If you want to build your new home, you certainly want to make sure you've done your homework in choosing a builder, especially considering the enormous investment in time and money the project entails. And, let's face it, given a choice, most of us prefer to buy brand new. But there's nothing as devastating as signing on the dotted line, investing your life's savings (and what you can borrow from the bank) and running into obstacle after obstacle with your chosen builder. Do any of the following problems sound familiar?
- The builder's warranty is vague or doesn't cover exactly what goes wrong with your home construction.
- Customer service is spotty at best, insufficient or unhelpful, and phone calls aren't returned promptly.
- Your construction manager has an attitude, is unresponsive, or perhaps is easy-going, but nothing gets done to your satisfaction or expectation.
- The builder's sales staff is distracted, disorganized, and unavailable, and there's absolutely no follow up.
- Your home readiness date is constantly pushed back by unanticipated delays.
In fact, these cover the top five issues in the most critical areas of customer satisfaction with new-home builders, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 New-Home Builder Customer Satisfaction Study,SM now in its 11th year. The study, which ranks builders in 34 separate housing markets across the U.S., is based on responses from 50,399 buyers of newly-built, single-family homes after they've lived in their homes from 4-18 months, on average. The typical buyer reports about 13 problems with their new home"mostly construction problems like landscaping, quality and finish of kitchen cabinets, or heating and air conditioning. While the problems reported vary by market, they have decreased by 7 percent over last year's study.
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