Rawdon Hill

We began our journey with Rawdon Hill in March 2017 at the Berwick Waters show home, Our build started in early November 2017 and we moved in mid-July 2018.
Our 25.7 sq double storey build took 8.5 months in the end which was not so bad, the start of the build was slow and painful and the bricks took 7 weeks to complete but after that things picked up and went fairly smoothly.
The painting and plastering has been disappointing, all doors in the house have damage and the skirting/architraves have dings and dents which have just been painted over. Other than that the overall quality is pretty good and we are happy with our house.

There were a few errors which we picked up with items from our colour selections and I would advise future customers to triple check to make sure everything they have asked for is in writing and on their plans.

Pro’s:
Ability to change the floor plan and window locations or sizes for no cost or low cost
Inclusions have to be the best in the industry – great to move in and have blinds and driveway done.
Quality of appliances included is better than other builders – Westinghouse, Rinnai and Dishlex brands
More colour options to choose from than other builders
Nearly all costs were fixed in the contract except the soil removal which came in under the budgeted amount.

Con’s:
They can’t tell you the price of things you ask for and it takes weeks of waiting and follow up to find the price, waste of everyones time if the price is too high and we say no. This occurred with both the Sales Consultant and the colour room consultant – not sure if this means they make up the price depending on the customer or they are just disorganised and have no idea. Surely I’m not the only customer to ask the price of a sink they have on a sheet of paper that shows 8 sink options…
They also included the energy rating upgrade charge on the contract and then at the final sign off when construction was about to start they wanted more money for this which was pretty dodgy and I raised this with them but they wouldn’t budge.
Communication is poor – don’t expect to hear much during the build. If you ask a question you will get a vague unhelpful answer which wastes everyones time. They do send a ‘project update’ email periodically but it’s usually telling you what has happened which you already know if you visit the site regularly.
The site supervisor was pretty uncontactable till the lock up stage and the only time we met him was at the pre-handover inspection.
We paid $6000 to upgrade our staircase but they could never give a drawing or picture of what it will look like after asking for it many times – I could assume from the description given and google images but when building you should not assume anything !

The start of the build was slow and frustrating – they take 6-8 weeks to do a slab but don’t tell you that from the outset then they leave the slab sit for a month before starting the frame. Then the bricks took 7 weeks to complete which were only to the ground floor.
They include fencing as part of their contract but when it comes to handover no one has organised the fencing which can takes weeks/months to get neighbours signoff – if this is important to you e.g. kids/pets then arrange it yourself. Their fencer is also an absolute shambles so save the hassle, extremely poor quality which will blow over on a windy day and they are poor communicators as well. Hopefully Rawdon Hill have gotten rid of them as I still see their shoddy work blowing over in my estate this winter.

They offer a 3 month maintenance period and after living in the house for 6 months they came to rectify any issues raised. The maintenance team were pretty good to deal with and did their best to coordinate trades at a time that suited me and get issues resolved.

The standard windows they provide are really low quality with no seals/brushes on the sliding style. A lot of dust and air comes in and the paint peels away from the corner of the window sills but apparently these are just the standard windows.

From what I see from other customers online Rawdon Hill have really gone downhill in the last couple of years, they used to be very highly regarded but now they treat their customers like crap, regularly go over the contract length, don’t stick to the contract and make a lot of stuff ups which they refuse to own.
The manager at Rawdon Hill has a really bad attitude and is doing nothing to get repeat business or word of mouth referrals. This attitude seems to be infecting other staff throughout the business.

Hopefully something has changed there since my build and maintenance period finished.

We had a small builder go broke at lock up stage so we bulldozed and started again as it was cheaper than the quotes coming in to finish the project in 2010. We came across Rawdon Hill and took a long time and many visits with the sales lady to eventually sign up. The bank mucked us around as well and Rawdon were very patient. We eventually started building in JULY 2011 - they were finished in DEC 2011. I could not believe how quick they were and how negotitable the foreman was to deal with. There was only a couple of things that were minor to deal with along the way that i would not even mention as they are trivial. People are very emotional about building a house but we have now built 3 and would recommend Rawdon 100%. Defects list was minor - they have been back to complete 98% - im happy with that! we are in Heathmont Victoria - built up area & people walking past stop me when Im gardening to tell me how beautifuly our house is! Best of all, we both love our house inside & out - our advice for people who are going down the build track, take time to make all the changes to the contract that you want. we were lucky and had a fab experience!
Everything - all good - great to deal with from start to finish
Items that were not standard to the plan eg. we had the garage extended and widend & the plumbing was missed but we picked it up when driving past and had them come back & alter the slab to include plumbing - also an alteration to the main bathroom mirror being deleted that ended up being installed... all items were rectified so i consider it a minor inconveniece in an overall large project

We looked at a number of builders for our first home before going with Rawdon Hill, and are completely thrilled with our decision after seeing the finished product. From our first meeting with [names removed] through to handover, the whole process was seamless and easy.

We have family in the building industry, so we understand that things can and do go wrong during construction, so we were mindful of stepping back to allow the builders to do their job. I have no doubt that this is part of the reason things went so smoothly, and as a result Matt and Nathan went out of their way to help us through the process. We were also invited out to see each completed stage, and were very happy with the quality of construction. I took my brother along to inspect the structural stages, as he is an experienced builder, and he could not find fault with the work. Where there were minor problems or delays, our site manager quickly resolved them over the phone, or invited us out when needed. As a result, our build was completed in less than four months, and after a month of living in our new home we have not had a single issue.

The thing we were most happy with was the fact that our home was exactly what was represented in the display that we first loved, at an excellent price. While I am sure that the other builders we viewed would have built lovely homes, the premiums that we were quoted to include things like floor and window coverings, handles, driveway, etc. were huge, and would have made them completely unaffordable for our first home. We estimate conservatively that on a 400k house and land package we saved 30-40k on inclusions that did not come standard with the other builders we looked at. All in all, I would definitely recommend this builder, particularly to first home owners or investors.
Final product matches the advertised, without hidden costs. Great build quality
None so far, minor issues during build were all resolved

I now own eight properties and Rawdon hill only build one for me! From the beginning the workmanship was quite average, Rawdon hill have no reservations in refusing to even view the defects! It took me five months and the help of consumer affairs to get them on site for the first viewing! Even though clearly building regulations were not followed they still refuse to address the issues! All I am left to do is take the defects to VCAT at my expense! To be continued!!!

Dealing with a leaking roof for more than 2 years. Very unprofessional and ignorant to resolve issues for a long time. Instead of being apologetic, they have very rude and terrible customer service. Going to DBDRV and VCAT. Even one star is too much.

Unfortunately my partner and I have not had a nice experience building our first home with Rawdon Hill.
We decided to build rather than buy established as we thought we would get a better end result and be able to enjoy something brand new.
Our sales consultant is a nice guy and definitely knew his stuff but arent all sales people.
We had issues from the very beginning with the Contract price and believe we were ripped off $10,000 more than we should have been over a dispute with the land nomination price.
Construction and site works started in October 2011 and the frame was up prior to Christmas. The concreters who poured the slab poured it too far for the garage base and it was subsequently jack hammered back. This left a very poor finish and should have been saw cut instead. We had a family member who is a Carpenter come through the property and we had to point out 11 major structural isses with the frame stage. we refused to pay the invoice until it was fixed and it took many emails to have this done.
Communication between the admin staff at the office and our Site Supervisor is poor.
The brickies did a very messy job and we chose to pay extra for 'white' mortar which has now been stained a yellow brown colour and is patchy due to a poor cleaning job. The bricks are also very badly chipped as the brick cleaner must have used too much pressure and we will now be fighting Rawdon Hill and Austral for a resolution.
We had to pin point so many mistakes which no one noticed sooner.
The carpenter and plasterer missed the two bulk heads in the kitchen and ensuite and not even the site supervisor noticed until we pointed it out to him in our walkthrough.
The internal painter did an extremely poor job and we are waiting on this to be fixed.
Rawdon Hill have used almost every one of their 235 build days and we are still left with an end product that we are not happy with.
I have now gone above the Site Supervisor with our ongoing issues and new issues over the retaining walls and it still appears that no one really cares.
Here's hoping that these last couple of weeks can fix a lot of issues and restore our faith in this entire experience. So far we are embarrassed to even talk about our first home and arent excited about it at all.
Very disappointing. :(
We initially loved the design and were very happy with the sales consultants knowledge but probably should have shopped around some more.
Poor communication, tradespeople employed who cannot do their job properly, carefree site supervisor

The building experience with Rawdon Hill has been a nightmare since signing contracts in early January 2018 (12 months). Having commenced on April 2018 (9 months), construction is still going on and finally reach fixing stage while pending work from early stages on our single story house. Supervisor is unbelievably unprofessional, and hard to reach 99% of the time(no reply/answer). Also, he has some irrelevant reasons for the delay. They are not happy to have private inspections and heaps of issues pointed out by private inspector proves irresponsible and poor quality of work.

The sales lady was lovely until we found so many items defected, she told us that she would help us to get them fixed through the office but she never even tried. When we complained we were told by [name removed] in the office to go to the building commision. We have over 60 defects as listed by the building commision and office of fair trade, Rawdonhill were given 3 months to complete the works, from August 2011, the works have still not been done, the office of fair trade is now reveiwing the report because I will not give up and let them get away with this treatment of us, they have been so rude and dishonest, we had to pay the electricity bill for the building of our house, they still have not given this back to us!!!!
Please think twice before you build your dream home with them because your dream home will quickly become a nightmare!! I would never recommend this company to anybody!!!!

We have over 60 defects as noted in a report from the building commision and office of fair trade

From the very first meeting with the sales rep to the final handing over of the keys it was one very smooth operation. Being in our mid 70's we did not want any hassles and rawdon hill not only provided that but also built our quality home which we are both pleased with. We would recommend them to anyone who wants a quality home.

Rawdon Hill was able to provide me with a house and land package that was affordable and in the right area, not only have they built my house in less time than planned ( with 2 -3 months outstanding ) they also have done a great job.
There was a issue with the garage door having the incorrect one installed however they very quick responsed. Rawdon Hill we able to rectify it quickly and efficiently so l ended up with exactly what l wanted with minimal disruption and without delaying the settlement day. The staff were great and i had great communication with the builder supervisor ( who kept me in the loop of things all the time )
But overall i would highly recommend Rawdon Hill to anyone.
Thank you so much :-)

In last one and half year time , I made numerous calls and emails for the maintenance, which we are eligible to have done after first 3 months, but nothing is happening, we are very disappointed with their service
During the building process their staff were rude , unprofessional and ignorant but just the sake of our house , we kept the patience
this builder have no ethics and have no respect to their customers, Please avoid to build with rawdonhill

We browsed the web and found that this business has an active Facebook page. We have discovered that this business has SSL (secure sockets layer), which means that this business handles your data, such as personal information or credit card details, with secure connection. We discovered that the domain for this business is relitevely new, which means that it could be a start-up business that does not yet have a huge amount of customers. We found that this business has an Instagram page, where they communicate with their customers using images and videos. This is usually an indication that the business has some visual aspects that it wants to showcase.