Loudoun Valley development? (sales, attorney, home builder)

[Eagle4Life]

It seems this whole Loudoun Valley development is being built by Toll Brother's. Does anyone have any experience with living here and owning a Toll Brother's-built home? I see a lot of reviews online warning to stay away because of shoddy construction and then poor customer service when things need to get fixed. We really like this one Toll Brother's floor plan, and I cannot find anything similar from other builders.

[NC211]

Understand this is just my own personal opinion here, ok?

First, the facts: I live out near there too. I bought a new construction home from a national developer back in 2011 out there. My builder has tons of negative reviews if you google them as well. I've had a few issues with my house, as had nearly everyone in the neighborhood. But, some issues come with the territory of buying brand new in general. It really isn't like buying a new car, where you expect perfection from day one. New homes shift around as they go through the first year or so while the wood used finds it's right PH balance.

Toll Brothers is no different than any other national builder. They may advertise out there that they're using bigger beams for the floor joists, but if you look at those beams as compared to, say Miller & Smith, they might be bigger, but they're spaced further out. It's a pure numbers game. Toll Brothers isn't the builder either. The local workforce is. The same hammer at Loudoun Valley, probably helped build a few homes in the Broadlands for Van Metre, or Lennar, or DR Horton, or Ryland, NV, ect... you get the point.

The materials for the core of the house aren't milled and owned by Toll Brothers, for their specific project. They're likely milled and delivered from the same folks who supplied, again, Miller & Smith, DR Horton, ect...

What is unique to Toll Brothers, as is the case for all of the builders, is the home design they're offering. My home is unique to my builder. There aren't many of my design in the area (one of the reasons why I like it). It's a design they've had for 10 years or so. If you love the design of the Toll Brothers home, then by all means, buy it. Because the rest of the home is likely 99% the exact same as all of the others that you've looked at out there, regardless of who's name is on the brochure. Why do I say buy it? Well, my home was built by a company who likely has one of the worst reputations in the business for reasons that you're fearful of with Toll Brothers. I love my house, issues and all. Why? Because I love the design. I love the neighborhood. I love yard. I love all of the characteristics of my homes beyond the issues caused by the construction, which were all fixed properly.

It is also important for you to know and understand where Loudoun County comes into play with regards to quality. The home isn't being built to Toll Brother's standards. It's being built to Loudoun County minimum requirements to achieve the certificate of occupancy. The key to fixing your issues won't be to fight with Toll Brothers. It will be to ask the county a very simple question when the issue arises: "How did this pass code?" Toll Brothers is likely issuing a one year warranty on the home. They'll tell you how they'll come back a few times throughout the year to fix this, fix that, with the big return visit being at the one year mark. They'll tell you it's part of their "award winning customer service platform". That's BS. It's because the house has an ongoing 1-year bond posting with the county to insure the county can answer your one question on the builder's dime. It's called a Maintenance Bond. Toll Brothers (or, any builder for that matter) NEVER wants you to know about this, because they never want you to become a threat to that money posted to the county that, if the county is never asked that question, will return to the home builder after one year. With this knowledge, you can buy whatever home you'd like from whatever builder is building it out there and know that if the home is delivered with a sub-standard level of quality, but issued a certificate of occupancy from the county, then it's the county who has to answer for it, not the builder.

How do I know this? Remember when I said my builder has one of the worst reputations in the business? Well, let's just say that phase 1 of my neighborhood ended up with either entirely new yards and/or severely reworked yards because of an issue whereby the builder cut a corner in quality. We're talking probably 20 new yards and common areas. After a year of chasing around the builder and empty promises to fix it, all it took was one call to the county to ask one simple question to motivate the builder to suck it up and do it right. And, they did. They didn't do something that all of these builders don't do in general. They just got called on it in the right way.

None of these builders care about your quality of happiness with their home, beyond words or simple touchups. None of them. Not the locals, not the micros, and not the nationals. 99% of what you buy at settlement, is what you get, period. The last 1% is what they do to distract you for a year.

Where do you go from here? Well, if you love the house, buy it with the added language that your own structural engineer be granted access to the house during construction at certain key phases. Like right after framing but before drywall. Right after drywall but before punchlist. And, right before you stroke the check. Make sure his/her input matters to the construction of your home. Matters, in the sense that if he/she sees something that isn't right (right, being defined as normal for the area, not defined as normal for your own personal standards), it either gets fixed on the spot, or you can cancel the contract and get your deposit back. I would also make sure you have language that allows for inspection before the yard is rolled, to make sure proper soil was installed and construction debrie was removed properly. If you do this, you'll be fine! If you fall prey to the sales pitch of "Toll Brothers Award Winning Quality", and some JD Power garbage, you're gambling against those who are more motivated to deliver you a home at the lowest possible cost they can get away with (beyond the marked-up options that you've selected, aka, ubber cabinets and fancy builder's-grade carpeting).

If you want to move out to Loudoun County via a brand new home built just for you, please do! If you want to do it with absolute confidence however, do it with an inspector that wasn't recommended by the builder or your realtor, and do it knowing that whatever Toll Brothers tells you about quality, the "Toll Brothers" input really is just the letterhead on the contract, and the quality standard being delivered is that of Loudoun County.

Understand though, the folks at Loudoun County have a delicate balance to keep between the customer and the builder. They don't want to chase off the building community by requiring a set of standards that make building new homes an unattractive business to be in. The more homes built and sold, the more on-going tax revenue for the county. But, they also don't want to allow substandard housing units in their county either, which fall apart and fall in value because of it. They have a balancing act to perform. It also depends on what the market is willing to pay. If we were talking about a market that has a demonstrated acceptance level of $2m for a 4,000/sf home, then the county can insist on higher quality be delivered, like some of those homes you find closer in to DC that were built like tanks. But, at the average price points for these new homes being in the range of $600k to $800k, the standards put into place need to make that price point acceptable to attract a builder to take on the risk of building that 4,000/sf home. That means certain floor joists of wood/particle boards at 16 inches apart instead of solid oak beams at 12 inches apart, or 3 sides being low-maintenance vinyl siding instead of 4 sides brick/stucco. You get the idea. They have to balance the "you get what you pay for" stance, without getting anyone hurt.

[Eagle4Life]

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this. It was very helpful and changed my perspective in some ways.

[stpickrell]

I will also argue that there's more variations within one builder's homes than between builders. 95% of it is the quality of the various subcontractors that are running around out there doing things.

I cannot stress enough the importance of having your own inspector. If you have your own attorney and do some searching on the interwebz, then you can eschew a buyer-side agent and possibly negotiate 2% or so off the topline price.

[jhu4ever]

We live in Loudoun Valley and love our home. We've lived in our Toll Brother's house for 5+ years now and the construction is far better than my previous Centex/Pulte townhouse. It really depends on the contractors that the builder hires. Based on my experience, Toll Brother's builds a far superior house than most of the other builders in the area.

Originally Posted by Eagle4Life

It seems this whole Loudoun Valley development is being built by Toll Brother's. Does anyone have any experience with living here and owning a Toll Brother's-built home? I see a lot of reviews online warning to stay away because of shoddy construction and then poor customer service when things need to get fixed. We really like this one Toll Brother's floor plan, and I cannot find anything similar from other builders.

[Eagle4Life]

Thanks - we are looking at the meadows townhomes subdivision. Not sure if you are familiar with it.