McCarthy Homes

We chose McCarthy homes because my husband drove past one of their builds on a steep slope and after finding that many home builders just don't build on slopes we decided to check them out at their Rochdale display homes. Fast forward two years later ( the build took just under 12 months) and we've just had our 12 month maintenance process completed in Dec 2018 so we can now provide our review:
The Preliminary Phase-The sales and design was a pretty good experience. Our thanks to Dave for following through with any amendments we had to our design, and also truthfully telling us if something could or couldn't be done. The design drafting, the contract paperwork was fairly smooth and consistent. Invoices and receipts were sent out without having to ask. Any design compromises were talked through thoroughly and agreed. Virg the interior designer was very helpful, and always willing to offer suggestion with colour construction and combinations.

The Build Phase- McCarthy homes had 2 supervisors for the 2 stages- the ground/construction work supervisor and the internal/ fit-out supervisor. Both supervisors were very attentive, and errors ( which were small) were kept to a minimum. We had a problem with stump removals on the property right at the commencement of the ground works but McCarthy rectified it immediately. A big shout out to Danijel (our fit-out supervisor) who was savvy smart with solving problems and giving us the best experience in the fitout process. We had issues with a third party tiler group who filled in but did a bad tiling job- but again, McCarthy stepped in and sorted it out. Dan made no excuses, he just got it sorted.

The 12 month maintenance- it just felt like a continuation of exceptional service. 12 months had passed since the completed build, but the communication with Irene seemed like we were on her radar all the time. I have to say that the maintenance issues were minor- small cracks, paint touch ups and screws missing. That was it- honestly. The tradies turned up on time, and McCarthy's maintenance man Mark was attentive, listened and his recitfying work was really good.

I think there is a defining element to McCarthy homes, that makes them different from the other builders out there-
something that we'd never experienced in our builds anyway: and that was the single point of customer contact for any issues, discussions or queries- Everything.

Stevie was always the first point of contact, and the last person to speak to. She was great at managing the customer experience, even if she couldn't get back to you that day or she needed to delegate a technical issue, she was always the one to call or email you back. You never felt like the builder had dropped the ball on you, or you had to chase up anything, or even defend yourself when an issue was discussed ( like many other builders). You came away with not only a new house, but with your happiness in tact- and to me thats a great experience.
At the end of the day, every builder has issues, every builder has tradies, and third party tradies to deal with- this sometimes comes with complications, but to me its how the builder's staff manage them, and most importantly how they treat you as the Customer. Our home is beautiful.- no doubt about it. Set amongst other beautiful homes in our area, our neighbours have commented that its a standout. But what I consider the standout was how McCarthy managed our experience...and that was pretty damn good.

A big thank you to all the staff at McCarthy Homes. They carried out warranty work for us on our beautiful McCarthy home recently. Fantastic customer service and clear, timely communication. Most importantly a great job! John and Kedron couldn't have done more for us in making sure the finish was to our satisfaction. Thanks again McCarthy Homes were very happy.

i have just built my first home mccarthy homes and am stoked with the result. Gill and Stevie were great and easy to work with and ensured my home build went smoothly and according to plan. after looking at many plans and builders i was impressed with the standard inclusions of mccarthy homes. i would definitely recommend and build with them again.

I am very satisfied with the whole process and they have been very patient with me and helpful all through the process. The site supervisor did everything exactly the way I wanted and was very patient with me too. Thank you so much for handing over the house more than a month earlier than the expected due date. That was a huge convenience for us. We are very happy in the new house it is a beautiful house to live in and we thank you for your hard work.

We have just moved into to our new home and are absolutely wrapped with the final result. We experienced a few challenges along the way however, in hindsight and having built 4 times before, they were relatively minor. One thing that stood out for me was that when something did go wrong, everyone at McCarthys end did their utmost to have the problem rectified as soon as possible. The lines of communication were excellent from sales through to our lovely customer service lady and our very honest and accountable supervisor. Our supervisor was so happy when the handovers.com pre handover quality assurance check came up with under 10 minor issues (which were fixed within 4 days). He said the supervisors have an in house rivalry to get the least green dots (handovers.com put a green dot where something needs fixing).

We paid a bit more than what we'd paid in the past with volume builders however the final result is in a totally different league than anything that could be built by a volume machine.

Highly recommended.

My experience with McCarthy Homes was incredibly smooth from start to finish. The salesman I dealt with was fantastic - he offered me many practical ideas and recommendations with their house design I had chosen to suit my requirements, so I essentially ended up with a custom designed home for a LOT less than I had been quoted from other 'boutique' style builders. Their internal staff were just wonderful. Caring, helpful and made me feel like I was a valued customer and not just another person they had to deal with which was very refreshing. I had built with a volume builder a few years ago, and once my contract was signed, sadly that was the end of any customer focused service, so this was a huge relief for me. The other important consideration for me was choosing a builder I could trust and also deliver a quality product, thankfully I got both! My building supervisor was constantly updating me with the progress and explained each aspect of the construction and what was going to happen next. Overall, I am extremely happy with the quality and workmanship of my beautiful new home. I have had many visitors since moving in and they have all been super impressed. I would not hesitate in recommending McCarthy Homes and would definitely build with them again if the opportunity arose.

Our build design started out well with [name removed] at the Rochedale display home, after-which it went horribly wrong.
As a custom design their draftsperson kept changing our plans to suit him, not telling us until I found mistakes - galore. Months and months of toing and froing. Once the build finally commenced (some 9 months later) it was a shambles and absolute farce. Slow (went over time), incompetent, unprofessional, unknowledgeable, misinforming us constantly. The building supervisor had no idea and told us he learnt a lot from our build at our expense!!?? He's still spinning porkies and still has no organisational skills. He needs to have his two senior supervisors 'inspect' his work.
We've had multiple tradies, they've all walked. Many of them were happy to tell us stories of McCarthy's poor business practices, bad management, useless supervisors, intimidation, non-payments...
We have lodged a complaint to QBCC, also due to non-finish of easy fix items that were outstanding from handovers.com. and prior. They like to blame others and refuse to take responsibility for their stuff-ups.
Overall they are untrustworthy and unreliable. Poor finish, won't rectify issues even when they say they will - in writing!
Interestingly, McCarthy Homes advertise that they have a perfect non-complaints record. NO YOU DON'T!! There has been a number of QBCC complaints lodged against them.
Unless you love stress and headaches; unless you have a stock standard, off the shelf, kit home with absolutely no variations; unless you're an employee and build with them; unless you don't mind your personal information being given out to strangers, then McCarthy's for you.
If not, avoid this builder like the plague.

We chose McCarthy Homes because of their flexibility and aptitude for design, as well as their great build quality.

We had an odd shaped block and specific dual living requirements. The designer at McCarthys was able to provide a one-off house which perfectly filled these requirements, and suggested extra little features which really made the home.

Our Building Supervisor kept us well informed all the way along the build, and was extremely stringent on the quality of the build. He even made the painter come back and re-paint the entire inside (which looked fine to us!). We can tell that the team at McCarthy's take great pride in presenting the best finishes.

We have been in for nearly 2 weeks now, and love our new house, and especially loved showing it off to our friends and family! The after handover service has also been first class, with a visit within 24 hours for a minor issue. We feel confident that McCarthys is continuing to take care of us!

We would happily recommend McCarthy Homes to anyone looking for a quality build, particularly if you are looking for something unique and suited to you.

From start to finished our build with McCarthy was a well-planned project.

We felt lucky to be dealing with David Hughes, the sales representative based at Rochedale. He is an ex-builder, and as the first time builders that we were, he was able to provide us with practical and helpful advice on how to achieve what we wanted without overspending. We will be forever grateful for the patience he displayed whilst working through our requirements and explaining some of the more technical aspects of the build to us. We recommend David without reservation.

We ended up building a special design based on the Rivera home which is on display at Hope Island. All of our requests for design changes were met with professional enthusiasm and were achieved within what we considered a reasonable cost. We found that the design and engineering team were able to develop cost effective solutions for achieving what we knew could sometimes be expensive options.

The McCarthy team based at Geebung are a great team of people who are genuinely committed to making the build process as easy as possible. Our client support representative, Stevie Gresty, provided fabulous service throughout the whole build process. Nothing was too much trouble for her - not even the 13 variations we required during the build. All matters related to our build were always communicated in a clear and concise way by Stevie and we consider that her open and honest communication style underpinned the success of our build.

During our dealings with McCarthy we found that they had well structured systems and procedures in place to ensure that all elements of the build were addressed in a timely manner. From colour selections to handover we were supported by professional staff who provided us with the information and advice we needed to make the decisions that were before us.

Mistakes happen throughout your build, for sure. When we identified mistakes and bought them to the attention of our McCarthy team, we found that they were quickly resolved without a fuss. We always felt that our concerns were being taken seriously and that mistakes would be remedied.

Our building supervisor, Gilly Tooth, provided us with weekly updates throughout the build and demonstrated that he was genuinely committed to delivering us a high quality home. He delivered our home to us on 23 December 2015 - just two days before Christmas and a week early according to our contract. It was the best Christmas present we could have hoped for. If you build with McCarthy and Gilly is your building supervisor, you won't go wrong.

We have been in our home for 6 months now. We do have few minor maintenance issues that need attention and we are completely confident that they will be resolved in a timely manner and without a fuss.

We couldn't be happier with the quality, look and feel of our home overall and look forward to spending many-many-many-many happy years here.

We consider that building a house is one of the hardest things we've done. It was all so new to us. But we took great comfort in knowing that our McCarthy team knew what they were doing and had our best interests at heart. We trusted them every step of the way and happily recommend McCarthy Homes to anyone who is thinking of building a home.

From start to finish, the experience with McCarthy homes has been excellent.
Alison and Damien in the sales team at Cova were fantastic on getting us started on the journey of building our new home, helping with selections and making recommendations on finishes, layout and the like.
We then moved into the contract and planning phase where we dealt with Andrea Durrington who was superb. Our home was quite heavily modified from the original plan and nothing was too much trouble. Andrea was great at communicating with us and ensuring we remained informed from planning stages through to handover.
Our project manager and builder was Tony Mahoney who is a master craftsman. He managed the trades incredibly efficiently and was very hands on. Tony supervised and built our house at the same time and is an utter perfectionist. We were so pleased to have Tony in charge as the end product is outstanding.
We could not be happier with our new home and cannot recommend McCarthy more highly.

McCarthy Homes were our choice of builders after speaking to family members who have built with them. A lot of positive feedback was given and honesty and transparency was a common denominator. We are currently only into the foundation stage and to this point, we have found them very accommodating, supportive and informative. I am not one to usually go on forums but feel so strongly about the support we have been given to this point and want to share our building story. We are building an "Expressions" home and from the drawing stage, after one meeting with the Drafting Manager, he drew up exactly what we wanted and presented the drawings at our next meeting. He knew the questions to ask, taking into account position and outlook of land, our lifestyle and of course, costing. An appointment was made by our very efficient and friendly contract administrator to meet with our design consultant to do selections for the home. This can be very overwhelming and daunting but she was very patient and knowledgeable in her advice without being too pushy. It was always about what we wanted but at the same time, she had wonderful ideas which were practical and realistic. We have been made aware of each component of the build, in so far as who or what, will be at the building site when. They are very aware of respect for our neighbours with the building site fenced and organised and presented in a very professional manner. They do care about what we think and feel. McCarthys make you feel like you are part of the McCarthy family. As soon as we walk into their Geebung office, you are met by a smile at the reception, another smile from your Contract Administrator and it makes you realise you're in the "right place". As the build progresses, I will keep you informed of the progress!

We just finish building our home at Rochedale Estate with McCarthy and we can't be happier. as an architect my self is hard to please all my requirements and they did it! every time did the correct thing to give us a top quality home.
their inclusions are very good in comparison with other builders, their service is top quality too. from the sales person (superb) client Service Manager (excellent communication, honest, easy to deal with, enthusiastic, proactive) to the tradesman all willing to help, honest and very positive and flexible people.
excellent quality homes always willing to make the client happy, smooth construction face, no extra or hidden fees at the end. all in budget.
Superb building supervision to the minimal detail, weekly updates; really exceed our expectations.
A home is a place where you want to raise your family and have positive memories, where love and fun are a priority, for us the process of building our home was very important too, as we wanted good and positive energy to follow through and you guys has made this possible.
will recommend to everyone for sure specially my clients, for sure will encourage them to build with McCarthy.

The workmanship was pretty much perfect and the end result totally exceeds our expectations. The management of the build was great - kept us informed with weekly updates and everything went seamlessly. Staff were excellent and nothing was too much trouble whenever we had an issue to discuss or change to make. I would thoroughly recommend McCarthy's - great product and good people.

We are currently midway through building our new home in Hope Island and have to say we are very satisfied with our choice of builder. From the honest, friendly and supportive sales lady, through to the lovely customer service girls and our very thorough (though sometimes a bit hard to get a hold of!) supervisor we have found we are really enjoying our building experience. McCarthy seem to be extremely meticulous and thorough in every part of their process and whilst this has meant that things have stretched out a little longer than we had hoped, we would rather it be this way if it reflects in the quality of our new home. And by golly it has. We have built several times before, each time with volume builders and this is by far the best quality home and experience we have had. Happy to give 5 stars.

So I’ve waited the sixth month maintenance to give a more complete feedback of McCarthy Homes. I would definitely recommend McCarthy Homes to anyone who is looking to build a new house. Their overall service was top notch, and house build quality is definitely up there with display homes.

Sales phase is very pleasant and easy going. The sales person that I dealt with was patient, polite and he never gave an impression to pressure me sign any contract. He listens and would draft multiple drawings based from my requirements and treat as if it was his own dream house which I find him very professional and dedicated.

Build phase was relatively smooth and on schedule. McCarthy Homes are the only few builders that actually cares much about construction safety at building site. Their build processes are very organised and structured. The supervisors are very knowledgeable, attention to detail and nice to deal with, I was also kept up to date with my home progress on weekly basis which is a plus.

After handover I’ve never had any issue until the fifth month where I had an urgent plumbing issue which McCarthy Homes straight away sent someone out to fix the issue. On the sixth month maintenance period McCarthy Homes have addressed most of issues that I listed when I go through my house looking for tiny defects. Both occasions McCarthy Homes have addresses issues promptly and timely, I consider that as excellent service.

I'd never remembered I ever wrote a review for any product. So I write this review just to show how much I loved my house and the excellent service that McCarthy Homes provide, well done McCarthy Homes!

We are now well underway with the construction of our new home by McCarthy’s. We are delighted to say that everything so far has run like clockwork. Right from the outset the Sales consultant put our minds at ease with his professionalism and transparency. The nature of our block presented the design team with some significant challenges which they accommodated and our price represented fair value.

There was some delay in the approvals and administration process but we feel this was to be expected, given that we are building on an inner suburban site. Our Customer Service Manager was attentive, helpful and gave us regular updates during the more stressful phase, prior to site start.

Our home is currently at the lock-up stage and we couldn’t be happier with the attention to detail shown by our Supervisor. He takes the time to explain things thoroughly and provide us with answers to our queries which puts us at ease with the whole building process. We are confident that McCarthy’s will indeed deliver us our dream home! I’ll check back in at the end for a further update…

We were very happy with our finished home and the process to build. We had to knock down an old house and do a rebuild and were assisted by McCarthy Homes through the whole process. Our sales consultant was excellent and really listened to what we wanted. At no point did he try to push us into adding on extras, but that being said, the base costing of all McCarthy Homes includes some great inclusions that others builders have as extras. Once we were planning our construction we were feeling overwhelmed with the various choices we had to make our home ours but were grateful to have the assistance of the design consultant. The various other fit out contractors were great to deal with and all have delivered us a house that we love to live in. Our client consultant and site manager were a delight to work with and always kept us up-to-date with the progress of our construction. They both were very patient with all our queries and questions and nothing was too much trouble. The attention to detail and extraordinary hours put in by our construction manager show in the finished product. Post handover we have had a few queries and all have been promptly responded to and rectified by McCarthy Homes. Given the number of weather events that occurred during our build we were in our house right on time. We were recommended by another McCarthy Home customer and would recommend others to build with them too.

In previous reviews we went so far as to give Mccarthy a 5 start rating as the process was going very well. Since then we have finished the build and moved in. The longer the process went the more frustrating it became. Many of the frustrations would be par for the industry however Mccarthy sell themselves as being better than the rest - and you pay for it. My conclusion is you don't get anything of note over and above the others. Now that we are in I would actually go so far as to say the finishing is relatively poor in many respects. We have had them back to finish/fix may issues - eg plumbing not completed!!!?, door locks that jammed the first time you used them, air conditioning had loose connection, door handle broke, TV aerial not connected properly, shower leaking and had to have glass refitted. To their credit they have fixed most things after some chasing but we also have a list of things that grows by the day for the 6 month review - eg cracking showing on door frames and other joinery - come on in a brand new & expensive home!
[name removed] in their head office was great to deal with and did her best to ensure we were looked after
[name removed]'s enthusiasm didnt always translate to those that need to fix things and I still cant help but be disappointed with the finishing of many of the little things.

I had earlier written a poor review after construction with McCarthy homes.After hand over there were many issues identified and some were signed off to be rectified within 30 days of handover.The builder similar to my earlier experiences ,proved to be incompetent and kept giving excuses till we got to the 7 month mark.At this point i put in a complaint to the QBCC[housing construction ombudsman].As soon as the complaint went in and QBCC pulled up the builder , they rushed to correct the mistakes and the issues were rectified.Just goes to show their fraudulent and incompetent ways .This is a builder to avoid for sure!

Well the proof is on the pudding, so they say. Building a house has been a very rewarding experience working with McCarthy Homes.

So, as I have commented before, we made the right decision to build our dream home with McCarthy Homes. And now that the process is over, I am almost sad. We had a great time building! It was just fun. Ok there was a little stress, a little backward and forward but ultimately it was a positive experience that I would recommend. Why would I say that? McCarthy homes took care of us and guided us through the process. Nothing was ever a problem, and we had specific specialists for the different phases you go through. Each of the way all of the team are ready to help. It was impressive the way they coordinated together to make this a seamless customer experience. You have support from the MD all the way through the company. You almost become an extension of their family.

We had the 6 month review just recently (very late), and we had some issues. I am not going to tell you that everything was perfect, because it wasn’t. But we had no need to rush the repairs as none of the issues were of major importance. Just bits here and there (17 in all ) that needed to be rectified. The review process was handled professional with a smile. Nothing was a problem. All items either agreed to or explained why it wasn’t an issue. They even went a little further where we had a mark on the wall (from the kids) and they rectified that as part of the process. Where they needed to get the other trades involved they managed the process till we were happy with the result.

We are all done and dusted. They built us a wonderful house that will stand the test of time. I can only recommend to people, that they should build with McCarthy Homes based on my experience. It was fun, easy, no hassle and value for money. I will build again with McCarthy Homes and you should too.

It's 2 years on and Cyclone Marcia has just been and gone. With the extreme quantity of water, we had a leak. Only in the garage so not too much of an issue. I thought I would get in touch with McCarthy Homes to see what can be done. The same day 4 people from McCarthy Homes were here to ascertain the issue. They found an issue and will now rectify the issue, at no cost to me, 2 years after the house was handed over. I have to say just how impressed I am. Two years later and still willing / insisting to fix the issue and clean up the mess. How could you ask for more? When thinking about choosing a builder consider not only the quality of the build but the support after. As a McCarthy customer I couldn't be happier. You could say the leak should never have happened, but even with the best of quality, and the best of care, things can go wrong. What you want to know is that when they do go wrong, the builder is there to support you. And they are. Very very impressed.
reliable efficient trustworthy quality ontime