McDonald Jones Homes - The new thread

Congrats! I'm building a Hamilton two as well in nsw. Where abouts are you building?

Have you received your folder with all the selections? If not you will get that and they will go through what you can pick from and what are upgrades. You will then have another meeting to pick your selections.

I just went looking at show homes and took pictures of what I liked and took them with me

There will be a pre-colour selection appointment at the colour studio where they will provide a file with all the options to take you home with. We also visited few display homes, took pictures, then decide. There are hell lot of things to select but it is fun

I am buiding house in Jordan spring NSW and i haven't got anythings like color selection folder ,waiting call from the builder.

Hey clicksuraj2,
What design are you building?

Hamilton 2

Hi alycerlike , where do you building a house in NSW .

Your first appointment will be about an hour and the consultant explains the process and what to expect on the day. You get a folder to take home with pictures / prices so you can work out what you will select on the day. Enjoy ! It's a great experience

I'm building down in wollongong (south coast) our bricks started this week

The pre colour appointment will let you have a good idea of what is available. Big items can be priced prior to the actual colour appointment. If you have a bigger house or want to discuss all the options it is very possible that you can run out of time during the real colour appointment that last a full day. This happened to us but they allowed changes post the appointment.

Have you signed on yet?

Thanks for the feedback. The Hermitage kitchen is also a bit bigger than the Bronte kitchen, the walk in pantry has shelves on both sides as opposed to the Bronte which has a narrower walk in pantry. If MJH were going to do this for $1620 that is a good price.

Yes, soon will be our first color selection appointment...

Was about a $2-2.5k dearer for MJH to tile the living areas in my Cordova One however the carpet price was within a few hundred of getting the same brand of carpet from elsewhere.

I decided to just pay the $2.5k extra, that way I didn't have to muck around getting other quotes for the bank and any risk of the slab being not level is back on MJH now.



Go for a drive around a few new estates in your area and get photos of houses that you do like.

Also look through display homes and get photos of interior schemes that you like. Likewise, looking through relevant magazines and brochures might help you get ideas.

After you have your initial intro meeting, make up a spread sheet and start working out what you can and can't afford to upgrade based on your budget.

The more research you do prior to the actual full day appointment, the better off you will be! If you have researched ideas you like, take a laptop or tablet with the photos and the consultant at the Colours Studio can help you replicate the styles...

Im writing to see how peoples experiences have been with building with MJH?
I like a few of their designs and im currently tossing up between a few builders.
How is their quality?
Ive noticed they put alot into marketing and advertising wich can cloud your perspective in some ways.
How do they go repairing defects that arise?
Has there been many people on here that have had to go to fair trading to get issues resolved?
Thanks in advance

Our construction just started this month, but already faced few ups and downs. What we liked most are the House designs from MJH. But in general, MJH is an expensive builder when it comes to each and every items starting from an electrical fittings to cabinets' finishing.

One of our friends is building with Elderton, was directly sent to an Electrical Company by their builder, getting minimal price for every item we checked where MJH would do the electrical appointment by themselves, include their margin on whatever you select.

Also, we had issues with our Sales Consultant. He promised few things without consulting their experts and later after entering into the contract we learnt that those are either not doable or you have to pay much higher price for it. But to be honest, if you have bad luck, these things could happen with any builder I believe.

We are in the exact same boat as you ZerinShobnom except we havnt actually started yet. We are building on unregistered land so construction wont start until early next year but we were told a few things by our sales consultant which now that we have signed out CLO wont allow us to do.
Small things like removing a linen cupboard which our sales lady told us was possible at plans our CLO wont allow at all (and theres no budging)
Agree that some of there upgrade prices are way more than other builders.

Phil94, Zerin, from your experiences do you suggest we make all the changes we want at tender stage? I am surprised that they would remove a Linen thats just too easy, did they state why would they not do it?

I am planning to a add a linen and make few other changes.

Thanks.

Hi Pshome

Best to make all changes structurally at tender stage and any big extras. Once you pay the deposit they will draw proper plans hence why they don't/wont allow changes. Keep getting the tender variations done until you are happy with layout/measurements.

Make sure everything is correct before paying deposit even down to wording that way there are no problems that will arise when doing plan signoff.

We had an issue with the size of our alfresco and placement of a wall at original plan presentation - luckily it was drawn correctly and written correctly on our final tender so they had to make amendments at their cost.

Also If something is agreed verbally make sure it is in the tender as everything is based on what is worded in the tender.
We had discussions re cut from the block which was agreed in email but not actually worded in the tender so they can decline to do as you sign off on the tender.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Hi Merbau16

We are currently building with MJH. We have not had an major issues with them and any issues we have had we have been able to resolve with minimal fuss.
We chose MJH due to their quality and design.

Our SS is great and our house is coming together beautifully.

You will have ups and downs with all builders it is a matter I think of ensuring you have covered everything you want from the builder and been priced for everything you want.
MJH are dearer then other builders but you get what you pay for - MJH's finishes are great.

I update my blog with each new stage so you should be able to get some idea of any issues if you want to check it out as our build progresses.
I used this forum a lot to help attempt to foresee any issues we may hit and it has been great for that.

Good luck with your build.

Defiantly get as many structural changes in your tender and get everything in writing / emailed to you (When they want changes or stuff up they always do). Our sales consultant told us that at our preliminary plans appointment we could make changes like deleting linnen moving walls etc but when we had the app we were told no changes to house and land packages at all.
Also I think this has a lot to do with you CLO as to how flexible and helpful they are.