I would like to detail my experiences with this Master Builder of quality homes so that others may learn from the painful lessons they taught me and avoid this builder. We did a KDR.
First off, my family and I fell in love with the Villina 36 design at WF and their houses at homeworld. Googling them and research showed them to be reputable. There were lots of blogs and comments about them including this forum. So we decided to go ahead, from the time we asked them to go ahead and until the time we got the plans was over 1 year. They kept on missing deadlines, this got us in a total mess with renting out the house we intended to knock down, we kicked out the tenants to be told plans are delayed etc again. The plan we wanted involved the moving of 2 internal walls to make some rooms / spaces bigger. Nothing big or structural. So 1) we lost money through tenants because M kept on missing deadlines.
I should point out here that contacting M through phone, emails, and sms is very trying. They would rarely return voice mails, emails, or messages. At first, I thought great, they must be really busy with lots of work. Uh huh, how wrong I was.
When they finally finalised the plans, 2) They increased the original quote they gave us by $8k, telling us that the costs of building had increased.
We should of pulled out at this stage, noticing that this builder wasn't that reliable. But when went to WF to tell them we would be pulling out, they lowered the extra 8k by 3k. We thought, the plans are here, we are about to get our Villina to look like the one at WF yay! So we ploughed on ahead.
We told them we wanted the house to be exactly like the house at WF, the brochure prices was about $280k, so when the time came for selecting our interiors. We thought there was nothing left to decide, just build it exactly like that one. But even a simple request like this was beyond them. They lost our paperwork, told us we needed the platinum package, needed to upgrade this that. Which we agreed to. When time came for us to come and do what they call "colors" they have lost everything and informed us we would have to go in and choose everything form scratch. Fine, no big deal, we thought it was an opportunity to confirm what we wanted. End of the day, everything added up it was nearly double the brochure price. This was way over what we originally thought, but, hey this is our future home we will be living in for a while. So we ponied up the cash for them to continue.
The aircon fiasco, during the initial stages we got suckered into upgrading the aircon because of some promotion they were running. Upgrade this, to australian brand instead of some chinese brand. We use harvey norman, they have quality products. Being kinda green, yeah we took the bait. But then during our colors session, we were informed that the aircon we had upgraded to was no longer available. But not to worry they have a new subcontractor who will provide us with a quality replacement. uh huh. Sure, reading the brochure you could clearly see the number of outlets, zones, power was nowhere near what we originally agreed to. They kept on bugging us to sign the new selections. At this point we smelt a rat, and declined to sign anything further. Masterton then told us that if we did not resolve these selections they could not begin to build. Having no tenants and leaking money fast, we bit the bullet and 3) ponied up more cash to upgrade from the aircon now given to us for something similar to what we upgraded to in the beginning.
To the construction stage, it started great, SLAB, frames, bricks, roof. A few hiccups, and delays because of the rain and delays while they went through different site supervisors. A few things to note about construction, the mortar between the bricks were coming off in places even before we got the keys, there were holes in some places. The bricks at some places didn't meet the slab cleanly at some corners, they were off by about 2 cm. The frames were cut at places where the plumbing pipes didn't align properly, I have been told they should reinforce those places if they were cut, but they were not.
Next comes the joys of gyprock and internal walls. Well, our internal wall and ceilings had problems to say the least. They weren't straight, and sagged in some places. Bulkheads were wonky and can clearly be seen to be crooked.
The painting was absolutely shocking and required multiple complaints to fix. Even after we move in we can see clearly to undercoat and gyprock at some places.
From demolition time to PCI was over 1 year. So in total from the time we first engaged M to PCI it was 2 years. During this time I have lost lots of sleep, hair, and money. After moving in we noticed these things: doors and door frames didn't close, there were gaps in the window / window frame so you could feel a strong draft, glass doors had scratches in them, lots of little imperfections with skirting / cornices, cracks in windows & door frames, taps were located too close to walls - so you cant really turn them completely with your hand, the keys given didn't match and work with the locks, the plumbing is very noisy, the whole house knows when you flush the toilet or take a shower, the floors creek, the doors are rubbish - I had to make a pet door so made a hole in the door to find that inside the door was cardboard supports (just like the cheap doors you buy in bunnings), did I mention the painting was shocking yet?
When they did the electrical and alarm, they made holes everywhere, not just little holes (like the size of your hand) but big ones where you can fit your whole torso in. They ripped the insulated aircon ducts and didn't bother taping it back.
At PCI Masterton don't connect power for you, so it is dark and difficult for you to see the things that are not done properly even with a torch.
But the pain doesn't end there, the site was full of rubbish and leftover building materials. Rocks placed to stabilise the driveway are still there, bits of metal scaffolding left around, lots of rubbish drink bottles and instant noodle packets everywhere.
After handover support is none existent. They now never return calls, need to be chased 5 times a day until someone responds. I have problems with the site, and measurements with regards to setbacks and fence lines. When I asked them about it, they came and pull out the survey pegs so I can no longer see the boundaries where they measured from. Anything wrong now associated with the site, the response I get it is, if they do acknowledge it is their fault which has been 100% of the time, I get charged 50% of the cost. so 4) I get lugged with 50% of any costs for fixing anything after handover.
When they came to fix something on the roof (after only 1 week of moving in) they cracked and broke roof tiles. I am now so afraid to contact them for anything because 5) it will cost me money for them to come and then it will cost me more money to fix whatever they break when they do come.
These are the wonderful experiences I had had with Masterton, I enjoyed it about as much as being stabbed in the eye with a red hot needle.