Urban Homes - Hamilton Central

Awesome customer service and great guys

Amazing people, amazing homes. Spectacular.

Great service and communication from Christine... We will be using them to build our new house!

Daniel and his team are great clients to work for. The new HQ portrays their professionalism, practicality and attention to detail.

Having recently completed out new home with Urban, we could not be happier. The house itself is awesome, finished it an amazing standard and the build and project couldn't have gone better. The communication was amazing from the whole Urban team and any minor issue was sorted before we could even mention it to them. 100% would recommend anyone in the Waikato looking to build a home to go through Urban.

Just recently built with URBAN The whole journey was disgusting, and degrading. I pray Master Builder can help and make you honest. I can not sleep we do not have a life. Master Builder has been presented the report to you - when are you take ownership of the issues you watched happen. All through the build we and you saw the errors but you dont correct them - are you a honest company? IF you were you would own and resolve. Stop hiding and sort it out

From our experience with Urban I would say they don't stand by their advertised values of 'integrity' and 'ownership' of problems. We are first time builders and were considering GJ and Urban, and were open and transparent with both companies. We're 'normal' people and not the high maintenance sort who complain about everything. When Urban saw our single storey plan and price from GJ we talked about how our dream was a 2-storey but we didn't have budget. They convinced us they could build a 2-storey version at the same cost, even after we questioned the cost of reinforced steel and escalating prices. Urban were clear that the prices given were estimates and not actual quotes, but said they were accurate based on our plans and similar homes they were currently building. Based on trusting the information given, we chose Urban over GJ and proceeded through the final plan and quote process which we were told in writing would be about three weeks. Urban had our full draft plan which only needed minor tweaks. Nine days later they sent an email saying there was no way we could build a 2-storey for our budget. We were stunned and upset. When we questioned this, they said they had never offered an estimate for a 2-storey, to which we forwarded them three emails showing they had written amounts and discussed them with us. We spoke to the GM and the Customer Service Manager who were both amazing and reassured us we would be fine and would get a lovely single storey home for our budget. Even though we only needed to tweak an existing single storey plan, the process was painfully slow and we even offered suggestions to improve how it could be done. Five weeks later we had a final plan, and then one calendar month later we got the price back. This was much much higher than our old GJ quote, even allowing for extra foundation work. We were really confused and upset. The GM who had been so amazing now avoided us and did not return our emails. They obviously have a corporate policy for managing upset customers and so the Customer Service Manager took over. Whilst very nice, she actually did nothing practical to help us but instead was obviously there for damage control. She repeatedly told us 'I'm sorry but if we were to build your house for the price we estimated then we would lose money' – telling me this from the elaborate glass corporate headquarters in Hamilton. Dealing with Urban felt like dealing with a big Aussie bank or one of the telecom companies, not a family building company that actually cares. Three times they gave us completely wrong information and price estimates (even allowing for escalating costs), and we trusted this information and made key decisions based on it. The incorrect information was either repeated mistakes (miscalculations), or a sales ploy to beat a competitor's price and close a sale. If it was mistakes, then if Urban had integrity they would have rectified the problem and stood by what they had told us, even if it reduced their profit margins – that’s sometimes the cost of running a business based on values, not dollars. For us it has been emotionally a terrible and stressful experience and has wasted over 3 months and dozens and dozens of hours. We are now materially worse off and building a smaller house with another company because it is costing us more because we had to start the process again 3 months later with more cost increases. I wish we had never dealt with Urban. Looking back now I should have done more due diligence even just reading all the Google reviews there appear to be very few authentic ones from customers describing their experiences (but instead from companies that work for Urban). This should have been a warning in itself. We've learnt some valuable lessons and it's been an awful journey with Urban that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Building with Integrity is their catch line. And that's what feels like, you're working with people who have integrity and care about what they are doing. What's not to love about that!?! ?