McDonald Jones Homes

The sales consultant at McDonald Jones Homes was knowledgeable, responsive and genuinely helpful throughout the early stages. Unfortunately, everything went downhill from there. The project coordinators and managers were extremely disappointing to deal with. Communication was poor, client concerns were not properly managed, and despite the significance of the project, there was little effort made to meet with us directly or proactively resolve issues. The team did not appear to have sufficient experience to manage complications effectively, which resulted in prolonged delays and a very frustrating experience overall. After dragging the process out for 6 months, the builder ultimately terminated the contract unfairly. While they agreed to refund the upfront deposit, weeks have now passed and the refund still has not been processed. We are now left having wasted close to a year dealing with this process, only to return to the market where construction costs have increased significantly. Overall, an incredibly disappointing and costly experience.

Extremely Disappointing Experience with McDonald Jones Homes We're extremely dissatisfied with the quality of work delivered by McDonald Jones Homes. The construction process has been marred by subpar workmanship and a blatant disregard for attention to detail. One major issue was the concrete slab, which was poured to incorrect measurements, leaving us with a significant shortfall. To make matters worse, the frame didn't fit properly due to this error. You'd think this would be a major concern, but the team seemed entirely unbothered. Our attempts to get these issues addressed have been frustrating, to say the least. Rather than taking our concerns seriously and providing meaningful solutions, McDonald Jones Homes has opted for shoddy patch jobs. It's clear they're more interested in cutting corners and saving time than in delivering a quality product. We would not recommend McDonald Jones Homes to anyone. Their lack of attention to detail, subpar workmanship, and dismissive attitude toward customer concerns make them a builder to avoid.

I will never recommend McDonald home to anyone as the quality of the home leaves a lot to be desired.There sub standard products and to try to get warranty work done or emails answered forget it. I purchased the home 7 months after and after numerous emails I can still not get defects resolved

I have had an absolutely terrible experience building with McDonald Jones and after 16 months only have frames and a roof. We continually get told trades will turn up and complete work and they never show up. We have had months of sunny days were our site sits empty with no progress or signs of this improving. Every single deadline they day things will be done not one has been on time. The build quality is not great either. I wish I never ever signed up with this very unprofessional company who are totally unable to deliver a quality build in a timely manner. When we signed up we were told worst case 16 months to get keys. We are over 16 months now and are not even close to lock up stage!!!!! Stay as far away from this company as possible as they have to many jobs amd not enough trades to build the houses they have committed to building. I just hope this nightmare ends and we don't have to ever deal with McDonald Jones again.

I bought a MJH in 2014, it was built in 2010. The quality of the build was pretty ordinary. I’ve since had to fix various roof leaks. The roofer who fixed it said the pointing was done incorrectly, and wasn’t suprised as he has fixed quite a few MJH roofs. I am currently also ripping up a bathroom due to the water proofing leaking and rotting adjacent floor boards. Once again, the person fixing it discovered the waterproofing was incorrect, and done very poorly.

I would not recommend this builder if you want your house soon, so far, the process has been prolonged; we were supposed to receive the house in May 2022, but we still don't have walls. We understand the complications of the industry, but having to pay rent and a mortgage without knowing when the construction will be finished has been incredibly difficult. 19 Aug 2021 Confirmation on Construction List 22 Oct 2021 Site Start 14 Feb 2022 Roof Frame Complete Electrical and plumbing have taken nine months and we haven't seen much progress

There is not enough room in this review to outline the poor customer service and unprofessional experience we had with this company. After $4000 and two years of a long drawn out process of broken promises and false statements from their so called design staff we were told that they were wrong and that the house we had chosen and spent two years designing with them would not fit on the block and had not been approved by council. I would not recommend the ACT section of this company to anyone and in fact I would say save your money and approach an actual architect and builder. Had we done this our house would have been built a year ago. The hidden costs associated with their builds like no flooring, driveways, fencing, demolition, retainer walls, landscaping or even leveling of the land brings the total costs to the price of an architecturally designed house. $4000 is an expensive lesson to be learned so if your block in not square, flat and empty do not approach these guys

Poor quality inclusions. Walls cracks everywhere.. kitchen drawer issues .. toilet flush issue. House was left messy in completion, asked for clean up but refused to do so, missed a shelf in bathroom and refused to replace it.. door stoppers keep falling .. We are building again but looking for better quality home with different builders.

MJH built us a beautiful home on our Hunter Valley acre. We love it and receive rave compliments. However, I would reluctantly use this company again. Hence the two stars. The main beef we had was with their kitchen manufacturer - Designer Living. Very substandard work. In fact it was the result of this company’s inefficiency that we were delayed almost 2 months in receiving our keys. The finished quality of this kitchen does not match the overall build quality. This is not the reason that we would not use MJH again. They refused to install skylights where we knew we would require them, and answered that we had to install them after handover. We did. They ended up costing well over $5,000. I am a retired interior design architect and I know the actual cost to install at time of building, would have been no where near this cost. Not to mention the mess we had to endure for two weeks, and that the entire ceiling had to be painted again on a 6 months old house! Second on the list of refusals was the installation of our fireplace. That also had to be done after handover at significant cost and disruption! Now we are in the process of planning another new build, and have encountered the exact opposite with more than a few other project home builders. Nothing is too much trouble for these builders. This is so much more pleasant to know we can can have everything we want, and not have to run into difficulties after the event of moving in.

The build of my home went close to five months over time. During this time hardly any trades were on site and communication with both office staff and site staff was terrible. They did not answer emails even after following up and were rude and condescending in their approach. The defects I have now in my home total over 300 ... some of which are major. The dwelling is not water tight ... in fact I can see the steel frame through some of the cladding. The workmanship is abysmal. If you are considering building with MJH, please reconsider. This was the worse mistake I have made.

Selected MJH to build after much consideration, house completed 13 months ago. Brickwork was substandard with mortar now crumbling, messy and full of holes. Despite many, many attempts to have the work rectified, 13 months later and many, many broken appointments and promises, we are no closer to resolution. The bricklayer who completed our work is no longer contracted to MJH. Beware the glossy promised as the post-building service has been deplorable. Update March 2020. After fighting incessantly for 2 years, trying everything we could, I became more desperate as our mortar continued to crumble. Eventually I managed to make contact with the CEO through LinkedIn (he had no idea I was a very disgruntled customer who was ready to contact A Current Affair). While not apologizing or accepting responsibility, we finally got some action. A team of up to 6 labourers was sent to our house and they spent more than 4 weeks in the blistering hot sun grinding, scraping, chiselling and removing every square centimeter of mortar to a depth of about 1-2cm, then replacing it with fresh new, properly-mixed mortar. The mess was heartbreaking as I had spent every spare minute completing the landscaping which was now covered in mortar dust and sludge. What's more, the dust penetrated the house and ended up over everything. Cleaners had to be sent numerous times (I had to fight tooth and nail to get them) and the acid washing of the bricks caused serious pitting on anything metallic (eg spotlights). The nightmare just seemed to go on and on. The repair work was sub-standard in places so they tried to patch it. Colour didn't match. Christmas was close and despite my battle-hardened resilience driven by anger at MJH, I had had enough and asked them to get out of my life, vowing I would never use MJH for anything ever again, and to tell as many people as I could to be aware that MJH promise much and deliver little, apart from shattered dreams. So, we ended up with a $500K house with mortar work that I could have done better myself. We've got a slush fund to render the brickwork one day...we know it will need it. Then there's all the other things that have emerged after five years or so...cracks in the garage slab, internal doors and hardware falling apart, tiling grout missed (that we've only just noticed), ceiling batts incomplete, holes in the AC ducting...I could go on.

Always professional when dealing with me. Accurate description of the house. The house was built in a timely manner with someone keeping us up to date through the whole process. Overall a pleasure to deal with and extremely satisfied with the house.