We're looking to buy a new house in the next 6 to 8 months. We've seen several models that we like built by several builders (Gehan, Lennar, Village Builders) but every time I google one of them, I see nothing but complaints. Seems like the common theme is that they tell you everything you want to hear until closing - then proceed to JAIL RAPE you (without lubrication) after you've signed on the dotted line. We found a beautiful model by Gehan that we were really pumped up about. Then I googled them and found this. Is it like this with all builders?? Has anyone here actually had a GOOD experience with a home builder?
I'd be interested to hear about this too. My mom's ex-husband was a home inspector so back in the day I went on maybe two dozen inspections with him and at least half of those were new construction. Some of the short-cuts the builders took would be funny if they weren't sad and many of these homes were in the $250K-$400K range. When I had my own home built about five years ago I saw the same thing. Even with my semi-trained eye I missed a ton of shortcuts the builder took only to discover them months or years later (and who knows about the stuff in the walls that I couldn't see after they covered it). Of course, after talking to people who actually did the contracting of their own homes instead of using a builder I don't think I want to do that either. Pretty much everyone told me if you hire your own contractors to plan on quitting your job or taking 4-6 months off of work in order to be out there every day to catch all the shortcuts they try to take to save a buck and/or some time.
First thing you gotta remember is that people go on the internet to complain. If they had a bad experience with a particular builder they WILL make it a point to complain. If they were happy with the builder, most likely they wouldn't go on the internet to praise them. All you really need to do, is make sure that the builder knows that you're on top of your game. Print out some complaints, bring it to their attention, most likely they'll say the same thing I said in the first sentence. But they'll know that you know and give you a great experience.
^^ What he said. A newly built home is going to have some issues...especially when it's one of these volume builders. I do get a kick, though, out of all the complaints about nail pops. If you get a brand new home and manage to go the first year or 2 without nail pops, then that would be freaking amazing. It's a minor issue that happens when a house settles. All you do is nail them back in and patch the very small hole. I had a pretty good experience with Centex for our first home. Centex, though, primarily builds "first-time buyer" type neighborhoods. The only other thing I do know is to stay far far away from KB Homes.
I had a Gehan home built about 5 years ago. We had it built in a new neighborhood early on when Gehan was just starting to bulid homes in this neighborhood. I can't say I had a ton of complaints with them. I wasn't in a super hurry to move so I made sure everything that needed to be fixed prior to closing was done. They tried to push me to close earlier (end of the month), but refused to do so because of horror stories I had heard of putting warranty work off after closing. Of course, things do happen during your year of warranty and because they were still selling homes it was easy for them to send a guy that was around. I will say that once Gehan sold their section of homes in the neighborhood and were gone they were horrible with some peoples warranty work..if they got to it at all. I hear DR Horton builds a decent house and services them pretty good, but in all truth when you build a spec home no matter who builds it, you're not going to get the best quality build and service. My advice to you is ask how long they are going to stay building in the area and make sure they will still be around a year after your house is built and to push closing off until everything you need fixed off the punch list is done.
Residential construction is full of shady characters. Even a lot of the big operators are shady. The best thing you can do is read up about a builder before you buy and make sure to get your own inspection before you purchase.
Bring a case of beer once a week to the people building your home when they're getting off work and your home will be built better.
Yeah, I definitely get that. I guess it also says something when some of the complaints I’m reading have typos and punctuation errors. But it does scare me when I read about cracks in the brick mortar and/or ceilings - bad punctuation or not. What exactly is a “nail pop” anyway? That always seems to be mentioned in these complaints. Thanks for the info. How is the house holding up now? Gehan is just starting to build in the neighborhood we are looking at. According to the map in the model home, it looks like only about 5 lots (out of about 30 or so) have been sold, so we are definitely getting in at the beginning of the neighborhood. So new that if you look it up on google maps, it’s just forest.
Basically, when there is settling and the house shifts slightly, a nail can "pop" out of the stud and stick out through the drywall. Depending on where you are, you'll probably get a lot of them when the weather changes and it will probably be the same ones over and over. After a year or so, they'll stop happening as frequently. Technically, they should fix them under the warranty, but I quit calling Centex out because it was such an easy thing to fix and I didn't want to have to come home every time for a 5 minute repair. All you do is hammer it back in, patch the hole and paint it. Make sure they leave you with the leftover interior and exterior wall paint. Some builders will actually give you a kit at closing with the colors. wesnesked is right about using a builder that's going to be in the area for at least the rest of your warranty term. That guarantees easy access to the people that take care of the problems.
LONG POST AHEAD... good story though: One of my work friends bought a home built by D.R. Horton. Everything went along smoothly as the home was being finished. He went through the final walkthrough, and everything was fine. After closing, he spent the night at his girlfriend's house, and moved in the next morning. He got all of his stuff in there in one day, and over the next few days continued to stay at his girlfriend's house until everything was set up and ready to live in. Everything looked cosmetically fine, but over the last two days of setting up his place, he started to notice a peculiar odor. He assumed the best, and figured it would go away. He leaves work 4 days after moving in, prepared to spend his first night in his house, opens the front door, and the odor has intensified to the point of it almost knocking him over. He can't even bear to stay in the house for more than a few minutes at a time. While everything looks cosmetically fine, this truly horrific smell is unbearable. He calls the builder, then the home warranty company run by D.R. Horton, and they give him the run around for close to two months. They send out electricians, air conditioning people, pest control folks and they can't find anything. Now nobody is returning his calls or answering his emails, despite him calling and/or emailing every hour at this point. Finally, a plumber my friend had to pay for, suggests they pull up the bathtub in the master bedroom and see if anything under there is causing the smell. They pull up the tub, and find a huge, dead, rotting skunk... covered in maggots, blood everywhere as it seems the skunk was trying to burrow, bang, bust his way out (and, I assume, spraying the whole time). There was no way for the skunk to get under there after they put the tub in, meaning someone had to have seen it in there and ignored it (as the space under the tub has no "hiding places" and isn't very deep). It took another two month for D.R. Horton to pay for carpet and upholstery cleaning, dry cleaning, new mattresses and linens, etc. and all were neccessary as the smell had permeated every area of the home and its contents. Long story short (too late): Avoid D.R. Horton.
I know of a guy who lives in my neighborhood who does a great job. http://boliocustomhomes.com I walked on the site of a few of his constructions and was impressed with what I say. Good stuff.
OH gawd! this reminds me of the dead possum i found under my tub a couple of years ago. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=159526
