Richmond american homes review (Chantilly, Culpeper: sales, real estate, home builders)

[sweeti24]

Hi,
We are planning to buy our first town home in northern Va. We are looking
through new homes and liked the floor plan of Keagan in Chantilly, Loudoun county built by Richmond American homes. I am just curious to know more about this builder. If anyone has any kind of experience or information about them or this Providence Glen property in Chantilly please post your response here.

Regards,
Sweeti.

[Middlin]

I lived in a neighborhood in Bristow with this builder and I was not impressed. The materials, the shoddy workmanship which I thought was maybe just the TH's, but then 3 yrs ago when we bought a SFH we toured a ton of houses in our neighborhood and one close by with the same builder and I saw the same thing.

[ChristineVA]

Richmond American has been around for a LONG time and I know quite a few people who've bought from them. I would find them on par with a lot of the tract home builders. My mom bought a townhouse from them and she had the standard set of complaints. Nothing major and the house is doing fine 10 years later. When I was house shopping I did not find their quality to be as high as Van Metre which is why I went with Van Metre. I just don't think they are a terrible builder though. If they have what you like, go for it.

What I have found with new home purchases is that a lot of what you get as far as quality often depends on the crew you have and the supervisor. Quality can vary with supervisor to supervisor and crew to crew. My neighbor and I have the exact same house, built at the exact same time, but two different crews worked on our home. No real major differences but it was somewhat apparent that my crew was a little bit better at some things.

[newnewsmama]

I bought a home from them in 2003. I did not like their quality and customer service at all. But like someone else said, superintendant does make a difference.

As far as myself is concerned, I won't be buying another house from them. My second home was built by US Home, which later was acquired by Lennar. Not really a fancy home, but I am much happier with Lennar than with Richmond American Homes.

I suggest that you research JDPOWER's builder ratings before you make any decisions.

[sweeti24]

Thank you for all of this information. It definitely helps us to make a decision. The sales rep at Richmond American homes is rushing with
the process of signing the contract telling that there are more potential
buyers waiting to grab the lot we are interested in. All your inputs now
is helping me to decide to go buy from them or not.

Regards,
Sweeti.

[sweeti24]

I finally bought a new home to be constructed by Van metre. The sales people seemed to be straight forward with no surprises. I kicked out Richmond American as they are big cheaters and lied to me about the lot I was supposed to buy. I definitely recommend people not to buy from Richmond American.

[newnewsmama]

Originally Posted by sweeti24

I finally bought a new home to be constructed by Van metre. The sales people seemed to be straight forward with no surprises. I kicked out Richmond American as they are big cheaters and lied to me about the lot I was supposed to buy. I definitely recommend people not to buy from Richmond American.

Good for you. Van Metre is much better than Richmond American Homes in terms of customer service and quality based on JD Power's survey and my personal experience.

[athena20]

DONT BUY from Richmond American Homes!! They are big cheats and as mentioned above really depends on the supervisor. In my case, we got a supervisor with absolutely no skills who just made big promises. Quality of work was horrible with a lot of short cuts being taken to build the house. With our supervision we ensured a lot of changes were made prior to closing. I am definitely not happy with the house work and also the work on our lot. They haven't cleared our lot and a lot of metal, glass and other construction material including electrical wires are all strewn on our lot and he refuses to clear it. There is a lot of discrimination as well . Unless you want to pay for a stressful life don't buy from Richmond

[alexei27]

We are having a home built in Culpeper. We originally looked at 3 Richmond Homes. I admit they were beautiful, but extremely expensive. The ultimate turnoff was the amount for add-on options. Add that to two separate downright rude sales people in the Gainesville showroom, and we stopped looking there.

We asked a few realtors about this, and were directed to Trigon home builders. what a huge difference. A very similar home was 50K less than Richmond (only 2 miles away!!) and the price for options is over 50% less!! more importantly, the trigon builders do everything custom once you pick a basic floor plan. We were even able to move entire walls around, something the Richmond home builders could not do.

Long story short, our 305K house would be 440K with Richmond.

[Samoi137]

Originally Posted by newnewsmama

I bought a home from them in 2003. I did not like their quality and customer service at all. But like someone else said, superintendant does make a difference.

As far as myself is concerned, I won't be buying another house from them. My second home was built by US Home, which later was acquired by Lennar. Not really a fancy home, but I am much happier with Lennar than with Richmond American Homes.

I suggest that you research JDPOWER's builder ratings before you make any decisions.

Lennar is being sued by some homeowners in California Court-bound housing meltdown is stark at Plumas Lake - Real Estate - The Sacramento Bee but I don'tknow the merits of the suit (I assume a lot of home builders are sued, sometimes justly and sometimes not), and, as noted, each development can vary widely in quality. Lennar is very big.