The building process - from financing to choosing colors and going through the closing - wasn't nearly as stressful as they had imagined it would be, these six panelists say.
By JUDY STARK
Published July 26, 2003
TAMPA - They wouldn't change a thing.
Six new buyers last week described their home construction process, from contract to closing, to a roomful of builders and their sales staffs. What they described was a dream, not a nightmare.
"I manufactured my own anxiety and fear" along the way, admitted Gerri Freeman, 51, one of the panelists who spoke to the Tampa Bay Builders Association. "I like my house, and I'll love it once I stop spending money on it."
Freeman, a printing services manager for Hillsborough County, and the other recent buyers first appeared on a builders association panel in January, describing the process of shopping for a new home, selecting a location, a community, a builder and a model. Now that their homes are finished, they returned to talk about living through the building process, a time that's often anxious, stressful or anger-producing.
Under the rules of the panel, the buyers did not identify their builders so the session didn't turn into a free infomercial or a bashing session without a chance for the builder to respond.
But there was very little bashing. The buyers, who had all previously owned homes and most of whom had built before, reported positive experiences as their homes evolved from permit to move-in. Their comments may be helpful to those who are about to embark on the process.
The other participants were Pete Fanuele, 61, a financial analyst, and his wife, Janet Fanuele, 63, a retired nurse; Richard Egan, 46, an accountant; and Steve and Sharon Holland, 36 and 38 respectively, both managers with Progress Insurance.
The panel spoke about these points:
FINANCING: They all used the builder's lender. They found the mortgage interest rates competitive, and they were attracted by the incentives they were offered: discounts on options and upgrades, or a lump sum or a percentage of the sale price payable toward their closing costs.
DESIGN CENTERS: Buyers must make a lot of choices: paint colors, carpeting, tile, drawer pulls, flooring, lighting, appliances. Builders typically set up a design center, either in a garage at the model center or in a freestanding location, and offer buyers a couple of hours' consultation with an interior designer while they make their choices.
The panelists liked the convenience of this one-stop shopping, but making all those choices, a process that takes several hours, is "kind of overwhelming," Rick Egan said. "Your brains get fried."
The panelists all visited the design center before their official appointment to look over things and make some preliminary selections, and generally they felt the builders offered enough choices: not too few, not too many. "But it creates a lot of anxiety," Gerri Freeman said. "You don't want to make the wrong decision for a house you're going to live in for a long time."
Sharon Holland was the only one with a regret: The design consultant, she said, "talked me out of the tile I wanted, and now I regret it."
VISITING THE SITE: All the buyers visited their homes in progress. How often? "Several times a week" for the Fanueles, "three, four, five times a week" for Egan, "daily, we were pretty much there" for the Hollands, "I'm too embarrassed to tell you how often I visited" for Freeman.
Egan earned his frequent-flyer miles because the superintendent resigned just as construction was beginning on his house, and "my level of anxiety went up a little bit until I got to a comfort level," he said. He and the new superintendent each "noticed things the other didn't."
Buyers are supposed to check in at the model center or the construction trailer and get a hard hat when they visit their site, but the panelists all admitted they ignored that rule. Most of them visited their homes after hours, when no workers were on site. "If workers were there, I didn't go in," Pete Fanuele said. "It was recreation to walk through, to see the changes coming about," Janet Fanuele said.
The panelists said photos on a builder's Web site wouldn't be an adequate substitute for onsite visits. They appreciated superintendents who provided their cell phone numbers and returned calls promptly.
Asked how often they wanted someone to be in touch with them - the salesperson, the superintendent - Egan said he'd like a phone call once a week, and preferred to hear not what had been completed, but "what they're going to do next." That way, he said, if there were any specific things he wanted to discuss with the superintendent about the upcoming tasks, he'd know this was the time.
CLOSING: No closing-table horror stories for this group. The 30-day notice they got of their closing date was adequate, they said. ("My boyfriend is ex-military; he was packed and ready to go," Freeman said.) The costs at closing were close to what they had been told to expect. All four buyers used a title company recommended by the builder.
Freeman hired an independent home inspector "to alleviate any manufactured anxieties," she said. She took his report with her when she did her pre-closing walk-through.
The houses were in good condition at closing, the buyers said, with only minor or cosmetic items to be adjusted, and the builders have been attentive to those matters.
Steve Holland did have a complaint about the warranty process: "It becomes argumentative and drawn-out," he said. "That's the only part that could be improved. Just take care of the problem and don't argue about who to put the blame on."
