McDonald Jones Homes

From the beginning, the site was cut and benched poorly, would of be happily to paid more to get done correctly before slab went down, after requesting garage floor to have fall to doors and not pool water it did, then frameworks went up and misalignment to slab overhanging 90mm in places, offered a engineered repair to suit, then done to incorrect method, redone but still not correct, bricked up before engineers rechecked, brickworks damaged due to bad workmenship of slab repairs, repair render Smeared over bricks, wall insulation installed to early, blown out all over job site, plasterboard fitted found missing insulation near end of plaster board fitting in bedroom 4 and linen press , garage walls, roofing insulation blanket poorly fitted, ridge cover misalignment,damaged whirlybird, multiple roofing iron dents, scratches ,over screwing , mis screwing , adding pop Rivets in miss holes, water leaks into home theatre ,bedroom 2 on two occasions, second time carpet removed and wardrobe fittings, gas fireplace stonework incorrectly fitted, opening not wide enough to fit surrounding cover correctly, three bathrooms floors completely had tiles all removed and redone due to being drummy,rear garage door incorrect height, poorly fitted door brackets, interior home office build in furniture fitted and remove three times due to incorrect design, scratched stone work, overall the whole project has been a nightmare would not recommend, only offered and receive small compensation, still awaiting roofing repairs

Moving State and building for the first time can be stressful as I didn’t know where anything was but the sales team pointed me to a display in Sydney to look at the house I was describing. They took what I was saying and put it into my dream home.
The pre construction was long and sometimes frustrating but with Brett Chorley explaining what was happening with all the planning along the way I got to the construction stage.
My Site supervisor Jarrod Marks has made the actual build a good experience so far, the brick layer did a fabulous job and the build is now getting to the end. A couple of issues have been dealt with quickly and I have been kept informed along the way with calls and updates from Jarrod on a regular basis. My emails and calls have been handled promptly and professionally by Jarrod even if some of my questions were clarification of a process that had already been explained.
Being a woman of a certain age and building a new home can be a daunting experience but Brett Chorley and Jarrod Marks have helped make the experience a good one by keeping in touch with calls and emails and explaining the process along the way. I have been very happy with the professionalism and the time Jarrod Marks has taken to explain the the finer details of my build to me.
Now I look forward to PSI and then moving in to my new home.

Karyn at the Port Macquarie office has been fantastic to deal with. She has always been approachable, quick to problem solve and answer questions. I hope the continuation of our build goes as smoothly as these first stages have.

We have found the process so far to be relatively smooth, particularly during the sales process with our consultant Xavier Player who captured our specific needs in the design perfectly.

Tommy kept us informed with what was going on and was always available for any questions. We are now the proud owners of a new building slab - hopefully the rest of the build goes as smoothly as the slab construction.

My partner and I did our colours selection at the MyChoice studio in Jan 2018. Our interior designer was Bronwyn, we had an immediate connection with her. Bronwyn had a lovely nature and fantastic sense of style. Along with these qualities she was very approachable and extremely efficient. She assisted us through the process and never pushed us into making choices we were not comfortable in making. The colours selection process was very enjoyable which I think had a lot to do with Bronwyn.

We finalised our build with McDonald Jones in early 2018 and dealt with both the Sydney and Port Macquarie office as we built remotely. I could not fault the Port Macquarie office and found Karyn Keefe our consultant absolutely fantastic. Not only was she knowledgeable, but she was quick to answer any queries, always contacting us to ask if everything was going alright and if we had any questions and made the process so much easier and more enjoyable for us. Even after the build the level of service remained.
I am truly happen with the final product of my build.

We just got our house handover by McDonald Jones Homes and would like to appreciate the work done by the builder and our site supervisor - Mr Douglas Goreal, who looked after the construction of our house.

From the start it had been an amazing construction journey for us. The design team guided us to choose the best plan that fit in our lot under our strict budget without compromising our requirement. The colour selection team's suggestion for various colour combination based on our brown theme has done the magic to our house. We were amazed by the way McDonald Jones Homes admin team were prompt in providing their support and updates through out the construction process.

On the whole our construction journey was a smooth sail with Douglas as captain of the ship. He was very professional, dedicated and supportive in the work. He cared a lot for customer satisfaction and always worked hard to earn it. It's worth mentioning, that there were times when he had worked outside work hours and weekend to chase people up to complete jobs without hesitation. We would like to really appreciate the effort he took for us. He was very prompt and progressive when it came to the timeline of the construction and gave us proper dates ahead of time which was super helpful in planning things. He was always ready to discuss any problem and had given us very practical solutions.

We would definitely recommend and would surely build our future homes with McDonald Jones in the future.

House was well built and exceeded expectations. No issues with the build or the customer service. Doug was great to deal with and delivered an amazing product on time and with no issues.

Everything good - no surprises - cannot recommend supervisor (Gary Howard enough). Minor paint issue - corrected 3 days after handover. Very post handover issue has been followed up extremely quickly such as a burner on gas stove not staying on - had a guy around within an hour!

Angela Workman from the Huntlee display was very helpful throughout the early stages of my building journey. I could not have asked for a better Building & Design Consultant. She has been extremely professional and helpful and I look forward to building with the help of her again.

Xavier Player helped my partner and I To design our new home and every time I visited him he gave me all the information i needed about my house and he was very help full. This is the first house for us and we are very happy because we chose Mcdonald Jones to Build our house. We chose McDonald Jones because I saw many customer from McDonald Jones they was very happy after Home was finished. Since then I have been dealing with Brett Chorley to finalise the plans and he has dedicated time to sit with us and explain everything in detail to make sure all is right

I'm now nearing lock up on my new house and I have to say the process so far has been very rewarding. I was extremely nervous about building and MJH have made it a breeze. It has taken much longer than I expected but they have communicated every step of the way and council approvals were a challange. My expereince started with Xavier Player as my sales consultant who was amazing. He made redesign and consolidated tender a breeze. I would admit there were more costs above the base house price than I was expecting (for example WHS requirements - which are legislative so should be in the base house price), but this is common across all project builders.

Xavier's architectual knowledge was really helpful with my planned redesigns, making them work for me and be cost effective. He is defintetly on the house warming party list!

Next was Brett and Niya from the Fyshwick office who have made the contract and selections process very enjoyable. I never thought I'd know so much about construction and fittings as I do now. Such a pleasure and both so willing to explain things in basic terms.

Cameron my pre-contstruction supervisor was also really friendly and communicated with me every step of the way. I would suggest to MJH (and this is NOT Cameron's fault) that there were way to many unexpected site costs that could have been discussed during contract negotiations and built into the price. I have had a number of out of pocket expenses I didn't even know about (i.e. when the block was cleared there was more rock in the soil than expected - so then it was my responsbility to remove the soil. This was never discussed. Yes "if we hit rock" was discussed with regards to excavation - but that happened later).

I'm now working with Warren as my construction supervisor and he is amazing. His communications are brillent and his explanations wonderful. I look forward to finishing my journey with MJH.

NOT in the market to build, we stumbled across some land that we knew was going to fit our lifestyle & appealed to us. My husband had said he didn’t want to build again. All that changed when we walked into the McDonald Jones offices in Kellyville and met Vince Klein and the team. Not only were we impressed with the quality and designs of the homes, - it was Vince and his ability to understand our vision that really won us over.

From our first informal chat, to the late night emails with our questions (sorry Vince!) – we have changed the design of the house to meet our needs multiple times & Vince was so efficient in getting back to us & nothing was a problem. It was Vince’s professionalism, prowess and knowledge of the industry and products that has enabled our pre-construction journey to be a pleasure.

We have started to attend our MyChoice appointments & are overwhelmed with the choices available to us. It is defiantly forward thinking on behalf MDJH – in allowing people multiple visits to MyChoice studios in order to sample and discuss internal selections as it is such an important part of the process. We know this is where the budget most likely be stretched, but this comes as no surprise after our initial consultations with Vince and the team.

We can only hope the next stages in building our ‘forever home’ journey can continue on like this.

Our build journey was pain free from the moment we paid our deposit. Our sales rep was accomodating and allowed us plenty of time to change our minds repetitively. Once locked in the most frustrating part was waiting for our land to register. The build itself went smooth and well ahead of schedule. Our site supervisor Riley was approachable and extremely helpful. We couldn’t recommend MJH any higher and would build with them again. Our first building experience was always going to be scary but MJH made the whole process easier.

We only just moved to production but we have built with McDonald Jones before and were very happy with support, guidance, professionalism, organisation and construction work and the home. We decided to build again and chose the same builder, especially since we absolutely love the house design (Miami). The team at Oak Flats have been outstanding. The colour choice appointments, including Electrical, were professional and the staff was going out of their way to assist us with any queries. Big thumbs up! This is not an easy job at the best of times! Special thanks go to our Pre-Construction Coordinator, who has followed up on numerous of our queries despite her busy schedule.
As we have built before we are familiar with the process and know there can be delays, beyond the builder’s control. Building a new home is very exciting! We look forward to our next stage and feel confident McDonald Jones will create another masterpiece for us! We can’t wait!
Ron & Elke

It was a true delight to be guided through by Jodee, extremely helpful, knowledgeable and a pleasure to deal with. We are looking forward to the process going forward.
Thank you.

After nearly 2 years we have finally been handed the keys.
The process was long, the communication poor, Was told numerous times one thing then the oppsite happened.

Now I have a house that has two giant piles of dirt on the front, a retaining wall to do at the back and fixes alround the property that the builder has left for me to do.
We are seeking legal advice here this is beyond a joke!

In summary lesson learned, would not build again ever! if you build a new home make sure you've got deep pockets to be ready unexpected costs that even an AFP agent couldnt find, challenge your contracts terminology and get your own conveyencer!

Pre walking through the display homes was such a great way to decide which house best suits. And we looked at a lot of them all over NSW comparing against other companies... but we kept coming back to McDondjones as the quality was the best.

And Len was by far our favoured Sales consultant, and such a lovely man. We seeked him out when he moved offices, to help get the process started... as we felt he was the right fit for us.

Sandy, our Coordinator, was great too. She was lovely to deal with and very helpful, especially at several very stressful times. We feel she went above and beyond to help us out, and can’t thank her enough.

And Vicki and Lee from the My Choice studio were very helpful and easy to deal with too... whilst choosing everything up front can be overwhelming, having their guidance at times was invaluable.

But the gold star award has to go to Brett Cooper, our building supervisor, who really is one of McDonaldjones ‘rare jewels’.

His experience and attention to detail was invaluable to the success of our build, and his light and fun nature made him very easy to get along with.

Any questions and concerns were always responded too and dealt with in a timely manner.

On the other hand, we feel that the draft changes/process/department needs some work, as it was a laborious, long winded and tedious process to make changes, which actually all got done correctly the first time.

We did blend two home designs together, and stagnated a lot of changes ourselves, but it unessesarily took almost a year to do these correctly (picking up missed changes and correcting their mistakes), and waiting 6 or so weeks for turnaround inbetween... which all made for a very annoying experience.

Overall, we absolutely love our house and have been enjoying its newness for six months now... and as such are very happy to recommend McDonaldjones to other people interested in building a new home.

MJH seems to be all about getting you to pay a deposit and sign so much paperwork that legally locks you in before you even have any inkling of how much your build is going to cost. We actually didn’t know our final contract price until a week or so after our build had started. Whenever we said something should be added or omitted on our tender or contract we were told that’s ok it will be done later but as we found out once we were coerced to sign then we didn’t have a leg to stand on legally.
For decades we only dreamed we could ever build a home with MJH. We thought we were building with one of the most elite and reputable building companies in Australia.
Dealing with our project consultant and other management in Port Macquarie and Thornton has been the most stressful part. We signed and paid a deposit in December 2017 and have just had Handover 31/5/19. Base price of house was $244,000 and final contract price was $374,045. We did a couple of plan changes approx $30,000, did a shaker kitchen, added zones for the ducted aircon and chose mostly standard items throughout. Every ‘upgrade’ is at exorbitant cost. We paid for high ceilings & windows to suit but all of our rear windows are standard height which in the bathroom looks ridiculous. We wanted bulkheads over our vanities and two windows in our lounge room were omitted without explanation. If you didn’t pick it up on the plan then MJH states it’s your fault. We are paying them to get it right.
Our site supervisor has been excellent with addressing any of our concerns and organising the tradies. Whenever there was an issue that we felt we needed to discuss with him he would promptly turn up onsite or return our calls or messages. Most of the tradies were local ( mid north coast NSW) and we were impressed with the work done. Our site supervisor has gone above and beyond to get us into a decently built house that we can call home.
In hindsight we would never have signed anything until we had done all of our alterations and selections and got a final price but MJH didnt give us that option. In our view MJH fell short of their promise to build our ‘dream’ home, easily and as stress free as possible.
Having said all this, the house is lovely despite it not being exactly what we wanted it to be and we are making it our home and hoping that there aren’t too many things we find fault in over the coming months.