I'm Not The Only One!

Chris Prickett has some thoughts about the disposable homes built today.

Ever wonder why there are no knobs on your cabinets or why they do not trim windows with wood these days?

Click here to read Chris's blog and find out why. I couldn't agree with him more if I tried!

Another New Houston Home, Another Cracked Slab

Cracked slabs in new Houston area homes are becoming more and more of a problem.

Do the Builders rush right in and fix things? NO

Do the Builders take responsibility? NO

Will the Builder work with you on another home or give your earnest money back? Maybe, but don't bet on it!

Case in point. Just looked at this home the other day for this nice couple. Found one rather large crack on one side of the home. On the opposite side of the house, what do you know, another crack!

Builders so called "Engineer" went out and looked at it, but would not issue a report with his engineers stamp on it. That should tell you something right there.

The Couple decided not to buy that new home.

What made this situation pleasant was that this coupld had no intention of having an inspection. Everyone of their friends plus the Builder said it was silly to have a new home inspected. "You'll be wasting your money" said the Builder. However, the Wife's father was a Builder in another state and told the couple "Either you pay for a Inspector who is code certified or I will, either way you get it inspected before buying it!"

What happened to this home? The Builder is skim coating the face of the slab to hide the cracks. The next Buyers will never know the slab is cracked across the home until they start having problems. No inspector will be able to see this crack either because it will be covered up!

This is Russian Roulette with a cracked slab. Is the new home you're buying this home?

New Construction Bloopers

How did the Builders third party inspector miss the leak in the whirlpool tub? Like I've always said, Builders use the third party inspectors more for marketing to unsuspecting consumers than they do for quality control.

Just take a look at this.



This is what happens when a whirlpool tub leaks. You'll hardly ever see it from the inside because the perimeter of the tub is caulked. It leaks out the weep holes on the outside.

There was a new shiny "Quality Assurance" inspection sticker from the Builders third party inspection company on the Kitchen cabinet door.

Guess they forgot about the whirlpool tub...

Donald

Montgomery County Texas New Homes

I was looking at a new home in Magnolia the other day. After I was done my Client made the comment "We moved out here and had a custom home built because we thought they were built better than ones in Houston."

I hear that a lot. For some reason homebuyers think that by moving out "in the country" or out to "Montgomery County" they're automatically going to get a better home. That's far from true.

Actually, the further you move out into the county and away from incorporated areas, the more your chances are of getting a shoddy home.

The theory that some Builders in Montgomery County seem to have is there is no one watching over their construction so why bother with those nit-picky building codes!

For example, the new home I mentioned at the beginning of this post was in Westwood. It had

• no AFCI breakers
• the smoke alarms did not sound simultaneously
• the windows that should have had safety glass did not have them
• all outlets in the Kitchen were not GFCI protected
• the grounding rod for the electrical system was not 1/2" in size
• none of the switches in the home were grounded
• the roof bracing was under sized
• the yard was not graded properly
• the brick walls moved easily when pushed on

These are just a few of the Building codes that were not followed. These are items that I rarely see missing in homes in cities such as Spring, Katy, Houston, Pearland, Kingwood, Sugar Land or The Woodlands.

The above mentioned discrepancies are ones I routinely find in home built in Westwood, Bentwater, Walden, Cape Royale (Lake Livingston) plus many other subdivisions and rural areas.

Sellers of newer homes (less than 5 years old) in these areas are often shocked to find that their homes were not built to any Building codes. This leaves these Sellers a few options when these and other Building and Safety Code violations pop up on the Buyers Inspection Report. These options may include:

1. Paying for the needed repairs out of their pocket
2. Reducing the asking price of their home and letting the Buyer fix all discrepancies
3. Do nothing and risk the sale falling through
4. Trying to get the Builder to fix these items (good luck on that one!)

Don't get me wrong, I live in Montgomery County myself and love it. There are some really good Builders in the County, but there are far more bad apples than good ones. There are some that have never had to build to Building Codes and honestly do not know what the current standards are. They rely on their sub contractors to follow the Building codes.

So before you pull up roots and move to the country because you think your Custome Home Builder will be better than the Spec Home Builder, just be aware that everything is not the way it seems on the surface. Buyer beware!

New Homeowner in Houston Sends Builder a Message

You'd think if you paid over $300,000 for a new home in Houston, that the Builder would put decent appliances in. Not in this case.

The dishwasher was a low end dishwasher that you could hear upstairs. The Client kept telling the Builder that she did not want the dishwasher because it was too noisy. He kept making excuses, so finally she'd had enough!

Donald

Flat Panel TV's and Fireplaces

It seems that one of the most popular places to put a flat panel TV is over a Fireplace.

However, check your warranty real good. Many manufacturers of these TV's will void the warranty on TV's placed over fireplaces. I've talked to a few Clients who've had Service Tech's come out to work on their TV's and when they see that it is located over a Fireplace, the owners were told that the warranty would not cover repairs or replacement because it was located over a Fireplace.

It doesn't seem to matter whether the Fireplace is a sealed gas log unit or an open wood burning fireplace, it's a no no placing your TV above it. Hey folks, you have to remember that flat panel TV's aren't fireplace accessories!

Just something to think about before you stick your new TV over the Fireplace. Be sure to read your warranty information very carefully. If you have any questions, call the manufacturers 800 number and get the official word on whether or not placing your TV over a fireplace will void it's warranty.

Don

Home Inspection Ha Ha's

You know, every once in a while I come across something that just makes me laugh. Then, I stop to think about it, and it makes me frown.

Take for instance this label on a breaker box. Now, if the electrician can not spell, do you really want to leave something as serious as wiring you home up to him?

Sadly, I see things like this all the time!

Take a look for yourself,


Donald

Donalds Soap Box

Man, do I have a lot to talk about today!

Any one who knows me knows that I don't like the quality (or lack of) in new construction homes. I think it's a shame how these builders take advantage of so many new home buyers. Now having said that, I can tell you that since the TRCC has put out their "Performance Guidelines", the quality of new homes have really tanked to levels I never thought possible!

Since Jan., we have inspected 5 new homes with cracks running all the way through the slab. The Builders response? "It's normal" or "It meets TRCC guidelines". HOGWASH!

I said it before, I'll say it again. If you buy a new home without getting it inspected, your partially responsible for any troubles that pop up. In this day and age where information is only a few keystrokes away, there is no reason someone shouldn't know the pitfalls of buying a new home!

I do have to give it to the Builders. They are getting very, very good at talking people out of inspections. The best of them is the Builder with the same name as a high ranking politician in the State of Texas.

What's sad is that many Real Estate Agents go along with this and advise their Clients that they don't need an inspection on newly constructed homes. That's a sure sign of an inexperienced agent or one who just wants to rush you to the closing table.

Just take a look at a few of the pictures I've uploaded here for you.

I'm telling you guys and gals now, it's going to get a lot worse before quality in new construction gets better. As long as our elected politicians would rather suck of the money tit of the Building industry rather than do the work we send them to Austin to do, this is what we can expect.

My hat is off to Carol Keetan Strayhorn for actually standing up to the TRCC and publically calling it what it really is, "A Builder Protection Agency". She gets my vote for that act alone.


I"m Not Done!

Do you know that most builders do not consider a detached garage as part of your home even when it's connected by a breezeway? Why? I guess it's because they're so poorly built!

The Building Code does not exclude Garages from the code, the Texas Dept. of Insurance consideres your garage a part of the home, State, county and local governments consider it part of your home for tax purposes. In short, everyone except your Builder considers it part of the home.

Recently we had a Gentleman call and tell us their Garage ceiling collapsed on his wife. Due to the legal battle with the builder that is sure to follow, I can't post the pictures yet. Let me just tell you, it wasn't pretty.

See picture #3? This 2nd story wall was over 3 inches out of plumb. Now this is a Builder that swears up and down that "Their" third party inspectors are better than anyone. Apparently their third party inspection inspectors do not carry tape measures. How did the builder try and fix this? By using a freakin' backhoe to try and PUSH it back in. The scary part was that they actually did move it about an inch and a half according to the buyers. Unfortunately they already had the sheetrock up and I could not tell which part of the buildings frame gave up that inch and a half.

I could go on and on, you know that. But I'm going to leave it here for the moment.

Remember, it's your right to know what you're buying. Don't let anyone talk you out of an inspection by an inspection company of your choice.

Happy New Year

New Years Resolution: To keep my blog updated more! LOL

Well, I'm really gonna try to keep that one!

Anyways, back to the good stuff. I'm going to start this year out with a rant about a pet peeve of mine.

Inspected this 3300 sf home the other day and it was like walking through a landfill! This home was in The Woodlands, in a very nice and upscale neighborhood. My first thoughts were, "Geez, if you have enough money to live in here, don't you have enough to hire a maid?"

Besides, wouldn't common sense tell you that you need to get the place clean if you're trying to sell it? I would think some bells would go off and they'd realize they could get more money for a clean house than a dirty one. I also would have thought that the listing agent would have had them clean it up before putting it on the market.

There's was old food and dirty plates in the Kitchen, clothes and boxes EVERYWHERE! It looked like they'd robbed one of those clothes donation drop off bins.

I won't even go into describing the bathrooms.

If you're going to put your home on the market, do yourself and everyone else a favor and clean the home up. You'll get more for it. Think about it, it's like being paid to clean your own home!!!!

Until Next Time

Donald