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Home Building Pitfalls Is A Must-Have Resource Before Buying Or Building

Armed With It's Inside Information You Can Avoid Becoming One Of The Headlines Below:

“Family, builder, at odds over unfinished house”

Macomb Daily, January 1, 2007

“Bankrupt Builder Leaves Four Families in Limbo”

KTUU.com Alaska's News Source, January 24, 2007

“Dream home is nightmare for Chesapeake family”

Chesapeake New, March 15, 2006

“Dream home is a nightmare”

Fayettville Observer, March 5, 2006

"Housewrecked: Serious hidden defects plague many newer homes"

Consumer Reports, January, 2004

(Some information came from Home Building Pitfalls)

"Luxury By Design, Quality By Chance: Home builder leaves a trail of bitter buyers"

Boston Globe, April 29, 2001

"Dream Home Becomes Nightmare: Their new home had $70,000 in problems. Now they are taking their builder to court."

St. Petersburg Times, October 22, 2000


Housewrecked

Serious hidden defects plague many newer homes. Here's how to avoid trouble.

	CR Quick Take
		A CR investigation involving extensive interviews with home buyers, building-industry representatives, inspectors, and others has found that thousands of consumers, faced with serious defects in their new or young homes, have spent millions on repairs. The fast pace of construction during today's building boom is a cause, experts say. • Fifteen percent of new homes have serious problems, some inspectors say. That's 150,000 new homes a year. Many only show up months or years after moving day. • Your best defense: Hire a real-estate lawyer and a building-inspection engineer. A few key clauses in your contract and inspections during construction can save grief later. and • For information on what to do should you discover problems, see How to prevent troubleIf you think you have a problem.

Last year, consumers bought more than 1 million new homes in the U.S., a near record. Average sale price: $250,000. But a CR investigation has found that increasingly, buyers are discovering that their new dream home has serious defects and that they have more consumer protections for a fickle $20 toaster than for a flawed investment-of-a-lifetime.

In Oregon, a family built a semicustom home for $66,000 on a lot they owned only to discover mold in the walls four months later. Home buyers in Newark, N.J., found crumbling concrete, falling bricks, and flooded basements within months of moving into a recently built condominium complex. An Oklahoma couple says they face $60,000 in foundation and roof repairs for a house they bought new three years ago for $127,000.

And it’s not just new-home buyers who are getting stuck. One Upper Saddle River, N.J., couple is paying $375,000 to repair water damage to a five-year-old home that they bought for $1.4 million.

Our investigation, which included dozens of interviews with homeowners, builders, inspectors, industry representatives, government officials, and lawyers, found those defects and more in many new or young homes. Faulty foundations, serious moisture intrusion, and shoddy framing are often at the root of problems, which manifest themselves as gaping cracks, rotting walls, and windows and doors that don’t close right. Often, though, they show up months or even years after the buyer has moved in and the builder has moved on.

No one seems to be documenting the extent of the problem, yet many experts agree that construction-defect lawsuits are rising nationally. Add to that a sharp increase in toxic-mold lawsuits. Mold is often associated with moisture intrusion.