they go on and on....I don't know where people get the money. Or, I didn't know so many people had money.

Our Pulte neighborhood is all side load garages. It actually looks like nice because you don't see open garages as you drive through the neighborhood. You get the full facade.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Coworker of mine, he's a year older 52. They make $150-200K combined, one ten YO daughter. Wanted to build McMansion in the country, found a beautiful 4 acre spot. Sold their suburban home, guy holding the lot doubles the price (coworker's fault for no written agreement). Bye, Bye equity. Live in Grandma's empty house for a year or so trying to save for the house, family wants them out to cash out the house. So they rent elsewhere. Acting as his own General Contractor (another mistake), he gets best buddy since Kindergarten to be carpenter (his job). Bank trims his loan total back several times, so he keeps cutting down the house, originally over 6K sf. Now down to 3300sf on main level, no second story, he can afford the interest-only payments of $1400/mo., but the only way to get it built is by doing half of the trade work himself. Runs out of time and tears up suburban riding lawn mower on steroids trying to excavate the basement, so has to hire it done. That causes them to miss the window for the poured wall contractor, so he goes to next available. There is a reason why good contractors are always busy, and shitty ones are not busy. Gets caught saying he will do grade work, does not do real good quality job for flat work prep, and they pour the basement floor like it is a mini golf course, you can actually trip yourself just walking across it.

Meanwhile, at work, he tries to move up the ladder to the next level, which requires 18 months of classroom training, but rewards with 25% pay increase. He struggles with concepts in a class of 20-something engineers, and kills all his time to work on the house, as per the loan. Buddy starts framing the monster, but has other projects , too. Late november, it's about shelled in, but he has no time to roof it, ends up hiring a crew of Spanish guys, who knock out about 80%, ask to be paid and head back out of country for the winter. No way he'll get the plumbing done on time, so ends up hiring that out. He does the septic system himself with the oft-repaired lawn mower with loader and backhoe, but has to fight with county inspector on design (he loses), and trench blocks the only access for the well driller to get to the well site. Of course, the pared-down design now only included one water furnace, and they don't want to start install until the well is in and proven. He begins wiring on off hours, gets kicked out of class for bad grades. Ground froze enough to get well rig in, HVAC gets done in two weeks, now it all waits on the electric and he is behind. Builder takes six straight weeks off with no activity, no doubt working on the next project. They become fierce enemies. Now, he talks of hiring an electrician to finish the main box. Every time he hires a portion out, it seems to cost about $10K.

He says his wife went furniture shopping lat week and bought a $3400 sectional for the living room. The guys at work are constantly telling him not to skimp on the finishes, knowing that you can't try to sell an $800K house with plywood countertops and re-used plumbing fixtures. Stone work is out, all Smart siding, which is just OSB with a grain finish. Still not planned for is the 500 foot driveway and several retaining walls that need to be built, or any other landscaping. But he has a nice 3 car garage.

Poor guy is gonna lose it. In the end, he may scrimp it down to $650K mortgage, taxes may be $4K/yr, who knows what the utilities are. It's like a really slow-developing tv show every time I talk to him. There is much more I forgot to add, I know, it's already sini-like, tl;dr.

Hah, there's nothing urban about me. I don't hate front facing, but I like the look of our side loader. Pulte has nice facade's in front. Too bad they don't offer all brick options. The rest of the outside is bland.

There are so many other parts to this story, I can't even remember them all. I can't answer for his reasons why, I do actually point to his ordeal when talking to the young guys on my shift, when asked I spout my own old-world, depression-era, Dave Ramsey-like ideals: save money, get it in writing, live on less than you make, etc. etc. A few listen.

How he came to get screwed on the lot purchase must come down to trusting the seller and then giving in to the "But I want IT". During the year they were living in grandma's house, he came to the realization that he could not get a loan to build the place. So he took about $15K of house money and spent it on his truck: supercharger, lift kit, big wheels and tires. On a ten YO truck with 180K miles on it. Then he bought a snowmobile on eBay, didn't tell his wife, rented a storage unit to keep it in, didn't ride it because of the lack of snow that winter, then advertised it and sold it at a loss. And freaked out the night he listed it on CL because he left the ad on the printer at home when he came in to work and was afraid his wife would find it!! I've never seen the show Divorce!, but he must have been one of the real people behind HUNG, because that is about the only thing I think would keep a woman with him after all this.

After the dual cash losers, then he starts looking around for different banks to finance the house build, and finds one. Wishing he had the $15K still in cash instead of in his truck. The new bank at least talked him into paring the plans down: he desperately wanted the two story house, but his daughter would not sleep upstairs by herself, so they redesigned the front room into a bedroom to accommodate her, and eliminated most of the second story. I remember him saying the original plans were over 5K sf, and he got a bootleg copy of the plans from the owner of the model house they walked through, that his buddy told him they could build together. Never a good time going to the bank to ask them if you can dump your contractor off of the loan draws so you can replace him mid-build. Things are a little chilly between them, now. I stopped by last week while he was there and got the tour. It has a beautiful view, through the sliding windows that have bowed so badly he cannot latch them. The HVAC is all in, as is the well, but untested. He was pulling the last wires from room down to the main box and the siding was going on.

The menstrual cycle changes among Hassidic Jewish women was something as well.

I have worked on several Pulte projects. They are probably the worst builders out there.

I don't understand you. You literally say the opposite of anything I post. I am not sure if you're serious or just trolling.

First, Pulte always ranks very high in customer satisfaction. I have owned three new homes. This is by far the best one I have ever had. I am 13 years in, and not a single crack in the walls from settling or creaky floors. From the moment we bought to the closing, they had by far the best customer service (including mortgage and title services) and solid construction. They fixed any minor issues on my final walk through. I guess I just got lucky.

I did mortgages in grad school, and we worked mostly on new construction loans. I saw the crap places like Neuman and William Ryan homes put buyers though.

But hey you know everything, so who am I to argue? I am sure DB, BR, and KW will be by to second-fourth your opinion. That seems to be the way it goes around here.

Chus, I just don't know if you're serious. Apparently you are. You just seem like such a contrarian. It runs 100% counter to all of my experiences.

Coworker of mine, he's a year older 52. They make $150-200K combined, one ten YO daughter. Wanted to build McMansion in the country, found a beautiful 4 acre spot. Sold their suburban home, guy holding the lot doubles the price (coworker's fault for no written agreement). Bye, Bye equity. Live in Grandma's empty house for a year or so trying to save for the house, family wants them out to cash out the house. So they rent elsewhere. Acting as his own General Contractor (another mistake), he gets best buddy since Kindergarten to be carpenter (his job). Bank trims his loan total back several times, so he keeps cutting down the house, originally over 6K sf. Now down to 3300sf on main level, no second story, he can afford the interest-only payments of $1400/mo., but the only way to get it built is by doing half of the trade work himself. Runs out of time and tears up suburban riding lawn mower on steroids trying to excavate the basement, so has to hire it done. That causes them to miss the window for the poured wall contractor, so he goes to next available. There is a reason why good contractors are always busy, and shitty ones are not busy. Gets caught saying he will do grade work, does not do real good quality job for flat work prep, and they pour the basement floor like it is a mini golf course, you can actually trip yourself just walking across it.

Meanwhile, at work, he tries to move up the ladder to the next level, which requires 18 months of classroom training, but rewards with 25% pay increase. He struggles with concepts in a class of 20-something engineers, and kills all his time to work on the house, as per the loan. Buddy starts framing the monster, but has other projects , too. Late november, it's about shelled in, but he has no time to roof it, ends up hiring a crew of Spanish guys, who knock out about 80%, ask to be paid and head back out of country for the winter. No way he'll get the plumbing done on time, so ends up hiring that out. He does the septic system himself with the oft-repaired lawn mower with loader and backhoe, but has to fight with county inspector on design (he loses), and trench blocks the only access for the well driller to get to the well site. Of course, the pared-down design now only included one water furnace, and they don't want to start install until the well is in and proven. He begins wiring on off hours, gets kicked out of class for bad grades. Ground froze enough to get well rig in, HVAC gets done in two weeks, now it all waits on the electric and he is behind. Builder takes six straight weeks off with no activity, no doubt working on the next project. They become fierce enemies. Now, he talks of hiring an electrician to finish the main box. Every time he hires a portion out, it seems to cost about $10K.

He says his wife went furniture shopping lat week and bought a $3400 sectional for the living room. The guys at work are constantly telling him not to skimp on the finishes, knowing that you can't try to sell an $800K house with plywood countertops and re-used plumbing fixtures. Stone work is out, all Smart siding, which is just OSB with a grain finish. Still not planned for is the 500 foot driveway and several retaining walls that need to be built, or any other landscaping. But he has a nice 3 car garage.

Poor guy is gonna lose it. In the end, he may scrimp it down to $650K mortgage, taxes may be $4K/yr, who knows what the utilities are. It's like a really slow-developing tv show every time I talk to him. There is much more I forgot to add, I know, it's already sini-like, tl;dr.

I built hundreds of homes at Auburn Lakes in Plainfield.

It's more fun to be a victim

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

Hundreds of times! Thousands!

I don't understand you. You literally say the opposite of anything I post. I am not sure if you're serious or just trolling.

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

Well, they tend to want everyone using alleys, which makes sense in theory (the garage is basically your service entrance; why make it the feature of your house's facade?), but lots of people don't like alleys and newer zoning codes prohibit them anyway. The battle is probably lost.

I don't see the problem with garages off to the side but I'm not a graduate student in architecture like the author of the blog so I guess I have to defer to her.

Laurence Holmes is a fucking weirdo, a nerd in denial, and a wannabe. Not a very good radio host either.

I have been in more new construction homes than probably anybody here. Certainly more than you. I have seen good builders and bad builders. Don't take it so personally.

The shortcuts that I have seen on Pulte jobs are sickening. I would never buy a Pulte home.

Laurence Holmes is a fucking weirdo, a nerd in denial, and a wannabe. Not a very good radio host either.

Central returns on each floor. Nice.
I've got one in royal Melbourne that has two central returns.
Any room with the door closed lime bedrooms.dont heat or cool. The upstairs is wildly out of balance. I think the upstairs hvac unit is operating under 1.4 inwc and something like .9 is In the return one and of course we must use those 3m filtrete filters and yeah we ruin a heat exchanger every 3 to 5 years.

I hate siding, these young people under 30 love that smart siding, I like all brick n stone.

Thousands?!

I don't know shit about house construction, but because dman likes them I'll just believe Pulte is some libertarian company that hates unions and the executives all spend their money on travel baseball teams for their kids