Alair Homes Oakville

Poor Service. Overpriced. Dishonest. Waste of time. Arrogant.

Do yourself a favour and don't hire Alair Homes. I live in Oakville and I had a terrible experience with them.

Poor Service: After I gave them a deposit to being structural work, I was told 'I'm able to take your calls because I have too many other jobs on the go.' I said don't worry about, let's connect in 4 weeks. 4 weeks later I had to remind them to speak with me, and then the earliest they could meet was 5 days later. They are not responsive at all.

Overpriced: Mark charges 20% markup on his work. I assumed that meant he added 20% on top of what his trades charge him. I was wrong about that. Mark charges 20% on everything, including his in house consultations. And be careful when he brings his assistant, because then you're paying double. $90 x 20% (his markup) x 13% (tax) x 2 (his assistant). He also does this when getting quotes from his trades. His assistant sent me a text from a counter top company with a quartz quote. That text cost me $122. Moreover. . . I decided to work with a kitchen cabinet company. Mark charged 20% markup on their cabinet fee!! Even though I found the cabinet company on my own, Mark insisted on piggybacking on their fee, and charging me 20%. Another $8000 that would have been down the drain for no reason. See the attached screenshot showing that he was charging me 20% markup on a Kitchen Cabinet company that I found on my own!!!

Dishonest: When I called him out on the 20%, he said he was not willing to reduce his 20% markup on the kitchen design. After the structural work was approved and the request for permit was submitted, I informed Mark that I decided to work with a different contractor. Only then, when I had decided to walk away, did he offer to eliminate his markup on the kitchen cabinet company to save me $8000. At that point I realized he could not be trusted.

Waste of Time: Mark did not read the design plans properly, and submitted the drawings to the engineer with an important post in the wrong location. This set back my project about a week. I mentioned that this wasted time should be reflected in his marked up man hours that he charged me, but he refused. He has no respect for the time of others. He also assigns jobs to his assistant who was unable to answer my questions. Most of his answers were "that's a question for Mark." So why am I wasting my time talking to the assistant?

Arrogant: Mark budget shamed us right off the bat. He also tried to pull the wool over our eyes several times. I'm so thankful we walked away from working with his business before demolition started. And once we decided to walk away, he said we are "underbilled" and hit us with an additional $2500 in charges.

I implore you, please don't make the same mistake that I made. Select someone other than Alair Homes.