Browse Forums Building A New House Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1982May 01, 2012 10:21 am Hi guys, Have been reading through this thread and picking up some great info so thought i would join and share our experience / learn from others along the way. We are looking at Building the Monte Carlo Executive Elite in the Hunter Valley and looks like we are in for a long haul. We recieved our first Cost estimate last week and are looking to start getting the ball rolling relatively soon, although our block is not registered yet and won't likely be until mid July, hoping to lock in our estimate before an apparent price rise in May, but trying to avoid getting stung with the 1k / month fee once you go over the 150 days. Hoping our journey is going to be a smooth one! McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1983May 01, 2012 11:24 am maxlucy1 Hi guys, Have been reading through this thread and picking up some great info so thought i would join and share our experience / learn from others along the way. We are looking at Building the Monte Carlo Executive Elite in the Hunter Valley and looks like we are in for a long haul. We recieved our first Cost estimate last week and are looking to start getting the ball rolling relatively soon, although our block is not registered yet and won't likely be until mid July, hoping to lock in our estimate before an apparent price rise in May, but trying to avoid getting stung with the 1k / month fee once you go over the 150 days. Hoping our journey is going to be a smooth one! Hi maxlucy. Your situation sounds very similar to ours. Speak to your CLO regarding this. We went over the 150 days and MDJ were very good about it, we didn't get the price increase. MDJ are pretty good, but speak to them now so you know where you stand and don't get any surprises later. Ps we are building a Monte Carlo as well. Awesome house and it was the main reason we chose MDJ & my wife wouldn't stop going in about it. Good luck Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1984May 01, 2012 10:28 pm Hi Bootylover Yeah the Monte Carlo is great, very practical floor plan, the only one we seen that really ticked all of our boxes. Thanks for the tip, am planning a sit down wiith them to go through our situation and get my head around the whole process.. Cheers Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1985May 01, 2012 10:45 pm we met with our SS this morning and with the tilers... it was nice to meet our SS for the first time... we didn't talk that much coz no major hiccups on our build... then we asked the golden question on when is the estimated handover... he didn't give an exact date but he was leaning towards 2nd or 3rd week of June... anyway, in the afternoon we went back to our site to check the progress of the tiling... they have laid down the floors today, i guess the wall tiles tomorrow.. then we also saw a tradie measuring the size of the caesar stones for the island bench.. and he told us that it's going to be finished within the week as well... Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1986May 02, 2012 10:34 am Hi there, This is my first post in this forum, however, I have been reading for quite awhile and gaining some great tips on the way. Quote: We are looking at Building the Monte Carlo Executive Elite in the Hunter Valley and looks like we are in for a long haul. We have just moved from a Monte Carlo Executive Elite. We did not build it, however we bought it when it was 6 months old and finished it off, selling it last month. We are in Port Stephens, so not too far from you. We are building the Bronte Executive Grande. We had our colour walkthrough last week. I was a bit shocked at some of the upgrade prices and some of the others were quite reasonable. Now we just want to get to colour selections, hoping that does not take too long. Today we have had a bit of a win. We had a set building envelope on our property and after a lot of discussions with the council over many weeks they told us to change the building envelope (as the original one would not fit our house on it) we would have to put in a Section 96 application to change it. $1600 later today I have been told that it is approved from the councils point and we should have it through in a couple of weeks. One weight off my shoulders. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1987May 02, 2012 12:55 pm Hi, I haven't had a chance to read through all the pages, but just wanted to join into this thread! We are building The Beachhouse in The Hunter Valley and couldn't be more happy with McDonald Jones! I will agree with others about the process leading up to the build is sooooo stretched out and ridiculous but once the building started, I can't complain at all. We have been told every single step that is happening and all tradies have turned up. Yeah, the extras are a bit expensive but most building companies are! I love McDonald Jones and would most certainly build with them again. Painter just finished and the Tiling has started today. It will take him a while, because he is there by himself, but couldn't be happier with it. I'm waiting for all the problems to start like I've been reading, but nothing so far has come about. McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1988May 02, 2012 2:07 pm Good for you. I hope you have a problem free finish. Got any pic's? I think we're all pretty happy with MDJ and most of us have been problem free, but others have had issues. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1989May 02, 2012 3:37 pm I'm hoping it's a problem free finish too. I'm waiting for all the bad stuff to happen after reading so many horror stories. I have some pics, but they are not that exciting. I'll figure out how to upload them Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1990May 02, 2012 6:11 pm 28parrot Sorry to hear about your mum KTKTKT. I'm sure that once things get started they will pick up speed. We got off to a slow start, picked up speed in the middle and then slowed somewhat towards the end but we will still scrape thru the 150 days by the looks of it. So there is plenty of opportunity to catch up if they work consistently from scrape to end. Good Luck Thanks 28 Parrot. Good to hear things speed up. Seems like next Tues or Thurs work will start. Fingers crossed. KDRB Carlingford, NSW Building Garden Retreat with MDJH McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1991May 02, 2012 7:01 pm Well it looks like our brickies are going to start tomorrow - and there's rain predicted! Great! Theyve still got some roof trusses to fix up too Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1994May 02, 2012 11:56 pm hey guys, from your letter of commencement, how long on average are your houses being built? just trying to gauge a time frame as if ours stretches to the whole of the 150 working day build time it is going to be finished the week b4 xmas! wondering if it gets done quicker than this. thanks! Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1995May 03, 2012 9:09 am Ours was started just after all the New Years holidays etc. I'd say we are not far out now. There hasn't really been many days where our house has just been sitting. It's always had someone there, doing something. McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1996May 03, 2012 10:49 am mandv hey guys, from your letter of commencement, how long on average are your houses being built? just trying to gauge a time frame as if ours stretches to the whole of the 150 working day build time it is going to be finished the week b4 xmas! wondering if it gets done quicker than this. thanks! This is the million dollar question. It depends alot in the weather, the house your building and what you are actually fetting done, eg flooring with mdj or after hsndover, the time of the year, (we have had nearly every public holiday and just about every wet rainy day) and how quick the tradies work. There are days where no one works on your house and then everybody and their dog is on our property. You should be ok. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1997May 03, 2012 1:11 pm mandv hey guys, from your letter of commencement, how long on average are your houses being built? just trying to gauge a time frame as if ours stretches to the whole of the 150 working day build time it is going to be finished the week b4 xmas! wondering if it gets done quicker than this. thanks! From following this forum for a long time I have only heard once that they have gone over their contract time. So expect to be finished before x-mas. Having said that you have to factor in things like public holidays, rain, things being stolen on broken along the way etc, also MDJ staff go on leave on the second week of December so if handover is due after that they might try to speed things up for you (hopefully). I think it all depends on the tradies as to how fast the build goes, our brickies where very meticulous as to which bricks they would put on our house and rejected about 1/2 of them due to chips, hairline cracks etc etc so it took a bit longer than what was scheduled but in a way I'm glad they were so picky. Our neighbour up the street is building with another company (F-S) and they started about 5 weeks before us and they just up to the gyprock stage now (we are about 2 weeks from handover), they ran out of bricks and took them about 4 weeks to get more. McDonald Jones is a great project home builder and you can see it in the quality of the work. The floor plans of their homes are well thought out and the inclusions that we got with our celebrations package were worth every cent. Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1998May 03, 2012 2:41 pm woot, i just heard from our supervisor that piers will go in tommorrow, wait for that to cure.. slab should be in and cured by may 18th when the steel arrives! hope things go quicker after that Building the Bronte Executive with MJH Latest News: Slab down, frames were to be delivered 30/5 http://escape2country.blogspot.com// McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 1999May 03, 2012 7:03 pm Re: McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread 2000May 03, 2012 7:14 pm Bootylover - that splashback is fantastic!!!! There was a a great orange splashback at the Thornton colour selections office. I would love something like that, but my DH was not keen. Modified Fernside 38 Rawson Homes Blog: http://www.thehousethatmatandjenbuilt.blogspot.com Build Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=60501 Hi AKG, We had a base tender of $592 for 31 squares from MC Donald Jones. It looks relatively cheaper than other builders. But I assume there are many hidden things that… 1 17544 Hi, Apologies - I know there is plenty out there on this but struggling to put together the puzzle. We're planning our garage/external laundry to master bedroom and… 0 12630 Hi there! Putting the feelers out there for those who have (or almost) built with Arli homes! Interested in your experiences who've built from their stock home designs… 0 26677 |