PJ Burns Builder Pty Ltd

My experience with PJ Burns can only be reviewed in two parts. The first part is their sales process which is, in a word, terrible. It’s simplest to just enumerate all the things our sales rep (s) (my wife and I dealt with two of them) did wrong:
1. Gave misleading advice about what was part of their «standard» inclusions and what was not (i.e. showed a demo house, said «everything you see here is standard», and then *after* we had signed our contract said «oh, by the way, this that and the other aren’t standard, so you’ll have to pay extra for them»).
2. Ignored questions and inquiries sent via email, SMS, and phone. Often the only way to get an issue resolved was to go down to their office in person. Some questions they just plain did not answer at all.
3. Constantly attempted to rush us into signing a contract despite repeated statements that we did not want to rush and that we’d rather take the time to make sure the contract was perfect *before* signing (this is standard advice to anyone building a home, regardless of builder).
4. Told us, in writing (e-​mail communication) that they would do something, then tried to tell us that they weren’t going to because it wasn’t mentioned in our contract (if you’re a law buff you’ll note that the Telecommunications Act of 1997 forbids this). After *several* arguments on the subject they finally agreed to honor their word.
5. Made simple mistakes like double-​billing the same item and required us to point out the same errors several times (see #2) before they fixed it. Repeatedly pressured us to sign the contract while it still had errors in it (see #3).
6. Engaged us with an attitude of «you can make changes before construction commences without having to worry about fees» and then threatened to hit us with admin fees if we didn’t hurry up and sign the final contract (see #3). Though to be fair I must note that in the end we were not hit with any fees.
7. Were completely unable to perform simple research tasks such as contacting a vendor and determining if they can or cannot do something. Long story short we were only able to get some inclusions by investing our own time talking to the builder’s vendors and confirming the various options available.
8. Scheduled appointments/​phone conversations that never actually took place.
With all these issues it’s easy to overlook what they did right. The sales team did an excellent job helping us with our floorplan. Initially they were flexible and receptive to changes. Our color consultant did a superb job guiding us through the color selection process, including responding to any questions that we had. Her price estimates were often far off the mark (typically around half the actual quoted price), but that’s minor considering how well she handled everything else.
In the end, however, the bad far outweighs the good. We almost abandoned the project, in fact. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and we moved forward with the build, but on an objective scale I have to rate my sales experience a ¹⁄₅.
But if you pull up reviews for any other builder you will find people with the same complaints. So in that sense PJ Burns is no worse than other builders, and the problems noted above are endemic to the building industry itself; not specific to PJ Burns.
So for being not worse than any other builder, I’ll bump that score up to ²⁄₅. The industry as a whole still rates ¹⁄₅. Seriously guys, it’s time to improve.
On the other side of the coin is the actual construction process itself. After the nightmarish sales process we were really expecting the worst.
Fortunately our fears proved unfounded, as our site supervisor was superb. Unlike our sales rep, he always dealt with us in an honest and forthright manner. Although sometimes difficult to get ahold of, he always made sure to address all of our questions/​concerns. When we found things that needed fixing, he fixed them. When he said he’d do something, he did it.
Overall the build quality on our home seems very good, and the project was completed in about 14 weeks. Given our awesome supervisor and build quality/​speed I’d give the construction process a 4.5 /​5. I’m deducting 0.5 due to the retaining wall that PJ Burns put in. We paid several grand for that thing, and it already looks kind of sad (bowed beams, some poorly made cuts, etc.).
Given that it’s the end result that matters, I’m giving PJ Burns a «weighted average» score of ⁴⁄₅. That’s a bit generous, but at the end of the day if you can suffer through their sales process you’ll at least get a very nice house for your trouble.
With respect to cost, PJ Burns offers competitive base rates, though many of their upgrade prices seem very inflated. Suffice to say that you can save a good amount of cash by providing your own internal hardware (think toilets, tapware, ceiling fans, floor wastes, appliances, etc.).