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As stated earlier, whenever buying use a buyers agent. My son is about to put his house on the market FSBO but he is still using an agent to buy his new home with.
I worked for them, I was a Sales Agent in CA and yes, we all had real estate licenses. Don't blame the reps in the office, they do what the big bad builder tells them to do. You should all feel vindicated, they are closing many offices due to the current market conditions. KB does what every other big new home builder does, they make money. . .and in their case, it's at the studio. FYI, you don't have to add any upgrades to your home, you can get the stripped version for the low price on the price sheet.
In regards to getting your deposit back, they gave those back much more in a good market, now that it's bad they fight for every dime they can get. You can only get it by never having been approved for a loan, not a loan you want, but any loan. This is much easier to do now that lenders are becoming more strict. But yes they can tie all their incentives to their lender, Countrywide and yes you can lock your loan many months in advance for a nominal fee of a couple grand. And if you don't want a standard track home, don't shop there.
It is going on 3 wks now waiting to see if we will be approved for a KB home. We put down $2000 earnest signed the contract and then at home I read the documents and many internet nightmare stories. We no longer want a KB home. Something popped up on our credit report that wasn't there 7 ms ago when we bought another home. Countrywide is trying to get us approved throught their underwriters. I have stated to them the importance of an immediate answer due to putting our home up for sale we don't want to be on the street if it is bought while we wait for an answer. I thought it would be cut and dry. I am hope we aren't approved so we don't lose our money, and then we will keep our current home. We won't tell them we changed our mind I know to get our money back we can't be approved, but how much longer will it take. I wonder if they are pulling rabbits out of a hat trying to keep our money. I am in Summerville, SC...and have tried to find out about this developemnt called Blackberry Creek, but not much luck. Anyone know about any problems here.
KB homes just denied us our deposit of $6900 (2%) stating section 3.2 of the contract. We were told that if we wanted our money back we should have pulled out with in the first 30days with no loan approval. They lead us to believe that we could get our deposit back after the 30 days as long as there was no approval. This was not the case. Sec 3.2 of our conract says that if we want to pull out you have to do it within the 30 days or else they will keep the deposit. We were also working with countrywide kb and they lagged, never returned phone calls and finally after 72 days there was still no loan approval. They did not return our deposit.
A friend of ours is currently having a house built at KB homes...they picked the lot due to the actual SIZE of the lot, which was one of the reasons why they wanted the house. It had a really good sized back yard. Anyway, after the 30 days (33 to be exact!) they got a phone call from KB letting them know their backyard just got cut in size. A huge CHUNK of that backyard has been cut due to "regulations".
My friend also tried to back out and got the same spill you did.
When you are putting down very large amounts of money as deposits you BETTER READ EVERY WORD ON THE CONTRACT YOU SIGN! I am sorry but if you see a 30 day money back time frame well you signed the thing!!!!
READ the information you sign, better yet get someone else to read it then sign it knowing exactly what you are signing.
It looks as though many never spend any time reading the information and end up just like the poster.
These builders will try to get you everytime, they want you to buy the house.
KB homes just denied us our deposit of $6900 (2%) stating section 3.2 of the contract. We were told that if we wanted our money back we should have pulled out with in the first 30days with no loan approval. They lead us to believe that we could get our deposit back after the 30 days as long as there was no approval. This was not the case. Sec 3.2 of our conract says that if we want to pull out you have to do it within the 30 days or else they will keep the deposit. We were also working with countrywide kb and they lagged, never returned phone calls and finally after 72 days there was still no loan approval. They did not return our deposit.
That is the only way to deal with these people,at day 25 you should have said give me my money back, they might have then had their mortgage divison jump.
I put my own clauses in contracts. Make sure both parties initial by each clause. Also make sure the individual initialing has the ability in the company to initial.
When you are putting down very large amounts of money as deposits you BETTER READ EVERY WORD ON THE CONTRACT YOU SIGN! I am sorry but if you see a 30 day money back time frame well you signed the thing!!!!
READ the information you sign, better yet get someone else to read it then sign it knowing exactly what you are signing.
It looks as though many never spend any time reading the information and end up just like the poster.
These builders will try to get you everytime, they want you to buy the house.
We made the mistake of having the agent explain to us what the contract said. The agent explained to us that the contract stated that CountrywideKB had 30 days to get us a loan approval, and if it took them longer than the 30 days, we would have the right to cancel and get our deposit back, so we signed. When the process went over 30 days the agent re-assured us we could get our deposit back if we chose to cancel, as long as there was no loan approval.
It's horrible that they mislead us with their lies and its' also horrible that the timeframe they give you to cancel is miniscule in comparison to the time it actually takes them to process your loan. It took them 2 weeks just to send out the loan application. If you want to see your money, you have to cancel without knowing if you ever would have been approved for a loan. It's a catch 22
A friend of ours is currently having a house built at KB homes...they picked the lot due to the actual SIZE of the lot, which was one of the reasons why they wanted the house. It had a really good sized back yard. Anyway, after the 30 days (33 to be exact!) they got a phone call from KB letting them know their backyard just got cut in size. A huge CHUNK of that backyard has been cut due to "regulations".
My friend also tried to back out and got the same spill you did.
He is madder than a hornet!
I understand his anger, it is very wrong of them to do this to him.
I am sorry that some people get miss-treated by some builders.
In all the above situations, I see it is always the buyer faults. Like all other honest businesses, builders are out there to sell homes and make money not to scam people out of their money. If you think about it, builders cannot hold a lot for someone forever, and loose the opportunity to sell it to someone else. After all, builders usually borrow the money from a lender to finance the development, and they pay interest on the borrowed money.
Buyers should have to be aware and read the contract terms and conditions. If one doesn’t understand the contract, a 1/2 at a lawyer office will explain everything. 30 days seems to be more than enough time to get approved for a loan. A pre-approval usually happen in the first appointment, and full approval should never take more than one week.
The onsite agents are sales persons. Their jobs are to sell homes and earn commissions, not to act on the best interest of the buyer. Fully trusting an agent is like trusting a salesman in a car dealership..! (I don’t mean to offend anyone)
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