My wife and I are considering purchasing a spec home from Excel Homes, and I was wondering if anybody has any experience with them as a builder and feels like sharing?
Their website really talks them up, they brag about being moisture smart, their houses having high R-value insulation and 2x6 exterior walls and other things that sound really good.
We went and looked at 4 or 5 of their spec homes yesterday as well as several other builders, and despite the homes being on slightly smaller yards than we would like we are pretty happy with what we have seen.
Now, in my defense, when you are looking at this many houses lots of minor details get missed, so I was hoping that some of you on here may feel like sharing your experiences. In the interest of sharing, here are our opinions so far:
Broadview / Pacesetter: Everything feels and looks cheap. When you look over the stairs, or cabinet work everything is just slightly out, touchups are poorly done on the baseboards and walls, a couple of the homes we were in had the sinks removed from all the bathrooms (i.e. they were installed, then removed) maybe from being installed wrong / having other issues?
Jayman: The floors creaked in brand new houses, the great rooms on the main floor were too dark (one potlight all the way at the end), the cabinet design in the kitchen was designed to fill space, not for usability, and the washer/dryer were in the basement
Excel: Some of the shingles were not correctly installed, or had nails left sticking up out of them, the carpet seams were somewhat visible, tile work was slightly uneven
Of course, I am mentioning everything I found wrong with the houses, but that doesn't mean everything else is perfect. We didn't have a lot of time in each house so these are just quick first impressions.