Frustrated by Builders

I look forward to the Sunday Times each week, and one of the reasons is Dick Turpin’s column, which we very much enjoy and find so informative.

We have our home on the market in north San Diego County and plan to relocate in south Orange County.

Could you write a column on problems that homeowners face in dealing with builders and the frustration individual homeowners are confronted with?

For example, you buy a home in the first or second phase of a development and the builders say there will be a third and fourth phase. You buy the home, believing the entire area will be developed as presented to you, but the builder decides that he now is going to make Phase 3 and 4 at lower price ranges and different models as well.

Now you own a $235,000 home, and down the road they have homes going for $170,000. The homeowner has no recourse.

What can an individual homeowner do to large builders (many are subsidiaries of oil companies)? To whom can homeowners turn in order to voice their dissatisfaction? Is there an organization or agency?

My other gripe is that builders could care less what the public wants; they intend to set the pattern and the public be damned! In looking for new homes we find builders are not building homes over 1,900 square feet on one floor; you have to go into a two-story house if you want more space.

The funny part is that all models of 2,000 square feet in previous phases are sold out first--so it tells you that the public desires one-story houses, but they are only going to build two-story homes because they can get more money for them.

ALBERT Z. ABBOTT Vista