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07-06-2010, 07:50 PM
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40 posts, read 69,243 times
Reputation: 35
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Anyone have feedback about home builders? I am looking for a home in the Charlotte area and see lots of new homes going up.
What are the reputations of these builders - I need the good, the bad and the ugly! Bring on your stories!
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07-06-2010, 08:05 PM
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Location: Charlotte, NC
3,364 posts, read 9,651,120 times
Reputation: 1946
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The builder is usually only as good as the building supervisor, you can have the same builder build very different quality homes, best advice is take a look at homes in the process of being built and you can get a great idea of the site quality.
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07-06-2010, 08:36 PM
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3,249 posts, read 5,163,345 times
Reputation: 9285
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I would recommend that you buy an existing home - not new construction. This way the kinks have been worked out. Buying new construction is like buying a new car - especially in this market. Ride around the neighborhood - How do the homes look? Are they being maintained? Many of the newer neighborhoods in the Charlotte area have gone to pot in just a few years.
Just be sure to have a good home inspector check the home out.
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07-06-2010, 08:45 PM
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4,010 posts, read 9,802,918 times
Reputation: 1599
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I don't think there are that many homes being built now except for those riding down the river named De Nile, and zombie construction. Charlotte is extremely overbuilt with a significant and growing shadow inventory. Your choice of builder doesn't matter as all those roads are headed to the same place now.
My recommendation is to pick one of the endless supply of distressed properties, make an offer that will insult the seller, then work from there and show them no mercy. It's business so take advantage of their unfortunate decision to pay too much to have a house built. Stick to long term quality neighborhoods.
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07-07-2010, 09:47 AM
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1,554 posts, read 3,231,787 times
Reputation: 806
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Oh lumbollo you are officially my favorite curmudgeon!!! You crack me up. And you are 1,000,000% right on your assessment here. Great advice. Not sure where you're getting your intel on the shadow inventory but I'll take your word for it. Thanks for the laugh!
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07-07-2010, 12:55 PM
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4,010 posts, read 9,802,918 times
Reputation: 1599
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I've noticed a new tactic being employed to make things seem better than they are. It involves houses that are actually on the market but which are unoccupied, e.g. zombie houses. Suppose there are 10 for sale in a small area. What I have seen are that there will only be 2-3 for sale signs put out, and then these move around when nobody is looking every couple of weeks. I suppose there is come coordination between the finance companies that own them and the agents selling them. I call these the dancing real estate signs.
This only applies to the zombie house. If it is still occupied by the desperate owner trying to sell, then there will always be a sign. This is known as a vampire house because it is sucking the life out of its occupants. Many times a vampire house will end up as a zombie because once the owners leave without selling. I saw one these occurrences happen just a couple of weeks ago. I was out walking one of my routes and a young couple was moving out of a fairly new house. There had not been a for sale sign on it, and there isn't one now. They either got foreclosed on, or are strategic defaulters.
Finally the above doesn't include all the houses that are not for sale but owned by the banks who are getting ~0% funding from the federal government to hold them off the market. (effectively) and the people who want to sell, who can still make the payments, but are not going into the market in hopes that it will be getting better, and those poor unfortunates who did move but rented the place.
All in all a bad situation. It makes absolutely no sense at all to build a new house to add to the above. I suppose there are plenty of HGTV fanatics that still believe the road to the American dream is with a new McMansion, so stay tuned.
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07-07-2010, 03:43 PM
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3,774 posts, read 7,841,346 times
Reputation: 4414
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I see housing starts every week... but it's my business. I can't say I understand anyone's desire to live in a semi-built neighborhood, but folks are doing it.
Me personally, I'd never live in a neighborhood with less than fully mature trees. Then you don't have to query about builder reputation or workmanship or lazy homeowners (or HOAs)... you just look at the house and the homes of your neighbors. A neighborhood that looks good after 50-60 or more years will probably last.
And while I hear a lot individual horror stories about build quality, the true litmus test is whether the rookie homeowners two doors down have the sense needed to maintain a property so that it doesn't become a value killer to their neighbors... I see a lot of that in the vinyl villages that ring our city.
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07-07-2010, 03:58 PM
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3,249 posts, read 5,163,345 times
Reputation: 9285
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Love that terminology 'vinyl villages'! 
So true! |
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07-07-2010, 06:46 PM
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Location: Lake Norman
224 posts, read 439,270 times
Reputation: 91
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lumbollo
I've noticed a new tactic being employed to make things seem better than they are. It involves houses that are actually on the market but which are unoccupied, e.g. zombie houses. Suppose there are 10 for sale in a small area. What I have seen are that there will only be 2-3 for sale signs put out, and then these move around when nobody is looking every couple of weeks. I suppose there is come coordination between the finance companies that own them and the agents selling them. I call these the dancing real estate signs.
This only applies to the zombie house. If it is still occupied by the desperate owner trying to sell, then there will always be a sign. This is known as a vampire house because it is sucking the life out of its occupants. Many times a vampire house will end up as a zombie because once the owners leave without selling. I saw one these occurrences happen just a couple of weeks ago. I was out walking one of my routes and a young couple was moving out of a fairly new house. There had not been a for sale sign on it, and there isn't one now. They either got foreclosed on, or are strategic defaulters.
Finally the above doesn't include all the houses that are not for sale but owned by the banks who are getting ~0% funding from the federal government to hold them off the market. (effectively) and the people who want to sell, who can still make the payments, but are not going into the market in hopes that it will be getting better, and those poor unfortunates who did move but rented the place.
All in all a bad situation. It makes absolutely no sense at all to build a new house to add to the above. I suppose there are plenty of HGTV fanatics that still believe the road to the American dream is with a new McMansion, so stay tuned.
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Lumbollo,
You should do a blog with this stuff...it's great...and very funny. 
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07-07-2010, 07:12 PM
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4,010 posts, read 9,802,918 times
Reputation: 1599
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kchenette
Lumbollo,
You should do a blog with this stuff...it's great...and very funny. |
It wasn't meant to be a comedy as this is pretty serious stuff. However I will agree that it could be deemed a tragic comedy or a comical tragedy in the classic sense. Your choice.
If someone were to pitch a Hollywood disaster movie that involved a mass delusion of the entire nation, one so bad that it leads the to President making an appeal on TV begging for money to prevent the eminent financial collapse of the nothing less than the entire US economy, followed by mass layoffs, and so forth and so on, yet, the delusion continues, i.e, still people thinking it is a good idea to build........
you would get laughed out of Hollywood. They would say nobody would believe such a thing.
(I appreciate the complement.) |
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