Comments for Austin Metro Real Estate Weblog

Comment on Where’s the Bottom, and When’s the Rebound? by tarodoug

tarodoug — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:46:32 +0000

Its great to see Austin homes for sale as being one of the stable markets in the us.

http://www.viewmylisting.com/homes-for-sale/tx

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by Jane Goody

Jane Goody — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:02:15 +0000

Not that I’m totally impressed, but this is more than I expected for when I stumpled upon a link on SU telling that the info here is awesome. Thanks.

Comment on Pflugerville, Texas: Commercial Growth Should Ease Homeowner Tax Rate by Parker Bridge Property

Parker Bridge Property — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:22:26 +0000

Thank you

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by Don Fletcher

Don Fletcher — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:19:16 +0000

There’s no denying that some consumers have poor experiences with home builders — and that’s an unfortunate situation. Key to customer satisfaction is paying attention to buyers at all stages in the builder’s interactions with them — from casual inquirer all the way through homeowner that you hope is gong to be a repeat buyer and source of referrals.

I’m not sure of the situation in Texas with any of these buyers, but in Chicagoland, we take the relationship with our buyers very, very seriously. In fact, in the same J.D. Power survey, Pulte Homes was the only participating builder who could claim a perfect rating in all five categories: overall customer satisfaction, builder’s sales staff, builder’s warranty/customer service staff, workmanship/materials and price/value.

Two of our Pulte communities outside of Chicago have articles discussing how we’ve received the highest rankings for the second year in a row:

http://heritagepark.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/pulte-homes-ranks-highest-again-for-customer-satisfaction

http://autumncreek.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/pulte-homes-ranks-highest-again-for-customer-satisfaction/

As I said, it’s a shame that some people had bad experiences and I understand how that can taint someone’s view of the home building industry as a whole. But know that we’re professionals like you — it’s our pride that gets hurt as well when you have a bad experience. But, hopefully, it’s the builders who excel at customer service that react quickly, sincerely and with the intent to address and correct your concerns that are awarded that highest ranking.

Comment on Where’s the Bottom, and When’s the Rebound? by Phil Hutson

Phil Hutson — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:08:07 +0000

OK Realtor,
I don’t believe the whole impact of the increase in FICO credit scores to qualify, and what I feel will be a slight increase in interest rates into next year have yet fully impacted the ability for the “average family” to purchase a home. The unemployment figures came out today and they were rather bleak – another 159,000 decreas over last month, which means we have now had a decline for the last 9 consecutive months! Add all of this to the uncertainty of the impact the “bailout/rescue bill” the House just passed is going to have on mortgage lenders/bankers/investors to continue subordinating home loans, and what ALL of this is having on the mindset of those sitting on the side lines wondering when/if they can purchase a home…………I reiterate my position that “we have not seen the bottom.”

Comment on Where’s the Bottom, and When’s the Rebound? by Oklahoma Realtor

Oklahoma Realtor — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:49:42 +0000

I think we have seen the bottom already and the rebound is just around the corner. Unfortunately, we may also see an over correction that will create a market just as bad as the one we are currently in.

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:44:28 +0000

Not only did the building industry get in on predatory lending, their loans were sold just as other loans were, repackaged as mortgage backed securities. The intent behind this repackaging, and rating them as higher quality investments than they were, didn’t happen accidentally. Being able to unload these risky loans meant the builder, everyone got their commission or profit. I really don’t know that investors who bought these loans did their homework very well either. It seems the industry was held to a lesser standard of financial acumen than mere home buyers. Either these professionals across all industries were incompetent, or they were crooked, or both. Either way they were unfit.

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by rippedoff

rippedoff — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:27:34 +0000

All one has to do is go to Homeowners Against deficient Dwellings and Homeowners For Better Building to get the true picture. There are no laws in Texas to protect consumers against unscrupulous builders. People have had to actually foreclose because defects cost as much or more then their new house to repair but the builder would not fix.
Texas seems to be the poster child for bad building and no protection in my opinion. Oh, and by the way if you want to know why, sign up with Texans for Public Justice’s email watch. You see how much elected officals get from the home building industry and Bob Perry. Not much else needs to be said.

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by jackson

jackson — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:35:44 +0000

JD powers survey really isn’t helpful in rating a new home purchase. Had JD surveyed our house, they would have gotten good marks, though hidden defects latter made the house an uninhabitable disaster, long after The JD powers survey report was published. Their survey fits consumable/disposable goods in initial quality, and that is not why buying a house is all about.

What irks victims more than anything is the rationalizations this business makes about customer satisfaction, or lack of. A defective home can destroy a family financially and health wise, depending on the types of defects. The so called dissatisfied people can be catastrophically damaged. It’s despicable tactics to write off victims as “dissatisfied” using ANY number of satisfied customers. Dissatisfied can also mean destroyed customers. This particular product can’t continue to be quantified that way.

Builders have nothing to do with the mortgage crisis? The big builders have their in house mortgage brokers for financing. It would be really naive to think that the people that built and financed the construction of their own development project didn’t ever cross the lines to get the financing deals through. Of course if you make a living on the scheme, it the same old prefabricated answers designed to discount the actual severity of the problems.

Comment on Austin New Home Builders Customer Survey by Cindy

Cindy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:51:52 +0000

I have volunteered for a consumer organization for almost 8 years. Texas submits the most complaints on bad builders. Many have been about the big builders, including DR Horton. Consumer Reports estimated in Jan 2004 that 15% of new homes had two or more serious, unresolved defects. Using National Association of Home Builders data on housing starts that’d be 150,000 to 300,000 families PER YEAR with expensive, stressful construction defect problems. Builders’ refusal or inability to fix defects is a common problem. Another study by an organization called PATH estimated that the percent of new houses with significant defects was in the 90-some percentile!

Codes are not enforced, and in some cases neither are consumer protection laws. Arbitration clauses in builder contracts and home warranty policies PREVENT suing at all, in almost all cases where the clause exists. Lawyers know that collecting even if you win, is hard, and they refuse most cases, contrary to the belief that it’s easy to sue. Once you have a defective house you are in for a nightmare.

JD Power is a survey that even a building industry publication admitted could be skewed. One way surveys are “skew-able” is to survey new owners immediately, during the “honeymoon” period and before defects can be discovered. Another is to actually keep complaining owners from participating. Beazer PAID their customers $100 for a good survey (don’t recall if the Survey was JD Power, or some other one). This was in a Charlotte paper within the last year.

Our org takes complaints on shoddy construction, but now predatory lending is part of some complaints, because so many builders run their own mortgage co or use an affiliated lender. Beazer and KB Home are just two of several builders who were investigated and fined for lending law violations. The SEC recently investigated Beazer too. In my area alone, two appraisers were quoted in the news during the bubble, saying builders coerced them to artificially inflate property values. This economic mess we’re in had many perpetrators, but the main one was the housing and finance industry that claimed housing only goes up, that you could always refinance, that construction shortcuts kept housing “affordable,” etc, etc, etc. Many of the “buyers” were also “flippers,” who walked away when the house wasn’t profitable. Without the INDUSTRY, this could not have happened, no matter how big of a sucker some buyers were. And, some buyers weren’t suckers at all, they were victims of forgery, and other types of mortgage fraud and crimes. Some builders have been indicted on mortgage fraud charges, (e.g. Miller Enterprises in KS), and many more need to be.