Builder: Broadview homes?

[old&slow]

Does anyone know anything about these guys?
How about Nuvista?

[Chandler_Racing]

I just bought a home with Nuvista, would recommend them without question.

Broadview on the other hand seemed rather shady.

[JDMAE86]

Originally posted by old&slow
Does anyone know anything about these guys?
How about Nuvista?

I built my first new home with broadview last year and it was the worst experience. Im happy with my home design and layout is everything I wanted in a home. There is over 40 homes on my street all the same floor plan it was that good. The customer service sucked the chick was a b*tch and my house was 3 months late. I could go on and on but ill stop.
Great houses worst service.

[old&slow]

^what home plan was it? I am curious about "The Hyatt" It may be a new plan. According to their literature it won some award...not sure if that means much but we like the open concept!

[JDMAE86]

Originally posted by old&slow
^what home plan was it? I am curious about "The Hyatt" It may be a new plan. According to their literature it won some award...not sure if that means much but we like the open concept!

Ours is the Birmingham in Evanston, the Hyatt looks nice as well.

[2.0turbo]

Hmmm, Broadview...

Them and Excel homes are the only two builders in the city to still use dimensional lumber as a floor system. It is a cheaper way to build and atleast Excel passes it on to the customer and thats why their homes are cheaper.

Dimensional lumber will warp in calgary as it dries out and that is how your floor starts to creak. You get little gaps under the subfloor inbetween the floor system (beams). Go with a builder that uses and engineered floor system with I joists.

NuVista on the other hand is a very good division of the Qualico group, unlike their cheaper little brother, Broadview.

[JDMAE86]

Originally posted by 2.0turbo
Hmmm, Broadview...

Them and Excel homes are the only two builders in the city to still use dimensional lumber as a floor system. It is a cheaper way to build and atleast Excel passes it on to the customer and thats why their homes are cheaper.

Dimensional lumber will warp in calgary as it dries out and that is how your floor starts to creak. You get little gaps under the subfloor inbetween the floor system (beams). Go with a builder that uses and engineered floor system with I joists.

NuVista on the other hand is a very good division of the Qualico group, unlike their cheaper little brother, Broadview.

:werd:

Everything 2.0turbo is all correct, my floors are already doing that creaking super annoying when I walk around. My previous house was 10 years old and had I joists, much better then what I have now.

[old&slow]

According to the features sheet I was given...
Floor: Dimensional spruce or engineered floor system as per plan.

I guess they can do as they wish???

[quazimoto]

LOL that is ghetto. They must be russell peters approved!

[2.0turbo]

As per plan means they are have some plans that might have it, so be sure that the plan you choose, should you choose them, has the better (and more expensive) system.

Good luck with the house hunt.

[5000Audi]

broadview is a waste of money..i use to frame homes for them. 90% of the framers were newbs and didnt know what they were doing, and yet they still passed frame check.. we had to rebuild 80% of a house because MY crew noticed the whole house was 12 inches to short. the roof king posts were nailed together not 12 inches apart like they should be.. and yes this home PASSED frame cheak.. i suggest going with Jayman,Avi,Morrison,Shane and Beatie.. most other builders are half fast and within a few years you will notice floors creaking, a wind howl from cracks in the ext walls.. so no i wouldnt reccomend Broadview

[KLCC]

Me and my neighbour both had our house build by broadview.
Worst mistake ever....Not impressed, and definitely not going to go with them ever again. :thumbsdow

They had the worst customer service and the worst site supervisor. (I remember when I was asking him to rectify some inconsistency with our build. I had to threaten them with law suit (or not taking possession) for not following the signed off blue-print in order to get their attention to fix it. Even then after fixing the issue, their site supvisor told us, we shouldn't complain when million dollar homes have some inconsistency, so we need to expect inconsistency....I was pissed off to say the least).

As far as for my neighbour, they had various issues with the builder as well. In fact, they are still waiting for their year-end walkthrough after it has been well over a year. (and they have called many time to make the arrangement) :whipped: :whipped:

http://forums.beyond.ca/st/267511/builder-reviews/

[2.0turbo]

Originally posted by 5000Audi
broadview is a waste of money..i use to frame homes for them. 90% of the framers were newbs and didnt know what they were doing, and yet they still passed frame check.. we had to rebuild 80% of a house because MY crew noticed the whole house was 12 inches to short. the roof king posts were nailed together not 12 inches apart like they should be.. and yes this home PASSED frame cheak.. i suggest going with Jayman,Avi,Morrison,Shane and Beatie.. most other builders are half fast and within a few years you will notice floors creaking, a wind howl from cracks in the ext walls.. so no i wouldnt reccomend Broadview

Avi, Morrison, Shane, and Beattie I would agree with.

If you like to be fucked up your ass by a marketing company that builds houses, then build with Jayman. Jayman, what a joke. I've seen their homes with no shingles on the roof with the cabinets in the house. Just the thought of their "quantum" series makes me shutter. 2 X 4 exterior construction and there isn't even any sheathing on the exterior, just some ridgid insulation. You could punch right through the wall and into the house. I have no respect for Jayman, I know too many people who got fucked by them.

:thumbsdow

[Masked Bandit]

+1 on the dimensional lumber thing. Our first new home was built by Carolina Homes in Somerset in 2002 and even at that point most builders weren't using dimensional anymore. After a couple of years you couldn't take five steps in any direction without hearing squeaking floor. If Broadview would even CONSIDER using dimensional, walk away.

[black_2.5RS]

We have a friend who built w/ Broadview. Took them over 8 months after their 1 yr inspection to get things fixed. On top of that, they refused to fix almost everything on the basis that it was normal wear and tear - and therefore expected and not covered (this included the freakin' creaking floors).
Stay away.

[quazimoto]

You should always have your lawyer hold funds back on possession, always always always just because not everything is complete.

[Kritafo]

too bad about Broadview. We built with them 15 years ago and never had a single problem. I guess that is when they cared. Unlike our Shane home which has had nothing but problems.

Seems like Broadview forgot their vision .... and are now just after the money.

[Masked Bandit]

Originally posted by quazimoto
You should always have your lawyer hold funds back on possession, always always always just because not everything is complete.

Pretty much impossible to get that done on a new build. I've never met a lawyer that will agree to that on a new house.

[2.0turbo]

Originally posted by quazimoto
You should always have your lawyer hold funds back on possession, always always always just because not everything is complete.

Good luck. Some builders make it a term of sale to actually write in "no holdbacks and seasonal items are completed weather permited". Not that they have to. Alberta New Home Warranty contract is pretty clear that until all mortgage funds are transfered to the builder, the keys will not be released.

On the other hand, a draw mortgage is a different story, but not many cookie cutter style builders allow those.

How is the search for a new home going OP?

[old&slow]

I have laid off the idea again for now. It would seem , while I've done little research to this point, that existing home values have dropped significantly and yet new homes have come down very little! Sister in law has noticed this as well, they are also looking for a new home.

For what I can get for a 2000 sq foot estate home in Mckenzie Lake, I can't seem to buy a new smaller home for in Okotoks!
And that without landscaping.

Gonna sit back for a bit and consider upgrading what we have.
Not gonna go into a larger mortgage at my age.
Still have 8 yrs before I can burn this one!

[2.0turbo]

Originally posted by old&slow
I have laid off the idea again for now. It would seem , while I've done little research to this point, that existing home values have dropped significantly and yet new homes have come down very little! Sister in law has noticed this as well, they are also looking for a new home.

For what I can get for a 2000 sq foot estate home in Mckenzie Lake, I can't seem to buy a new smaller home for in Okotoks!
And that without landscaping.

Gonna sit back for a bit and consider upgrading what we have.
Not gonna go into a larger mortgage at my age.
Still have 8 yrs before I can burn this one!

For the most part, Builders lowered prices long before resale prices followed suit, thats why it may seem like they haven't come down as much in the last half a year or so.

What areas are you looking in that are more expensive for less home in Okotoks. Sounds like Broadview struck again with their bad pricing. If you have a home in Mackenzie Lake that is 2000 sq/ft, why are you thinking about moving?

[old&slow]

We don't need a house with 5 bedrooms anymore.
Something a little smaller be nice.
We been here 6 six yrs.
We'd like a change.
It would be nice to live in a smaller community again.
I like the options for lots in Okotoks "Hills" area.
Moving somewhere like Cranston or Copperfield would not inspire me.

[quazimoto]

there are homes in cranston, new brighton, etc that are built by beattie homes started at $347,000 with lot and gst. 1600 SQ FT. Front attached garage etc. Seriously new home prices are cheap.

[dezmarez]

so how bad were they really?

would it be worth it for a starter home that i plan to be in for around 5 years....

because they are some what cheaper then other homes by like 30 grand

[bobafixed]

Bump,

We're really interested in a home built by Broadview homes and wanted some more experiences.

I've already done some searches, and there's not a lot to go in here. There's a few posts from people saying they've had bad experiences, if anyone else can share their stories that would help us out a lot.

[dezmarez]

bump,

anyone purchased a house recently from them?

[Sorath]

im building with nuvista right now, which is under the same tree as broadview and excel, so far very impressed and no problems

[bobafixed]

Well, we ended up going with broadview homes...

Took possession in late may and so far things have been going pretty good. i'd say it was overall a good experience.

Broadview themselves were pretty disorganized and the sales people didn't know the products they were selling. They were friendly though and did do their best to make sure we were taken care of. The Broadview sitesupe was awesome, he'd swing by randomly once in awhile to check up on us and make sure all was well.

The subtrades were pretty good overall, the house had no major deficiencies,just a few minor things that were to be expected.

Our only real complaint was with their cabinet vendors... bjornson i think? My god they were terrible. they kept blaming their autocad guy for all the incorrect drawings and claimed to have fired him.. but all the designs they kept sending us afterwards were still wrong. They kept trying to upsell us on things we didnt need and at the very end,the installation was done poorly. Knobs were crooked/uneven, doors werent aligned, the list goes on. Nothing went right and it took a huge amount of emails just to get things proper.

Overall, I'd give Broadview a thumbsup. It didn't go perfect, but I'm loving my house after 3+ months of living in it.

Hope that helps.

[KLCC]

^ Unfortunately, same thing can't be said about Broadviews homes.

We have nothing but problem from the beginning of the build process....(missing bolt hinges, misaligned kitchen counter top...mis-match garage door color as per signed-off spec, different bathtub material (acrylic and Enameled.)..baseboard quality and paint issues, gap between baseboard, leaking roof..etc

Whilst they are not as bad as Point of View Development as some have mentioned, they aren't the top notch builders, like Avi Homes or Sterling Homes neither. (btw Sterling homes falls under the same development group as Broadviews homes)

At one point (I think I've mentioned in my previous thread), it went so bad, we had to use nothing but sarcastic tone to communicate with them, just so they are aware of how ridiculous their response was. In addition, I remembered when we've mentioned some of the build defect to our site sup, he referred those build deficiencies as expected, and his reasoning behind it was because every other million dollars homes in Calgary have it. Therefore we were supposed to expect to have it. As well, they had Peter Wolf (the guy in charge) called us and try to brush the deficiencies off.


I know it is bit long-winded...but I gave them my 2 thumbs down....:thumbsdow :thumbsdow

btw we have been with them for 1.5 years

My house is in NW - Royal Oak

[bobafixed]

In all honesty though, I think it's pretty much a gamble.. It all depends on your site supe, the crews you get, etc and not so much the actual homebuilder.

You just have to chance it and hope for the best.

We were lucky and had an excellent site supervisor who fixed up all the deficiencies himself. Anything he couldn't do, he scheduled the proper trades for us to come in and have it fixed.

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences.

[dezmarez]

Which area of the city did you guys purchase in?

[Sorath]

evanston

[bobafixed]

^ me too

[dezmarez]

thanks for the info goes,
I'm going to talk to him sometime this week,
and see if I want to go through with it

appreciate the input!!

[AArcher]

Originally posted by 5000Audi
..i use to frame homes for them.
When did you work for them?

[AArcher]

Originally posted by 2.0turbo
Dimensional lumber will warp in calgary as it dries out and that is how your floor starts to creak. You get little gaps under the subfloor inbetween the floor system (beams). Go with a builder that uses and engineered floor system with I joists.

Noticed this was posted back in 2009 and checked their website which says that they use an engineered floor system. (Link: http://broadviewhomes.com/broadview-homes/style-and-design/features/framing.html).

Does any one have any more up to date information?

[dezmarez]

I can tell you that I ended up building with them.

Have been in the house almost 3 years, and starting to get a slight creak in some of the areas on the floor.

I have the same sort of spec saying the used engineered floors.

[AArcher]

What model did you build? And in what community?

[R!zz0]

I'm thinking Jayman or NuVista...Any thoughts on who builds better homes?

[AArcher]

Thought I would add an update here that I did decide to build with Broadview.

One thing that isn't mentioned here is that you can watch your home being built by them on Facebook. It is really transparent and they have a number of Facebook pages for different communities so if you're unsure about them, I would suggest checking there.

[dezmarez]

BUMP

Figured I would bump this thread in case anyone is searching.

Purchaed a Broadview Home in 2011.
Shane from GoldRush noticed the siding coming off my house.

I called Broadview. Advised me it was not covered under warranty, but was going to send someone out to take a look.

They assessed the siding and are going to repair it without charging me anything even though it isn't covered under warranty.

[gwill]

That's Insanely awesome by them. It's probably as rare as winning the lottery to have them look at something that far our of the warranty.

A friend had a serious fire issue in her condo by one of albertas biggest builders that they didn't even bother responding to her about it. Her light was flickering when she turned on the lights and one day one of her plugs started smouldering... She didn't notice until she came home that day that the plug caught on fire and melted away. Luckily it didn't spread.

The builder didn't bother with anything as it was out of the 1 yr warranty. They couldn't even email her or call her... They did all correspendance through the condo board.