Not always perfect
For Tammy and Ben Cowart, buying a new home seemed like a dream come true. The couple spent almost every weekend for six months in 1987 at a Moreno Valley building site, watching plans take shape and snapping photographs for a scrapbook.
Everything seemed fine until they noticed a large crack in the slab foundation. The home was just settling in, the builder explained.
The Cowarts pushed for a better answer. They called the developer and sent certified letters and photographs to document their concerns but received no response. Without an adequate explanation for an obvious flaw, the couple withdrew from the deal, and the developer returned their $15,000 deposit.
Today, Tammy Cowart, a real estate agent with First Team Real Estate in Long Beach, is glad she asked tough questions. “Several years later,” she said, “we learned that the very site we [would have] purchased was perched on a fault line that was never disclosed to us as buyers.”
From leaky roofs to sinking subdivisions, construction defects happen. And builders are working to reduce them with construction reviews and stricter standards. But consumer advocates contend that the rush to cash in on the housing boom is contributing to mistakes.
Some evidence suggests the concern is justified. Maine-based Criterium Engineers, an investigative engineering firm that inspects more than 25,000 buildings annually, found 15% of the new residential construction it surveyed nationwide last year had at least two significant defects. Among the problems were improper window and door installation, inadequate roof installation and framing and foundation issues. In the Southwest United States, the incidence was slightly higher at 17%.
The most frequent sources of problems? A lack of skilled workers and poor workmanship, followed by substandard material selection and ineffective design, according to Criterium President H. Alan Mooney.
For buyers looking to claim one of the 200,000 new homes California builders expect to complete this year, however, the news is better. Amid a backdrop of rising defect litigation and soaring insurance costs, major builders and their insurers are requiring third-party construction reviews throughout the building process. These new standards are being coupled with stricter regulations for energy-efficient, earthquake-safe residences.
“Every product contains some defect, and new homes are no different. But unlike a manufactured product assembled in a factory under close tolerances, new homes are still constructed by hand,” said Stan Luhr, chief executive and founder of Poway-based Quality Built, which conducts in-depth structural reviews for major insurance carriers, developers and home buyers. “But homes built in California have more amenities, are more complex and of a greater quality than homes we see in other parts of the country.”
Tougher quality standards have bumped production home-building costs to between $110 and $130 per square foot, up 28% since last year and 75% more than a decade ago, said Stephen P. Doyle, treasurer of the California Building Industry Assn. and president of Brookfield San Diego Builders Inc. in Del Mar.
On top of the extra expense, construction time has increased, he said. New homes, which accounted for about 19% of the estimated 741,000 single-family homes sold in California in 2003, take about six to seven months to complete, or about one month longer than a decade ago.
Despite the changes, consumer advocates remain unconvinced that there are fewer problems in new homes. During the last 30 years, Thomas E. Miller of Miller Law Firm in Newport Beach has recovered more than $450 million on behalf of homeowners who filed construction-defect claims.
Miller said he has seen no reduction in defect cases or in the volume of daily calls and e-mails from homeowners who need a solution to a defect problem.
About 20% of the 2,500 home-defect complaints received annually by Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings come from California. The state trails Texas, Missouri and Florida, according to Sandy Skipper-Lopez, the consumer protection group’s national director.
Unlike the inquisitive Cowarts, Eric and Kelli Meyer didn’t ask a lot of questions during the construction and purchase of their three-bedroom Saugus home in 2001. Like many buyers, they just assumed the house came with standard features. But shortly after moving into their home, the Meyers discovered that, with the exception of the bathroom and kitchen, the house had no lighting fixtures.
“When we did the walk-through, it was daytime,” Eric Meyer said, “so we didn’t even think to ask if they were going to put in the rest of the lights.”
The couple purchased and installed their own lighting fixtures, but inadequate insulation proved more problematic. “My neighbor would talk to his wife in the backyard, and it was as if they were standing next to my bed,” said Eric Meyer, who worked nights at the time and slept during the day. The Meyers sold the home in March 2003.
“There was nothing we could do about the insulation problem,” Kelli Meyer said. “The house was already built.”
While the building industry and consumer advocates have yet to find common ground on some issues, they stand united on one point: Buyers eager to enter the new production home marketplace should do their homework.
Contact the California Contractors State License Board, the Better Business Bureau, the local building inspector, homeowner advocacy groups, the county district attorney’s office and the state attorney general’s office to see if any complaints have been filed against a builder. Inquire about past defect litigation claims and liability insurance coverage.
However, problems in the past don’t always indicate a rocky future. When Les Weinberg bought his West Hills home in 1997, he hired an independent inspector. The inspector found some minor defects. But Weinberg said the developer addressed and corrected each one without delay. No major problems have surfaced since then.
“We knew in advance that [the developer] had experienced some problems in the past,” Weinberg said, “but it was almost as if they had learned from that and gone through their own process of using the experience to develop a good product.”
Beyond an inspection, buyers who visit the building site on a regular basis, talk to the builder and the work crew about the project, make notes and take photographs usually end up with a better-built home.
In researching the builder and weighing the decision to purchase a new home, find out what’s included in the purchase price. Other considerations should be quality and service. For instance, how long is the average customer service response time? How has the developer handled problems in the past?
When spending several hundred thousand dollars on a new home, there really are no dumb questions, Mooney said.
“Building a house is a complicated process that involves a lot of people. And there are going to be problems from time to time. Good builders have very aggressive policies for their own people about how they deal with problems,” Mooney said. “If a builder responds by saying they don’t have any problems, I would move on to another builder.”
Wiser now, the Meyers bought a new home in Saugus in June 2003 from Greystone Homes, a division of the Lennar Corp.
This time, the couple researched the developer through the Web and visited owners who had purchased homes from Greystone several years earlier.
And the couple took nothing for granted. “One of the first questions Eric asked was whether the house came with lights,” Kelli Meyer said.
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Common trouble spots
A national inspection firm found these defects in new residential construction, ranked from most frequent to least, and their common warning signs:
* Window/door installation: loose windows, missing flashing, openings not square
* Roof installation: lack of roof paper, improperly placed shingles, premature roof deterioration
* Site selection/soil preparation: poor drainage, slab cracking
* Framing: lack of bracing, inadequate frame connections, visible stopgap repairs, structural sagging, roofline distortion, unusually springy floors
* Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning mechanical equipment installation: poorly installed ductwork and wiring, inadequate performance
* Siding installation: thin stucco, improper siding attachment, rot and mold
* Foundation construction: significant cracking, premature deterioration
* Window performance: rot and mold, leaks, broken seals
* Use of unproven materials: short service life
* Improper use of power tools: nailing missed the framing, too few or too many nails
Source: Criterium Engineers’ Construction Quality Survey, 2003.
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Researching a home builder
How does a builder rate? To find out, go to J.D. Power & Associates’ 2003 national home builder ratings at www.jdpower.com/cc/homes/index.jsp.
For consumer information, home builder ratings and builder complaint forums:
* Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, www .hadd.com
* Homeowners for Better Building, www.hobb.org
For information about builders:
* The Better Business Bureau, bbb.org/search.html
* The California Department of Consumer Affairs, (800) 952-5210, www.dca.ca.gov
* County of Los Angeles Department of Consumer Affairs, (800) 593-8222 or (213) 974-1452
* Quick link to individual building departments in Los Angeles County, www.icbolabc.org/quicklink.htm
To view citations against a licensed builder or contactor, check license status, report unlicensed activity or lodge a complaint:
* California Contractors State License Board, (800) 321-2752, www.cslb.ca.gov
To locate a home inspector:
* The American Society of Home Inspectors, (800) 743-2744, www.ashi.org
* The California Real Estate Inspection Assn., (800) 848-7342, www.creia.org. Select CREIA Inspector Finder
For information on time limits for defect claims and related legislation:
* The Miller Law Firm, (800) 403-3332, www.constructiondefects.com
Additional resources:
* For a free new-home checklist, visit the National Assn. of Builders’ website, www.nahb.org. Enter “pre-settlement walk through check list” in the site’s search area.
* “Home and Condo Defects: A Consumer Guide to Faulty Construction” by Thomas E. Miller and Rachel M. Miller (Seven Locks Press, 2001)
* “Your New House: The Alert Consumer’s Guide to Buying and Building a New Home” by Alan and Denise Fields (Windsor Peak Press, 2002)
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-- Michelle Hofmann
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Michelle Hofmann is a Los Angeles freelance writer. She can be reached at michelle hofmann@earthlink.net.
