builderbob

Let's not diminish his personal vendetta by pointing out facts. It's far more important that he get this off his chest. Over and over. In someone else's forum.

Nice point....

Sorry for my long vacation from this issue. While I have read through all the various comments since my last, it is late and "Editor" is the only one I feel has a level head on this so far.

My previous entry showed my disgust for whiny homeowners and it speaks for itself right or wrong in the court of world opinion. I may be a builder but I am also a homeowner and yes, I do understand the concept of value versus service, etc, etc....

At the end of the day, do not rely on your government to think for you(i.e. TRCC), you must educate yourself which brings us back to buyer beware. That is what Buyer beware was intended to mean. Be responsible for your your own actions, beyond that everything else is faith, misplaced or not.

Publicly complaining about misplaced trust does nothing but agitate the wound of a bad experience.

Some say look at all the bad press Lovett gets on this forum and that makes them a bad company. Others complain of Perry. This forum is quite small in the grand scheme of things compared to the combined thousands of homes these two companies have constructed over the years. While not all complain and not all compliment, the ratio is substantially one sided in the positive and the facts are undeniable to this.

Like the editor says, move on. Better luck next time and God help the next person you buy a home from. I pray it is not me for you are jaded beyond salvation. Mind you, I am not a religious person but in desperate times I will gladly seek help with troubled souls.

P.S. I build inside loop 610. Avoid this area if God decides to ignore me.

(sorry, couldn't resist a little humor....)

My 2 cents...

"Will not negotiate price"??? Who cares.... That is the right of any business. That is American Capitalism. Don't buy it if the price is not in your reach.

"One sided contract"??? Of coarse it is.... Why else would there be a contract. If you don't like the verbage in the contract, don't sign it.

These two topics are lame excuses to whine about poor choices. I have been a builder for "X" number of years for various builders, production and custom. It never ceases to amaze me that people will complain about the deal they got on their home... That deal is controlled by your signature at contract and closing. You either close the deal or walk away. You should have made a solid decision before signing the earnest money contract.

The statement above is the only thing a buyer has total control over until they sign. Defects in construction and poor quality and poor customer service are obviously the builder's responsibility.

I know of Lovett Homes and their style of building. Structurally speaking, I would trust their townhome product against a Perry Home product any day of the week, Lumber quality is better and they use twice as much. Lovett Homes, Perry Homes, TriCon Homes and all the others are production builders. Lovett's townhome product is a high end production home. If you bought a Lovett Townhome for $600,00.00 or less, you bought a production home. Like it or not, it is not a true custom home. Ask a true custom builder about this and you will see I am correct.

Quality is set by every Homebuilder in the presentation of their model home. If you bought based on what you saw in a model home then that is the highest level of quality you can expect. Anything else is a bonus from that point on. The model home is the product they are selling.

Every homebuilder tries to load up their superintendants with as many homes as they can handle or not handle. I have had as many as 22 homes under my care at once. Is that a manageable load? NO, clearly not. Is it my choice? NO, I would rather have six to ten houses and be able to enjoy my family and friends. At the same time my bread and butter is bonus money. The faster I can build the home, typically the more I make on the back end in bonus. A good superintendant should be able to make 30 to 40 percent of his salary in bonus.

Change orders requested by buyers are discouraged because it causes delays in the construction time. Many times the builder will purposely inflate the cost of the change order to persuade the buyer not to make the change. Don't buy appliances from the builder. They are always at least 30 percent higher than the store. Believe it or not, a lot of buyers will ask the builder to do something that is not allowed by the Building Code. Or they want us to "change it" after the inspection. Sometimes the buyer will even threaten to back out of the contract if we don't change something after the city has inspected it. Especially in the cases where a fence threatens the size of the yard the buyer thought they were going to get. Or the eletric utilities had to be relocated because Centerpoint came out and decided their was not enough clearance and would pose a fire or electrocution hazzard. Oh yea... That's all my fault.

Why do buyers think they are going to "make sure their house is perfect"? NO SUCH ANIMAL!!! We are human, we don't know what perfection is and by all means do not have the technology or financial means to achieve it. Keep praying. It is as close as you will get to perfection... If you have to get twelve inches from the sheetrock to see a paint imperfection then you have an anal personality and need to live in a bubble with the highest air filtration available for fear of the tiniest dust particle entering your airspace. Do you really think your going to move in without hitting the walls at some point? Do you think you are never going to wear high heals on those $20,000.00 wood floors and not leave a dent where you put your heel down??? Get real people.

This is why a lot of talented builders leave the industry. People think they can treat us like animals. If you treat me like an animal, then I will shut you down on every request just to make you even more mad. Guess what.... I will almost always win.

Now look at it this way. If you treat me as an equal, I will be equally cordial and responsive to your concerns and your requests. Sounds bad doesn't it? Well, have a forty something man or woman; who thinks you are uneducated; talk down to you all the while you know your income is equal to his or her combined household income. That is the childish part on my behalf. At the least, I have to satisfy the contractual obligations. I do not have to be nice.

This is a rant that I would never admit to in public. I have only once yelled at a buyer and that was due to him cussing me. In the worst of situations I have tried to benefit the buyer. I just get tired of people throwing out wild assumptions about homebuilders as a whole.

Later, ,atbe I will expand on this to give insight on how the corporate side makes the construction process rediculous.