What price range are you looking at? Sometimes you can find decent local custom home builders at your price range and not even know they build in that price range. You would get a superior home over the tract home builders.
I know a lot of home inspectors in Houston that will tell you KB's homes are FUBAR. I'd sure never buy one.
So far I've been satisfied w/my Lennar home in Pearland - Meadows of Southdown. My friend on the other hand is having a nightmare building his home with D.R. Horton in Shadowcreek Ranch. Following are the nightmarish points: 1. Kitchen floor is uneven/slopes 2. Kitchen door to the backyard is crooked due to kitchen floor 3. Master bath tub had to be replaced with originally ordered jacuzzi tub (smaller than my Lennar jacuzzi tub - where's the fun in that?) 4. Ceiling in upstairs bedroom closet lower than closet door frame 5. Lots of bowing in the walls (esp. noticeable on the floor trims) 6. Mispainted main banisters on staircase railings - basically they painted some white and left some wood stained 7. Attic access door sticks really badly - takes a sumo wrestler to open it 8. Water leak now or recently over garage with what looks to be mold spots and now the drywall tape has peeled down 9. Too many more items to list without getting carpel tunnel... So right now he's arguing to get his earnest money back. He's also looking for a lawyer to help. Based on my friend's experience, avoid D.R.Horton like the plague!
I know of a kickerillo house that built a few years ago and it has held up well and was built with out any major hiccups.. I think his homes are over priced, but there are no problems that I know of with this particular home..
Kickerillo is the king of unreasonable mark-ups. The quality and upgrades does not match the price. NBA- Trophy Homes are pretty new to the market. They seem to be doing well, but Im not too sure about overall quality. What is your price range? Lennar builds some cool townhomes in the $110's.
No matter what you do, get an inspector to walk the house pre-sheet rock, to inspect structural. And then bring back the inspector before closing. I have a David Weekly Home. While I love the floor plan, the quality of the build isn't great. Plenty of nits. Interior paint job is crap. having them come back out is a pain. they just make more messes, so I'm re-doing paint issues myself. failure to hide carpet seams. installing dead grass. poor grout installation on tile. windows that aren't square . . . which is a huge pain if you're installing blinds or other hunter douglas products. You gotta have a level window header to install blinds. I figure, if you pay over 300K for a house, you should get something quite nice. But they just pay crews to go as fast as they can and you get what you get.
