Reviews of Alair Homes in Nanaimo

We worked with Alair Cowichan Valley Project Manager (PM) for 14 months on the planning phase of our reno. During that time, my husband and I experienced an exceptional amount of frustration and anger regarding his absolutely shameful management of our project. Specifically, here were the highlights:

1. Asked to select materials, I.e., counters, paint colours but given zero guidance on what needed to be selected and then accused of not being serious about our reno when we were behind in selections for things we didn’t even know we needed to select because the PM failed to communicate expectations

2. Constantly in the dark about progress and communication from PM was horrible (embarrassing really for a “professional”)

3. Bullying - yes I was bullied several times

4. Misogynistic behaviour

5. Promised an adjustment/ reimbursement for an over payment - never received

6. Some of his contacts were unreliable and unprofessional, I.e., failing to attend appointments, breaking consumer laws. Rather than acknowledge their bad behaviour he chose to defend them

7. Made decisions without consulting us

8. Referred to us as partners rather than clients/ customers. There was a lot of confusion from the PM on the fact that he is running a business, thus he is working with customers - he was very adamant that we were his partners, that our relationship was like a marriage. It was a weird/ manipulative/ delusional way of viewing customers.

At one point we were considering firing the PM and I reached out to the company owner to explore our options. During that conversation I asked him twice to keep it confidential so we could have some time to process the information and make a decision. Approx. 30 mins after ending the call my husband received a call from the PM informing us he needed to have a meeting and that he wouldn’t be submitting our permit application. He broke our confidence and went straight to PM. So, are these guys professionals or high school teenagers who get off on gossip?

I think Alair probably provides a decent experience if you are someone with money to burn on a reno or new build. But if you are doing a reno on a budget - DO NOT even consider Alair unless you want to sign up for extra stress and an undesirable drain on your funds.

My suggestion for the PM is to take some project management training or at least stop referring to yourself as a PM as it is an insult to true professional PM’s.

And for the company owner, integrity can’t be learnt - that’s a virtue that can only be practiced. But here’s a tip, confidential means don’t tell anyone, like keep a secret.