Should I buy a house from KB Homes? Please advice! (Atlanta: new house, buying)

[Eve001]

I'm moving to Forsyth county, I saw a new house that I love close to Lake Lanier. is this a good area? What about the builder?

[wpike]

I am a Realtor. I love the Lake Lanier Area. I have been to many KB Homes and I really like their product. They use the same floor plans in their communities. However, not all Communities will have the all the same ones. If you like a Floor Plan, and it's not the Model Home, ask which of their other communities have that specific model. That way you may be able to look at finished product. Hope this helps

[BobKovacs]

Among production builders, KB is definitely not on the top of the list for quality. I dealt with them frequently when living in Las Vegas, where they were one of the cheapest tract builders around.

More recently, we were in Atlanta house-hunting two weeks ago and went the the KB Martha Stewart subdivision in South Fulton, and the quality in the models was atrocious. Model homes are typically built to a higher standard of finish than the actual production homes (which is misleading)- if that's the case at the KB MS subdivision, I feel sorry for the people buying there, because the trim fit and finish was about the worst I've ever seen- and these are homes starting in the mid 200's. I saw wavy walls, rough trim edges, 1/8" gaps at miters, etc., that made my stomach turn. If this is what's visible in the finished product, can you imagine what's going on behind the walls????

We ended up buying a Pulte home in Cherokee county. While still a production builder, Pulte is well known for high quality on the production level. Many of their buyers are repeat buyers, which is something few production builders can say.

Hope that helps,

Bob

[Brewboy]

KB homes builds nothing but garbage if you ask me! They use very poor qaulity products and they usually attract your lower class quality people.

[Prichard]

First, let me say that I have no affiliation with KB homes or any other national builder.

But, KB is really no better or worse than Centex, MI, Poulty, US Homes, and a host of others. Folks, it's not like these builders have their own illegal aliens hiding in a back warehouse in Kansas that get shipped all over the country to build homes. They partner up with local General Contractors who then pick from the same set of subcontractors available to do work in any given area. The quality of construction is more dependant upon the GC and which subs the GC uses. The fact that a home was built by "KB" really means very little.

The bottom line is that when buying a new house, have it thoroughly inspected. Builder name and supposed reputation doesn't mean squat, because you still know nothing about the guy who is GC'ing the building of YOUR house. Don't buy new houses on from national builders that haven't been built yet, unless you really like gambling where the odds of winning are much worse than what you would get in Vegas. Besides, their contracts are so one sided and weighted against you, you won't even know that you've been eaten by a shark until you're just a little turd on the bottom of the deap blue sea.

[Brewboy]

Totally agree with you Prichard, but the fact that any one GC can build crap is a very good point, the other side of that is the national builders that use crappy products to even start the project. KB has some of the cheapest materials around!! They are using #1 wood in a lot of their studs, which by ASHI standards is up to code, but any decent builder should be using at least a #2 wood for studs. That's just one example!!

[Prichard]

Good point, Brewboy, I wasn't aware of that fact. Do you know if it is KB specifically that has control over the type of materials used, or the GC that KB has partnered up with? I.e. are all materials decisions dictated by the parent company?

[Brewboy]

Actually, I think that most materials are dictated by the regional branches, but don't hold me to that. Reason I believe this is because if KB is building homes in TX, they don't get materials shipped from GA to TX, they use a local or regional distributor there, but they will pretty much always use the same quality materials as they would use in GA. Meaning if TX is using #1 wood for studs, they would pretty much use that same wood all over the country no matter what distributor they are buying from.

[Florida15]

Does anyone know anything about Fairburn,Georgia and the Hampton Oaks Community?

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by Florida15

Does anyone know anything about Fairburn,Georgia and the Hampton Oaks Community?

We visited there a few weeks ago when looking for a house. I was totally unimpressed with the quality level of the homes. While the floorplans were great (thanks to Martha, I assume), the trimwork, drywall, and tilework were horrible. Usually the model homes look even better than the production homes, so I'm afraid to think of how bad the production homes look.

We did go through two standing inventory homes that were almost completed, and you could tell there was a ton of re-work going on- wiring town out of walls for repairs, trim being replaced (with the new work looking no better than what was removed) and just a lot of signs of shoddy workmanship.

We decided to head up North to Cherokee County instead and bought a house from Pulte. While the house is slightly smaller and about the same price, the "standard features" are all items that were options at Hampton Oaks (granite tops, maple cabs, tile floors, upgraded trim, etc), and the quality level is 10x what we saw at KB.

Bob