Shoddy Construction ???
*LOL* Oh yes for sure!!
Good news is when buying new you get a year to find all the defects, we are at 9 months now, they are still doing warranty work, almost done. Next week that have to remove the pantry door and reframe it because it is slanted *LOL*
I am most likely going to get a home inspection too, if there are any issues, I just hand the papers to the builder to fix before the warranty ends.
Our roof leak was fixed, living room ceiling repaired, 2 car driveway was replaced, thermostat was moved as a favor as I wanted an aquarium on that wall and the thermostat was a little bit too much towards the center wall, proper tech wiring that was left out was installed, various kitchen draws in our gourmet kitchen were replaced, water heater plumbing installation replaced, missing tech jack was installed, last one was behind the tiled wall in the kitchen*LOL*
All in all though, we still love the house, the key is if the builder is reputable they will be back and back again until things are correct.
We honestly loved our last home too, it was a large home, took DR Horton almost two years to get everything the way it should be but you know what? They did it and everything we wanted done.
Current home? Same thing, this time Lennar. Their warranty department is AMAZING, scan the QR code inside the kitchen cabinet, using the drop downs, select what is wrong and you can go on forever with things wrong. Then you will get a text at best time to call you, once they call, they do a video call with you and go over everything.
Once that is done, the local community warranty guy contacts you with appt times for repairs. The community guys are great.
Now this is KEY POINT. NOT ONCE, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER did they deny us any work we wanted done. Not once. For goodness sakes we got our entire two car driveway torn up and replaced, not one bit of resistance.
SO this is why I prefer production builders vs custom, first reason is the custom has much the same workers as the production, second reason is, the custom builder can tell you to take a hike if they dont agree with something, the production builder wont, or better said, never in the two homes we had built, including this one that we have been in since 2023 have we been met with any resistance on any requests. Being your in SC I am sure you know, the value is there with production homes, under it all, they are still 2x4's 2x6's and trusses. Plus you end up in completed communities with amenities.
My neighbors house, they had to lift the roof 3 inches on one side that over hangs the patio because it was slanted, another neighbor, they just tore down his great room wall because when he turned on his gas fireplace, the CO detector shut it off (built in safety device) Installer forgot to remove a packing plate and the flue was blocked.
Two homes down the block had all the hardwood floors replaced because whoever installed them that day didnt do it properly.
I just like big builders, small guys scare me, last crash in 2008 some of the small guys took off with the peoples money, no house and unfinished homes that were never completed. But our company DR Horton at the time, continued on and was there for all the warranty work too even if it took them forever to get it done, they got it done.
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I would say we would buy today but our situation isn't typical, we owned the former property so the loan on this one wasn't very big and we did what someone described above, lived on 1 wage and paid it off. I'd assume the former property would have gain value proportionately so a loan today might have been a bit bigger but we would have made it work the same. We aren't seeing any properties in our neighborhoods go under contract in a week or two now so these 45-75 day on market properties can't all have issues like you describe. No doubt it's tough to get into this RE market if you aren't coming from an area with the same or higher RE values. We could not have come from Pa into this market like we did in 2005.
