Island.
When it came time to build their own dream home, it was a straightforward decision for Jamie and Moana to choose Generation Homes.
“I do a lot of houses with them. They are the easiest building company to work for and the homes are excellent quality,” Jamie says.
“When you are running your own business, you soon get to know who the sharp operators are.
“If I enjoyed working with Generation Homes professionally, then building something with them was going to be a dream. And that’s exactly what happened,” he says.
JAMIE
These guys are really good at what they do. They know how to structure things. I know this from working with them and getting the schedule sent to me. You can start on day one and they can pretty much tell you ‘we’re going to break dirt and you are going to meet us on site on this day to sign your code of compliance and when your job is finished’. I don’t work with anyone else in the industry who does that.
As a homeowner you’re excited and you want to be in your house as soon as possible. You don’t want delays. You want to know you’re putting the key in the door at three o’clock on a set day and with Generation Homes that happens every time. It’s just seamless and they make everything so easy.
JAMIE
It was easy because they’re so organised. This is the joy of working with them. Two weeks before the build begins they send you the schedule. Everybody hits the dates and the building just flows. There’s always somebody watching, checking, and noticing things before they need to be fixed. It’s proactive instead of reactive.
MOANA
The communication was really good. It was well organised, choosing all the colours and stuff. If anything was going to be changed, they made stress free. It wasn’t a hassle to say ‘no actually I don’t like that’. Nothing was hard for them to change.
MOANA
Our build was faultless. We would build again with them.
JAMIE
It was good to have a fixed price. The only thing additional to the price charges for upgraded products we wanted, but everything was itemised.
There was no way they were ever going to say, ‘hey we told you your price, but now it’s going to be this price.’ A lot of people do build houses and blow the budget out without making any changes. They get told ‘this went up, and we couldn’t get this so we had to swap for that’. In the end it costs another $40,000-$50,000.
Our home was built on time and everything was perfect. The quality was there and it was easy from start to finish.
JAMIE
It is a take on a show home – the Tongariro plan. I think we’ve done about half a dozen houses based around that plan. We got together with Paul Marshall (the Regional Partner) and discussed what we wanted to change. So we kind of turned their plan into a big squiggle.
We nutted out a rough plan and once we got something close, Moana and I sat down and went over the finishes we wanted. For example, we ended up with a full tiled bathroom, which is not something a lot of people do.
The section we had was big, and the way we had to get everything to face meant we had to flip half of the house plan. Their original concept was kind of a u-shape, but we have an s-shape. Our main master bedroom and the deck at the back of our section are north facing. The living rooms at the front of the section face south and get all day sun. The sun rises up into the lounge and kitchen first thing in the morning. Then when we come home in the evening and the rooms have been in the sun all day, so they are warm.
MOANA
We took some of the windows and doors out. We thought there were too many bi-fold doors, and we couldn’t place our furniture where we wanted to.
JAMIE
It works perfectly for us. We’ve got little kids and older kids. Our youngest boy, he’s nine and our oldest boy is living with us and he’s 22. We spend most of our time in the lounge and kitchen which is pretty open plan, and all of the sleeping areas are on the other side of the house. So it feels like a little house, but it’s a big house. It has four bedrooms and a media room.
MOANA
It worked well for isolation.
JAMIE
You don’t trip over anyone and it’s quiet. The layout works perfectly for us. We’ve got a bull mastiff that lives here but you wouldn’t even know we’ve got a dog!
JAMIE
I’ve lived in Taupo for 30 years and Moana has been here for more than 20 years. Richmond Heights is a really nice place to live and it’s quiet. We are part of the subdivision in Akatea Lane, so everything around us is new.
I’ve owned the section for four years and there wasn’t a lot of sections back then. Our section is 900 square metres, and other ones at that time were 700-800sqm. But now in new developments the sections are more expensive and 400sqm. It means the houses are quite boxed in. We’ve got quite a big family so trying to spread out a four-bedroom house on a small section just wouldn’t work.
JAMIE
When you’re building, you need to get your layout and flow right – that’s the biggest thing.
Write yourself a wish list and a bottom-line list - that will pretty much set your budget. Start off with a wish list and then work out how many of those things you could cross off and not ruin your idea of your home.
JAMIE
We built the decks and did the landscaping, fencing and retaining wall.
