Housing
It's not just the loans and foreclosures, there are a ton of homes built so badly that they are falling apart and they are only a year or so old.
Business Week Online has a good survey. Tales of new houses having mold, water intrusion, and such poor construction that they are actually falling apart. This thing has much more to run than any of us thought two weeks ago.
During the housing boom, builders were working fast to keep up with all the people gobbling up new properties, and Martin believes the quality of building suffered as a result. "The pendulum swung too far in [the builders'] favor," he says.
"The Internet now is rising to level the playing field."
2 comments:
Moral is know your builder, go to the site every day, log every problem in writing, assume nothing, try to build trust with the builder (don't be an asshole, IOW), don't accept shoddy work or materials - out of plumb, out of square, out of level, nails wrong size, nails not driven home, metal framing ties incompletely fastened, all openings properly caulked, flashed and insulated, correct drainage and moisture barriers, licensed electrical installation, plumbing drain slopes, on & on forever.
You have to check every day. It's easier and more likely to be fixed properly if you catch it on the spot rather than 2 months after you move in.
If you don't know your builder and buy a completed home, look out. Wood is crap compared to twenty or forty years ago and any wino who buys a saw at a yardsale is a carpenter. Homes are being built on lots with horrible slopes and drainage, improper bearing soils are being built upon. Much of the blame IMHO, lies with the buyers who want McMansions, huge cubic foot boxes with two story foyers, umpty gazillion roof planes and faux gables, cheap glitz like a bath big enough for two horses, but pissholes in the snow for windows, brick front with cheap beige vinyl siding on the rest, absolute minimum code framing, and not a tree on the lot bigger than your thumb. They'd be much better off with a much smaller, better built home, but we gotta keep up with the Joneses.
A couple years ago, the police caught a cat burglar here. He explained his methods, one of which was that he hit only high end homes in new neighborhoods with both husband and wife working. He said he was surprised by how many couples in these huge five bedroom houses were using just two rooms - bedroom and kitchen - with the rest of the house empty.
dick
"During the housing boom, builders were working fast to keep up with all the people gobbling up new properties, and Martin believes the quality of building suffered as a result. "The pendulum swung too far in [the builders'] favor," he says."
WTF? The builders were thieves, nothin but, hiring unskilled illegals to do the work of craftsmen. Crooked floors, windows won't shut, doors with inch gaps on the bottom. Mob racket. But since most of the people who buy these shithouses are illegal too, it don't matter! Be suprised, though, a lot of the higher end new construction was built the same way. Suckers!!
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