Ryan Homes-Franklin TN (real estate, hotel, houses)

[vikm23]

Hello,

My wife and I were looking at buying new construction home from Ryan builders in Franklin (Stream Valley neighborhood). Was curious if anyone had experience with them and had any input. Online feedback is mixed, there are some scary stories out there. Any thoughts would be great.

Vik

[thoner7]

I am in the construction/real estate field. I flipped a Ryan home once (this is in upstate NY, not TN) and man I was very surprised at the low quality everything. Ryan is notorious for cutting corners and doing things as cheap as possible.

If you notice, all of their light fixtures will be the cheezy-boxy type which can double as the electrical box, this allows them to skip putting in electrical boxes which saves labor. Not a huge deal if you like the light but you will need install a retrofit box.

Check the foundation too. The one we flipped had a nice settling crack in it, despite being less than 10 years old. The furnace was also dead but, that may not have been their fault (although I'm sure they buy the cheapest furnaces they can find)

O and the garage. It was sheathed with this industrial strength cardboard stuff. I have never seen it before or since, but the edges of it looked exactly like corrugated cardboard. A quality home would at least have 7/16ths OSB.

I personally would never buy a Ryan home. But that's just me. Maybe they are better in TN?

[vikm23]

Thanks for the note, does anyone else have any feedback?

[CountryGirl2b=]

Well, I don't have any feedback on Ryan . . but I do know that sometimes it comes down to the local construction guys. Some are good and careful and diligent and some aren't. AND I have heard some real horror stories about some of these huge McMansion houses being improperly built.

But, if the builder is using builders grade light fixtures, sinks, etc . . . you can probably tell. And if you are having the house built you should be able to upgrade. You could request a home inspection on one of the houses that is already built which might give you some idea of the quality (and no, not the model). The other thing is to be on top of it . . seriously. Go every day to see what they are doing, if you can.

The woman I bought my little house in Fieldstone Farms from was a RE agent, and she told me she would drive by every other day or so to 'catch' things. I know she requested the foundation to be higher as when she drove by the lot had standing water. She had cable TV installed in every room (not kidding) and fans as well. There are things that will be cheaper if you have them built in in advance.

And if you can swing it, DON'T sign off on the house at the closing unless everything is PERFECT and the way you want it. My folks were in a hotel with the dog and had to move in, even though a lot of what they asked for was not done (like a tub instead of a walk in shower).

[Big TR]

I remember walking through a Ryan home up in Chicago back around 2005. It felt and looked like the crappiest house you could possibly put up as quickly as possible. It was about 50% worse than Pulte, and we thought they were bad.

We've driven through Stream Valley and the houses don't look much better than those we saw 8 years ago.