“Extreme Home Makeover” shows how many builders go above and beyond to help those in need. DR Horton does not conduct business in this ethical, generous and giving manner. They boast how many homes they build, and being “America’s Builder” but once they have the home buyer’s money, they ignore customers, moving on to sell to the next victim.
A few months after moving into our house I was diagnosed with ALS. I lost my job a couple weeks after that due to “corporate downsizing.” With the disease progressing rapidly, I’m now in a wheelchair, plus we have lost about 60% of our family’s income. So we are trying to get our house’s initial construction, as well as warranty issues completed before we have to sell it. In its present condition, as you’ll see from the photos, no one would buy it.
We chose to buy a DR Horton home because we thought they were one of the better builders, based upon numerous model homes we visited from numerous builders. We should have done more research. DR Horton claims to be “America’s Builder” and that they are number one. But our experience only shows that they are an extremely poor quality builder, and don’t follow through correcting problems identified prior to closing, or warranty problems after closing. This is confirmed by JD Powers ratings of new home builders (see link below). The model homes look good but this doesn't translate to the customer's home when it is "done." They’ll tell you what you want to hear about repairs, but will not follow through. Or even tell you when someone will show up, but no one ever does, or show up several days later, when you rearranged your schedule to wait for a contractor.
See the photo link near the top right of this page for photos, with descriptions of some of the problems with our house. This will take you to our Flickr photo pages. You will be shocked at the extremely poor quality of our $200k+ home (TX market). You will see the problems are numerous.
After numerous construction delays, which caused us to have to rent an apartment for two months, we closed on our house (not a home yet) on 11-1-2006. At that time we were promised that the items we listed as problems, on our final walk through, would be fixed in 2 to 4 weeks. So we went ahead and closed on the house. It is now almost a year later and we are still waiting. Other than a 2 tiles which were cracked and replaced, there isn’t anything on our original or subsequent warranty list which has been completed.
Ours situation is not an isolated one. At my prompting prior to our house’s closing, my parents purchased a house in the same subdivision, Dove Crossing in New Braunfels Texas, and they’ve had similar problems. In talking to our neighbors, they also have long lists or problems as well as unfinished repairs. For everyone who chooses to go public with a problem, out of complete frustration, there are many more who give up and fix them themselves. It’s clear that this is a strategy DR Horton is taking to cut repair costs, thus increasing their bottom line.
A story aired by a local San Antonio TV station, last week, said that the San Antonio's home prices are lower than many other areas possibly due to illegal aliens working at low wages here. Unfortunately this also effects quality, as the "worker" may only be working for the day or week, and will not have to repair his poor quality work. Based upon the high number of construction and landscaping workers, which I've observed, which don't speak english, I believe this is the case.
We have heard the same idle promises from six different construction or warranty supervisors, including: Ray (“fired”), Skip (“transferred to a more upscale subdivision”), Tyler (construction superintendant), Bryan (warranty department San Antonio), and Jimmy (warranty superintendant /Bryan’s boss).
Every time a new construction supervisor or warranty supervisor is assigned to us, each confirms that all the work can be completed in 2 weeks. Then nothing gets done until we start calling to complain that nothing is being done. A few repairs have been started, but never finished.
The latest DR Horton representative who we came by about 8-28 and 8-29-07, Bryan (with his supervisor the second day), said things would get done now that he was in charge. I told him I would believe it when I saw it, due to idle promises from all his predecessors. He also said he would call the next day to advise which contractor appointments could be made first, and when they’d be. Ten days later (9-10) without even that one phone call from Bryan, I sent him an email giving him a 1 month deadline to finish all work. Since then 4 projects have been started (ripping out wall due to lead, re-replacing a botched replacement of the stairway banister spindles and molding, replacing master bath vinyl flooring, and replacing 1 cracked tile), with only the single tile replacement being complete. Clearly this is a pattern, and DR Horton cares nothing about customer satisfaction. They just take the money, run, then build someone else’s house, and then do the same thing again.
Some of the major problems include leaking roof and wall resulting in stains and mildew in drywall and paint, extensive cracks and hole in mortar on stone fascia, wrong front door (poorly stained with stain drips all over it), siding coming loose due to not being nailed to studs, unfinished bathroom and bathroom door, paint drips all over stair spindles and base boards (replaced with spindles which aren’t plumb or all square with base boards), unfinished stair banister with black paint transfer and gouges (on new banister), gaps in miter joints (middle and bottom of stairs), nicks in cabinets (kitchen and bathrooms), paint on vinyl and tile floor all over the house, cracked driveway. This is not a complete list of problems, doesn’t include the problems in the garage, which I fixed myself so that I could paint it (this was a couple months before I was affected by ALS). If this is what we can easily see is wrong, imagine the poor construction in areas we can't see.
One of the other major problems being that except for the tile replacement, every time a contractor comes to repair something, they either don’t do it correctly, mess up something near the repair (which then also needs to be repaired), or leave a repair sit incomplete for weeks or months. The botched repair, then setting back a "finished" house even further.
“Skip” told us that he was going to take a door, which was installed by mistake on another house, and install it on our house. Skip said he was going to put it on his own house originally. Skip never had the door installed on our house, and the last time he talked to my wife (she had to call him after a long time without any word on anything on our list), he said that he’s busy due to being transferred to a more “upscale” subdivision. I can't help but wonder where that door is now. Either way, we are still waiting for our door.
Everyone D.R. Horton construction and warranty representative says the work can be completed in 2 weeks, yet as of this date none of the reported problems have been completed yet. Every new rep has to make a new list, because they didn’t provide us with a copy of their list and can’t find the prior representative’s list. So we have to start from scratch each time (4 times so far).
One of the big promises that the latest warranty representative (Bryan Patrick) gave us, was that he would ALWAYS call to arrange a day and time prior to sending any workers over. Workers have come over at least 5 times since, without any warning or Bryan ever calling and scheduling with us as promised. The problem DR Horton not making appointments with us, is that due to my disease I have unexpected doctor’s appointments, plus it takes considerable effort sometimes to get ready so I can watch the repairs, not to mention it affecting my wife’s work, being that she is presently our only means of income.
If our house was a new car, we would have never been able to drive it off the lot in the first place, and we would have be having to be towed around everywhere for 11 months. It just doesn’t make any sense. If a car company was doing this, the government would recall all the vehicles, or shut them down.
Our problems with DR Horton are not isolated to the San Antonio Texas area either, as is evident in these Consumer Affairs complaint links: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/housing/dr_horton.html
Report Your Experience If you've had a bad experience with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now. (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/php/a_report.php)
Other links related to problems others have had, or are having, with DR Horton are below.
http://www.my-drhorton-hous%20e.com/
http://drhortonsucks.info/_wsn/page5.html
http://www.hobb.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=64&Itemid=295
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/real/content/business/epaper/2007/09/13/a1d_jdpower_0914.html
http://www.jdpower.com/homes/ratings/home_builders/index.aspx (Nationwide customer satisfaction as well as “quality” ratings. DR Horton only gets “average” rating). Not in top 3 builders (or even close to it) in any category in San Antonio market area. In fact D.R. Horton isn’t even listed in the JD Powers top 12 http://www.jdpower.com/articles/article.aspx?ID=437
You may also report your DR Horton problems through emailing me, through this blog, and get permission to post your comments.
Monday, October 1, 2007
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