building with mcdonald jones... yay or nay?

Hi all,
Hubby and I are first home buyers, we purchased our block of land in Lochinvar, nsw. We love mjh home designs and styles, we are stuck between the Monte Carlo elite vs the Esperance . It was more or less just to get an idea. Both sales consultants had told us that getting a 24 month tender would be a good idea due to house prices going up etc. However our land isn't to be registered until possibly Dec this year or 2020. We have been told we should wait until the end of this year due to ppl having to fork out for going over their tender date?. Has anyone got any advice for us newbies on things to expect/ avoid or any recent experiences with mjh.

Cheers

We are also interested in building with MDJ.
This is our 4th build, so we are going in eyes wide open.
We were offered extension of contract for free just before Christmas along with other additional bonuses.
New home sales are seeing a marked decline, I think you will find that the incentives will only get better in the second half of the year.
While there will be price rises, I think you’ll find they’ll be minimal and really it will be a buyers market.
There’s a lot of things the project home builders wont do until the land is registered, so you’ll have plenty of time, I’d wait until they commence actual works on the development until you sign. Sure do your due diligence, get quotes etc, but dont feel pressured into signing to lock your price in.
Remember the sales persons job is to get you to sign, they’ll give you every excuse as to the benefits of signing early, but none will encourage to sit back and take your time.
Good luck with the decision but most of all enjoy the ride...it will be a long hard but rewarding one!

Thank you for getting back to me I appreciate it. I think you are spot on with that advice. im going to take your advice and hold off. I just found a facebook page for the area where im building, stage 1 has been pushed back for registration by a few months, so we are by no means in a rush. Haha yes we are abit worried about the whole process, but im sure it will work out in the end.
Cheers mate

We are first home buyers too ... we locked our price in with McDonald Jones 2 yrs ago (we are just 2 mths into construction due to delayed land registration) It was the best thing we ever did to make that decision .. we paid an approx. $12000 for the privilege of securing the price but over that 2 yr period we saw their published price list increase some 15% ($45000) on our original base cost of $301000 at the time . McDonald Jones over that period didn't increase our site costs or variation costs which I assumed would have increased on their books similar to the same 15% industry increase over the 2 yr period. I agree with Gogo 65 that the building industry may be quieter in 2019 but I'm not sure building costs are the same as real estate values and fluctuate up and down with the market and think they are more geared to staff/labour /supplier /business costs and maybe the Aus Dollar. To date the experience and quality of our build with MJH has been excellent

Building costs will reduce as less work will lead to an oversupply of tradies, as an example currently brickies are charging ridiculous price per brick this will reduce to a more ‘normal’ level. It’s supply and demand.
The house we were looking at with MJD had the quarter price increase of less than a $1000 (over 400k base) and we were offered a further $30000 of incentives if we signed before Christmas on top of the usual promotions.(including free price lock in of 18months)
Of course no one knows how the market will play out but there is definitely no urgency as there was a few years ago.

A quick peep at the current CSR stock price reveals the shambles our Australian building sector is powering into for 2019........

Well we are deciding to hold off, probably until dec this year at the latest.... with stage 1 of our development being pushed back by 6 months and not getting any straight answers from developer as to an actual date and people are having to fork out an additional 8k to extend the tender.

How did you all find the build went with mcdonald jones?. Hubby read the other day about ppl paying as much as 100k extra on their homes. Has anyone else had these issues?.

Kylz86... we are just in the early stages of building but to date everything has progressed well. They honored the prices they gave us 2 yrs ago .. Im not sure that too many businesses would do that . Had they not we would have had to build a much lesser priced smaller house .So their lock in offer was an absolute win for us
I am a valuer for one of the major banks .. I have been doing this work for 15 yrs .. over that period the building industry cost/price index has shown an average of increasing 7.3% per annum . When you multiply that by the price of your home you can see the advantage I and yourself gain by accepting their lock in offer ... I think its their way of buying business at a lower profit margin and then putting it in the drawer until the land registers in 24 months time . They know they have future work to do when the client locks in at a price 2 yrs before he builds. I accept trade prices fluctuate but the good tradespeople are valuable to keep and people such as McDonald Jones i suspect will not jeopardize that position to loose them. The quality of a trade is the quality of their business. Brick layer prices are only one cost in a myriad of costs that make up the building of a home or the running a business . Anyway best of luck with whatever you do Im sure you will make the right decision for you.
Over that period of 15 yrs I have never seen a builders price list reduce

Thanks everyone for your replies, I really appreciate it as we are complete noobs when it comes to all this building stuff lol. We have been advised by our conveyancing lawyer to go ahead and also some stage 1 owners of our development to go ahead and lock a price in on a 24month tender. So we are going to go with building the Esperance Grande. I would imagine we are up for a long and expensive ride lol but it is what it is and at the end of the day we will hopefully have a decent home.

We are building a modified Edenvale with MJH and our land is only a couple of months away from registering. We locked in an 18 month tender price last March.Best thing we ever did as I'm sure the base price has gone up considerably in that time. If you are getting a 2 year tender included (or minimal charge) then it's a good idea to consider jumping in.

Spending $100k or more on upgrades/site costs/inclusion packages isn't unusual depending on your budget

Good luck with the build !

We are building The Esperance Executive ( modified to suit our block 650m2) in Chisholm and so far so good. No issues with Mcdonald Jones. The slab was poured on friday and Hopefully the frame will be going up soon. Will try and upload more

photos as the build progresses. Good luck with your build.

Volume boys already are paying lower trade rates, it's their guarantee of plenty of work that allows this, in the free market you will see less over the top type quotes accepted,I used a project manager whom used top trades at very reasonable rates, which were not available if I had asked for a quote.

Looks awesome! Would love to see more when you can . What office did you deal with... if you don't mind me asking?. We have been to Thornton and Wallis Creek, we are thinking to go through Wallis Creek because they have the esperance on display, the guy there seems ok. Thanks so much for sharing, i wish you all the best for your build.

Thanks. We went with the homeworld Thornton office. Dealt with Andrew Dimosvki and he was awesome and very helpful.I would highly recommend him.

We just got the keys to our MJH Havana Executive just before Christmas 2018 and we are also in the Hunter Valley area, Branxton to be exact so not that far from you. We had a fairly good run with MJH and after a few hiccups towards the end I believe we have a great quality home. We have a instagram page: Dalwood_15 if you would like to see some photos etc. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions about the process, I would be more than happy to help..

Hi All,
My partner and I are considering building the Port Sea we have been quoted around $350k including drive way, the facade we want, Alfresco, & site costs. I was told we get to $30k to spend in the colours appointment, which covers tiles, bench top selections ect. I was wondering if most of you guys went over and by how much? We will be tiling the living areas and Alfresco ourselves, as well as getting downlights done elsewhere. We also aren’t interested in getting the extra cabinetry as we will also source that elsewhere.

Thanks!!

Depending on your block and your geotech results your site costs can really start to add up. Also BASIXs & BAL requirement can add a lot of extra cost.. Just for reference it cost us around $110k over the base house price for our home with flooring included, minimal electrical & no driveway..

We are looking at MJH now and have been offered 20k in the design studio etc. anyone elSe hold off. Our block is about 4 months from registration. We never locked
In prices and we could have 3yrs ago. But we were too scared.
What are people’s experience with MJH? Are you happy? Did the tender price go up and down much?
I’ve read and heard horror stories about their prices rising during “unexpected” things in the builds

Hello there

MacJones is a good builder. They are one of the biggest if not the biggest builder in NSW.

But like anything else, it's important that you have a fixed price tender with everything you want upfront so there are no nasty surprises later.

What kills any experience is nasty surprises and unmet expectations.

So don't opt for the cheaper option or the shiny million dollar promo giveaway option. Rather try and understand what you are completely getting and for how much.

I hope this helps.
Girgis
My blog: www.LearnProperty.com.au