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Joe and Sharon learned to be prepared when building.  They are currently building another house (with a different builder). This time they are more aware of the process.  Sharon suggests, "you should shop around for a builder. Don't settle with a builder just because they have the model you want.  A good builder will give you exactly what you want." 

My husband Joe and I relocated to a new town because of a job transfer. The company was not sure if the move was a permanent one so we decided to rent a house. After 5 years of renting, we realized that this was going to be our home. Our daughters, Britney and Jesse had made many new friends and Joe’s job was secure. We had talked so many times about what our “dream house” would have and look like. We contacted a local realtor Carol who made appointments for us to view houses for that weekend. We did this for quite a few weekends and we still could not find the “right” house. We realized that it would be hard to find the exact house and should just have a custom house built. Our realtor Carol (who was the nicest, most professional realtor) had shown them so many houses and had worked very hard for them. They felt badly and thanked her for her time. She was very gracious and even supplied us with a list of local builders. She informed us that there were some builders that were willing to work with a realtor and to please call her if we decided to visit some models. Unfortunately the model that we decided upon was not willing to cooperate with a realtor.

Joe suggests being represented by an agent!  Don't use their builder agent, find a good real estate agent you trust. That way if there are questions at the closing, you have somebody to back you up.

We decided to look at some of the builder models in our town. After a couple of weekends of talking to builders and viewing models they found their “dream” home and at an awesome price! The house though was lacking many convenient items such as a side exit door in the garage, a kitchen pantry, etc. The builder did not have any problem with making these “changes”. They signed all the necessary contracts to have the building of the home commenced.

From the start there were problems. The lot that the home was being built on needed a retaining wall on the neighboring property line. This was not disclosed to them. Of course this was an added expense. The builder explained to them that the way their new neighbor’s home had been built was causing this to be a problem. The neighbor’s builder had caused our property to now slope and we would now end up losing 6 feet of our property! We now had an added expense and less property!

Our builder next contacted us and told us that the prices of lumber and concrete had suddenly risen and wanted us to absorb the cost. We told him that we had a contract and that was not our responsibility to take care of the new costs. Apparently he thought he could save some money because when we visited our new home in progress, it was being constructed with rotted pieces of wood! After quite a battle my husband and I convinced him to replace all the rotted wood.

When we visited the “new” house again we found that they had installed the drywall. It was beginning to really look like a home. That night it rained and we realized that none of the windows had been installed! The next day we visited the home and found that the drywall had become so wet that it actually fell right off the frame. The workers were trying to salvage some of it and re-hang it! We contacted the builder again and told him that this was unacceptable materials and workmanship. After another “battle” they finally installed new drywall, but after installing the windows first! They should have thought of that in the first place.

Well closing day finally came 7 months later…not 4 months as promised! We did a “walk through” inspection of our new home. To our surprise and horror the interior paint job was so shanty that we could see the drywall exposed in areas as well as missed spots. The builder assured us that the spots would be taken care of and handed Joe a roll of tape to “mark” the areas. When Joe returned he handed the Builder back an EMPTY roll of tape! The workmanship was so bad that we decided that we would not close until the house was painted “correctly”. We then walked out into our new courtyard and  there was a huge crack in the sidewalk. The Builder apologized and offered us a “discount” on some cool decking. A “discount”? We didn’t feel like we should have to pay anything to resolve the problem. We don’t even like cool decking! The Builder agreed to have the concrete contractor “correct” the problem.

Well we did finally close! The interior painting looked beautiful. The concrete crack had disappeared, but in turn the disgruntled contractor had given us something extra…an extra extra wide expansion joint in the sidewalk! We just shook our heads and moved into our new home!  I guess we should have investigated the property specifications required by our city for constructing a home. We probably should have checked the contractor for any complaints that may have been made. By the way if you are ever in Lake Havasu City, Arizona we recommend Carol Hesse, realtor at www.homesinhavasu.com . She was awesome!  

Suggested Link -Contractors State License Board - Directory for state Board of Contractors.