Building with Clarendon vs Metricon or Rawson

Hi All,

First time poster, but been reading posts and articles for some time now. The wife and I have purchased our first plot of land in The Gables in the Rouse/Box Hill area of NSW and are building our first home. The land won't register until March next year, but we're looking at lots of homes to decide which one we like the best and we've come down to 3 selections:

• Chiefly 40 - Rawson (Estimate of $665K)
• Phoenix 37 - Metricon (Estimate of $635K)
• Mosman 50 - Clarendon (Estimate of $675K)

When I compare these homes and their base prices, Rawson and Metricon are of similar prices for homes of similar size, but Clarendon seems odd to me... Their Mosman 50 is a big house, which a lot of amenities we like, but I find it difficult that while the Mosman is quite larger, it's price is not too much more than the other two.

So what I wanted to ask the forum here,

1. Those of you who have built with Clarendon, what's your opinion and review
2. When it comes to Metricon, Rawson, Clarendon - what are the main differences between these three and how is their build quality compared to each other?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and responses.

Cheers
Tim

Hi Tim,

We are sort of in the same boat. We bough 450 SQM Block in The Gables, Box Hill, about to be registered between Nov 21 to Jan 22.

So far we had shortlisted

Novera 34 from RAWSONS
Boston 36 from Clarendon
Ambassador 36 from Wisdom

All the above, we will be extending to around 40 Squares with our changes and trying to assess who is the best builder among all the three. Am in the process of getting quote from RAWSONS and got first level quote from Clarendon and Wisdom, and agree in general it looks the price from CLARENDON looks less than Wisdom in my case and they are giving better inclusions.

Thx

Hey guys!

I hope you guys are progressing well with selecting the right builder. A couple of years ago I went through the same process of selecting the builders and were looking at between these three builders. From memory we discounted Rawson Homes because none of their plans convinced us 100% to meet our needs and we had our friends who had built with Rawson and their completed house didn't convince us further.

We ran a dual tender process between Clarendon ( Boston36 ) & Metricon ( Vantage38 ). I had negotiated with both to refund me the tender fees for the other builder if I chose a particular builder (the refund process was very smooth as well).

• We had found Clarendon sales person more knowledgeable about my local area and highlighted a few things which Metricon raised later in the stage (during DA approval process).
• We finally did go with Metricon because for the similar price c.$650k (we made a changes - master bedroom to the rear with balcony, extended outdoor room) because Clarendon did not have a separate study upstairs, their master was smaller than Metricon.

We moved in to our Metricon house in Oct-19 and the experience with Metricon was quite good. There were of course few hiccups which really are quite normal.

If it helps then you can read my product reviews:

• Sales & Pre-construction: https://www.productreview.com.au/review ... 990af4e2cb
• Build: https://www.productreview.com.au/review ... 4145605de0

Hope all this helps and good luck guys! Happy to help further if needed

Hi Vivek,

Thanks for sharing your inputs. In fact this week, we had finished our tender appointments with both CLARENDON and WISDOM
CLARENDON is Madison 38 (Modified to 43) and AMBASSADOR 41 with WISDOM.

Interestingly the overall price quoted by CLARENDON came cheaper than WISDOM, especially the site cost factored by CLARENDON turned out to be less. Perhaps I assume it could be the way the garage is placed or so.

Am debating between these both. CLARENDON appears tempting as their price is very hard to beat. Nevertheless having FOWLER tender appointment tomorrow and I will shortlist between these 3, one builder.

Simultaneously I had obtained my own architect designed plans independently and will get the quotes from couple of custom builders. Eventually either I will choose one of these three project builders based on their plans or one of the custom builder based on my own plan, subject to the cost difference. I assume at any time the custom builder will give better quality inclusions than project builders but I think I need to weigh the risk of small builder vs big builder. Thx Venkata

Interesting you are still looking at project homes after having obtained your own plans for a custom build...How much did the plans cost you?

Around 10K is the amount paid for architect

Now finished tender appointments with WISDOM, CLARENDON and FOWLER. While at a high level, I had thought CLARENDON was cheaper than WISDOM, it appears not. I did a detailed break up and then compared side by side CLARENDON, WISDOM and FOWLER and realised the actual difference is hardly 10K to 20K (my project cost is around 600K), Well, after spending couple of grand on both CLARENDON and WISDOM's tender (FOWER by the way luckily had not charged any), got a reasonable idea on inclusions and more importantly how each priced my specific upgrades like double glazing, 3M height to ground floor, 2.74M height to top floor etc., So between them, it looks the decision is not around pricing, but rather on whose design we liked. Accordingly, from design we are placing FOWLER (HEMISPHERE 41) as our first choice followed by CLARENDON (MADISON 38 upgraded to 41) and finally WISDOM (AMBASSADOR 41), so decision at this stage purely looks based upon the design rather than price difference . With respect to feedback, had spoken with good number of CLARENDON and WISDOM customers and in general got pretty positive feedback. Everybody had quoted some minor issued, but it appears were happy with how they had fixed them. FOWLER though the design looks fantastic, I need to get hold of feedback of people who had built with them. Interestingly in product review, they had negative feedback couple of years before, but off late the feedback is pretty positive.

[quote="timlavelle":3bct6c7z]Hi All,

When I compare these homes and their base prices, Rawson and Metricon are of similar prices for homes of similar size, but Clarendon seems odd to me... Their Mosman 50 is a big house, which a lot of amenities we like, but I find it difficult that while the Mosman is quite larger, it's price is not too much more than the other two.
Tim[/quote:3bct6c7z]

This is because you pay much of the upgrades by sqm. It may seem like not huge price jump, but remember it's "base" price. When you're upgrading 12sq wirth of flooring, square set plaster, tiles , paint, cornice/skirts choosing ensuites in all bedrooms etc the costs pile up.

I’ve just seen this thread. We are building a Phoenix 40( with extension) in Sydney’s south. Our final contract price has come in just over $750k, build about halfway through so cannot really comment on quality yet. We had previously build with Rawson homes a Edge 38, very happy with how that turned out. We lived in it for 5 years before selling. Other than a small leak which was fixed, and squeaky upstairs floor which was also fixed it was a well built home and basing on my experience would recommend them

Then why Metricon this time instead of keeping going with Rawson?

No real reason, when we built in 2014 our block was alot smaller 520sq with 12.19 frontage and RWson had a design we liked. This time around our land is 613sq with 15.24 frontage. We were not set on building and went to plenty of open homes. One of the houses we loved and missed out on auction, got in touch with the Real Estate agent to find out who the builder was , ended up being. Metricon Phoenix. Simple as that