In-Town/Lovett Home (Howe, Weir: home builder, neighborhood, buyer)

[filifil]

Hello Everyone,

I am a new member in this forum and would love to have some insight on In-town/Lovett homes. So far, I could not find any reviews good/bad regarding this builder online and was hoping if anyone on this forum could provide some information on this builder.

My fiance and I plan to get married soon and would love to move into a free-standing home inside the loop in a small town home or garden home style community. After looking through all the builders, we gravitated towards the In-town builder due to build quality of their homes. As a first time home buyer, we could be wrong on the perceived build quality.

We are considering the East Downtown "EADO" location near the new proposed Dynamo Stadium due to its positive transitioning possibilities. However, I am concerned about the nearby railroad and the lack of "quiet zone" there

Thank you in advance for any feedback on this post and I am looking forward to what you guys have to say....

[astrohip]

You will hear some negative comments if you search around online. Remember that they have sold literally thousands of houses & townhomes over the last few years; it is inevitable that a few complaints will surface.

But for the most part, they build a decent unit, with quality contents. You get a lot of home for the dollar.

I suggest you talk to some people who already live in the units you are interested in. You will hear the good & bad directly that way. I would bet you will hear far more good than bad.

[Oildog]

In town has put up some nice units in the First ward...where the train comes after leaving EaDo.

[Houston_2010]

I bought a house recently (not by InTownHomes) but my inspector was telling me he had been doing some inspections for houses built by them and they are not good. The are very pretty for the untrained eye, but inside the walls is not good, they apparently do cut corners when it comes to completing the job well. All that said...I do have a friend who has a house built by them (2 years old) and so far no visible damage.

[cheryjohns]

I have only sold one of their homes. The inspection problem list was the longest I have ever seen for a new home. She wanted it anyway and it was a battle to get repairs done. In fact, upon closing day, there were still 5 or 6 fairly large issues and I urged her to wait until they were completed before closing. She wanted to close anyway. They never repaired anything after closing. The inspector told both of us it was the worst he had ever inspected in that price range for new ($550K). Maybe it was only one experience and there are other great ones out there - but that was enough for me.

[filifil]

It is great to read all of the responses so far in both this forum and via PM. On a personal note, my experience with In-Town has turned sour as I have become more serious about the deal. In-town's selling representative has stopped all communications with both me and my realtor as we were ready to put in an offer.
The WEIRD thing is that there was a post earlier by someone which was removed later for some reason whose experience was very similar to my current situation. It would be great if you could leave a PM so we could share contact info because I feel like In-Town Home's selling agent, Mike Winoske, is being very unfair and scandalous dealing with me and my realtor as well. I cannot believe we are being treated like this when trying to buy a >$300K home from a "custom, high end home builder" inside the loop. This un-professionalism cannot be tolerated!

[City Love]

Originally Posted by filifil

It is great to read all of the responses so far in both this forum and via PM. On a personal note, my experience with In-Town has turned sour as I have become more serious about the deal. In-town's selling representative has stopped all communications with both me and my realtor as we were ready to put in an offer.
The WEIRD thing is that there was a post earlier by someone which was removed later for some reason whose experience was very similar to my current situation. It would be great if you could leave a PM so we could share contact info because I feel like In-Town Home's selling agent, Mike Winoske, is being very unfair and scandalous dealing with me and my realtor as well. I cannot believe we are being treated like this when trying to buy a >$300K home from a "custom, high end home builder" inside the loop. This un-professionalism cannot be tolerated!

If you don't mind, PM me the information about what's happening.

I've seen a couple situations where the builder and their agent wiggle out of contracts because they received a much higher and better offer than the original. Not cool at all.

How close was your offer to the asking price?

[builder1]

I used to build houses for Lovett Homes. They beat their subcontractors down so low that the subs eventually pay less attention to what they are doing and perform sloppy work. Lovett keeps its builders too busy and have them doing too many things to pay proper attention to the houses they are building. I would never live in a Lovett "home".

[DavidAg02]

I recently went through a 6 month process of building a home with InTown Homes. The process wasn't perfect, but the end product turned out great. I've been very happy with it so far, and the neighborhood I'm in is coming along nicely.

We had the home inspected 2 times prior to closing. There were some minor issues that needed to be addressed, but it was all taken care of quickly. The inspector, who is a close personal friend, said that they are one of the better new construction builders that he has come across.

Also, they add in a lot of features that other builders aren't doing. For instance, the houses in the community that I'm in all come with geothermal A/C. This is a difficult, but very energy efficient system. In my experience, InTown homes builds a quality home at a competitive price. The fact that others on here have had such bad experiences really surprises me.

[houstonfan]

^^^Just look at that side wall. If that's the finished wall, does that look good to you? Compare that wall to stucco walls of better built homes.

When I looked at Lovett homes, I noticed many things that looked sloppy. Walls aren't always straight, paint job at margins are sloppy instead of clean margins, sealants are sloppy, quality of stucco and paint poor, etc. They do use contemporary design and finishes so it's easy to fall in love with the home, but even to my untrained eye, house is poorly constructed. An inspector also told me to stay away from Lovett/InTown.