Masterton vs Rawson

Hi everyone, first post so apologies if it’s in the wrong place etc. we have a block of land at The Ivy in Warriewood (Sydney Northern Beaches). It’s very long and narrow so we’re going to go with a modified design and are torn between Masterton and Rawson. The initial plans they have drawn up are pretty similar and more or less on budget so I’d love to hear your views: If you had the same house design/base price, which builder would you go with?

catgee
Welcome to the forum
You forgot to mention the topography?
Is your block flat or sloping, have you a contour survey, how many Floor levels, retaining? as this will impact on your site costs

You also need to look deeper into the inclusions. For example, with Rawson you get a driveway included in the price, not sure about masterton. Then some builders include flooring, some don’t. Some builders you have to upgrade nearly everything eg benchtops etc. The list is pretty long. Don’t just look at the price straight up. look at what you get for that price. As mentioned above, you can’t get a true price indication until you have completed your site surveys etc as your costs, before you even lay a brick, can vary considerably.

Rawson would be my choice all the way
(Disclaimer I didn’t build with either)
With the research we did into builders and the forum knowledge we picked up I believe Rawson offer a better quality finish and Masterton seem to have some notoriously long build times and inconsistent quality finishes (dependent on ss and trades)
I would be surprised if you could get a Rawson build for the same price as a masterton though? Rawson were more expensive for equal square metres when we were looking around.
Bear in mind that the builder you choose is quite a personal thing and dependent on budget and design preferences. I imagine you will get mixed recommendations.

I'm building with Rawson now and have no complaints. I would (and did!) definitely choose them over Masterton for the reasons above, particularly the very long build times.

Thank you for your reply, the build times is something I was concerned about (although they claim these are improving now ?!?)

I knew I would have forgotten something important! The lot is almost completely flat, just a 0.5m drop from right to left so no need for any retaining walls or significant ground works. We’re looking to build a 2 storey, 4 bed with tandem garage.

Thanks, that’s what we’re wrestling with just now. It seems like we have to pay out at least $1500 to get the design to a point where we know realistic costs, but we don’t want to do that and then find its over our budget and we have to either start again with another builder or make significant compromises to reduce the costs IYSWIM

That’s interesting, so far we have had prelim designs done by both and for nearly identical builds the Rawson one is looking like being $50k cheaper even taking a conservative approach. The impression I’ve been getting is that Rawson would be better quality and has better inclusions for our needs but the customer service so far has been a bit rubbish whereas Masterton have been very helpful and responsive (but are looking expensive and slow to build).

It obviously depends on the sales person and what you include in your tender, but our tender with Rawson came back pretty close to what the sales person had estimated. We added a bunch of stuff with internals, but they were all "nice to have" rather than "must have". The sales person estimated the site costs really well, considering we have a 1.5m slope and we suspected there was rock in the site.

Fwiw rumour has it that Rawson is about to launch a huge promotion for their birthday (June I think?) So if you can hold out for that, you might get some really good inclusions from Rawson.

If it helps we started out with Clarendon and got to tender but only after site surveys etc. in the end we weren’t happy with them so we did the same process with rawson (who are building our home) and figured it’s better to burn $1300 to get an accurate price than $500k getting a house we don’t love. We are also opposite to what you are experiencing in that customer service with Rawson (Newcastle) is fantastic. You are also lucky having a flat block, which will help you a lot, but my advice would be, don’t commit without the whole story.

I went with Rawson as their inclusions are awesome, especially if they have a bonus package on. Their paperwork is a little slow but I don't really have anything to compare it to as this is my first build. Paperwork took nearly 6 months. Build is really fast though and the quality seems great as well. Im already on bricks after 6 weeks from a KDR. Building a 5 bed 2 storey house with 2 bed granny.

Just seen this thread now, but coincidentally these were the two co's we were deciding upon before going with rawson. Our build costs for the houses were very similar albeit the level of finish of the rawson's seemed to be better when we compared the various display homes and with the rawson promo deals (tesla powerwall, solar package, etc etc it was actually cheaper)

Had also known of a few masterton builds with issues (but they got resolved in the end) whereas rawson seem to be a lot better in terms of feedback from homeowners. I must say when dealing with Lynda from masterton Newcastle she was fantastic.

Thanks for the reply, we came to the same conclusion - the new promo swung it for us! We're currently waiting for the date for our tender presentation with Rawson so fingers crossed we've made the right choice!