I am currently building a home with wayne homes. it is a very very long process with poor communication. Its been nine months and five site managers, Its been illegal aliens installing drywall over receptacles with underage children with the, Its been waiting and waiting and wondering if someone will show up. I texted the current manager two weeks ago, I never met him, and asked if i was holding it up and needed to do anything. he said no i am good. The VP GM blamed me previously for holding. the point is they advertise customer service but it is poor at best . So far the works looks great. But somethings i have to fix because putting a water line in from of a power receptical is wrong. I will fix it myself. I am putting the over head fans in this week. The contract said the electrician would but they came and i wasnt told they were coming so the fan didnt get put in. So this is the of the ice berg the house looks nice the framer were great the painter were great but who knows when wayne homes will finish as i pay for mortgage on a house that looks nice

Ok, so where to begin... I had nothing but problems with Wayne homes. I used their excavator and contracted price for clearing my lot of 52 trees. he left 7 or eight. no credit for that. he took 90% of my wonderful dirt that he REFUSED to let me keep, said I had to pay more to haul out extra. I told him I wanted my dirt, nope he said. then charged me more money to bring in two truck loads of CLAY because SURPRISE i needed it for the final grade because now he doesn't have enough dirt. then had a nerve to try and charge me almost 7k over contract for extra time and work because he was too lazy to read the diagram correctly to where the water company had for the location of the water tap. he dug from the wrong direction and couldn't find it. as a matter of fact, someone from his crew actually pointed at it when I asked what that faucet looking thing was under the ground that they covered up with gravel. did I pay the extra money hell no! i should have sued his ass. he tried to tell the field manager to NOT give me my keys until I paid. he made a fortune off my tree's and dirt, broke the silt fence with his tonka truck and had the city on my back because my neighbor complained about the mud running into their yard. my house was built in mid 2015 and I still have trouble growing sustainable grass on that clay. nothing but grass dying in patches every year. Next, within the first two years I've had the fix it guy come out and adjust doors, change the parts in the toilet which went bad in their cheap Gerber toilets. two more have since went bad and they only like Gerber parts! universal parts allow water to leak. Next, I was told a cleaning crew would come in and clean out the vents of the drywall dust and stuff before final walk through. That never happened. framing crew threw plastic and tie wraps in the hole under my front porch like they didn't care about the environment. another crew was in the garage smoking and throwing butts inside the garage in the gravel. I DON'T SMOKE thank you! I know everyone take lunch when the time come, but don't leave your spilled cups with sold on the floor. I don't care for ants! next on the list that I'm mad I didn't see before, was my front doors placement. A two year old must have measured the placement because it's not centered! someone even went as far as cut a chunk out of the corner of the molding to make it fit! hurry up and get done in 4 moths right? shh... don't tell the field manner or homeowner and lets hope they won't notice it, because we will have to fix it and I want to get paid now!. 250k house? not worth it with the cheap materials used. the only wood in the house is probably the kitchen cabinets. lastly, my basement wall. as of the middle of august 2019, I've contacted Wayne homes about my basement wall being wet. before you saying anything about the two year fit and finish, I pointed at my wet wall before the second year was up. I was told someone would contact me about it. did they NO! did I call? Yes i did and multiple times at that. left messages, phone always busy, never got threw to anyone. I figured I'd let the ground settle more, heck I'm new to this stuff and thought that was the problem. almost five years later and the wall is so bad with salt crystals coming through the blocks. i called again frustrated, put a message through a website that deals with the waterproofing and finally had someone come out. the solution you ask? probably have to go to court. everyone's pointing fingers, Wayne is trying to say i'm past the 2 years but I told them about the problem before their guy retired (within the two years) now their saying there was nothing in my file about it? Of course it isn't . they have all the files, a recycle bin and shredder. Waterproofing said it was a footer tile after he did a water test. footer tiles were checked and yes it is a footer tile sitting at the wrong angle water has to climb up to get to the water pump but will only get there once the pipe is filled with water and allowing water into my concrete blocks. my old small house is built better than this. heat vents that go from the furnace to the rooms? not anymore. now there's this new thing called cardboard sheets that run along the studs to act like the metal box tubes we all new and loved. Remember that wood trim that goes on the sides and top of the window? they must be invisible. I didn't know that was the new thing now. for 250k, should that come with the over-inflated price? hollow doors, i can hear my kids piss and take showers in a ranch that is 2200 sf and we don't have bedrooms or bathrooms close to each other. I could probably say more but i'm going to stop here. Stay away from Wayne home's PERIOD! can you believe a contractor from Wayne home told me they laugh about how cheaply made the houses are? said all they need is a hammer to go through the outside wall. there wasn't much said in complaints when I was looking for a builder. I guess the type of house I chose is why I picked them. models you go look at have 50k more put into them to make them really stand out but I guess they know that because no one would choose any of the houses in their basic packages.

This is from Bloomberg's... U.S. Economy: Home Sales and Consumer Confidence Drop (Update1) By Courtney Schlisserman and Bob Willis April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Sales of previously owned homes fell to the lowest level in almost four years and declining prices hurt consumer confidence this month, indicating the U.S. economy is struggling to pick up following a first-quarter slowdown. Existing home sales slid 8.4 percent in March after rising 3.7 percent the previous month, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. A separate private report showed home-price declines in 20 major cities accelerated in February. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell to 104, from 108.2. Slowing housing and deteriorating confidence pose a risk that the economy, which is projected to have grown last quarter at the weakest pace in more than a year, won't accelerate in coming months. The dollar dropped and benchmark Treasury yields reached their lowest level this month. ``The housing downturn is now weighing increasingly heavily on the U.S. economy,'' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It's ``starting to have an impact on consumers' psyche and also their spending. The second quarter is going to be no better than the first.'' The yield on the 10-year Treasury note declined as low as 4.61 percent, from 4.64 percent yesterday. The dollar fell 0.3 percent against the euro to $1.3621 and the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 stock index lost 0.2 percent, to 1478.03 at noon in New York. Biggest Drop Purchases of existing homes dropped last month to an annual rate of 6.12 million, from 6.68 million in February, the biggest decline since January 1989, said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. Sales fell 11.3 percent compared with a year earlier. Federal Reserve policy makers including Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have repeatedly said this year that housing presents a risk to their outlook for ``moderate'' growth. Still, officials reiterated at last month's meeting that inflation was their bigger concern and said higher interest rates may still be needed. The Fed next meets May 9. Resales were forecast to drop 4.3 percent last month to a 6.40 million annual rate, from February's originally reported 6.69 million, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 66 economists. The decline in sales, while partly weather-related, may renew concern that the housing recession will linger. Subprime mortgage defaults are rising, and owners' reluctance to reduce prices may keep more unsold properties on the market. `Sluggish' Sales ``The negative impact of subprime is considerable,'' Lereah said at a briefing. ``We expect sales to be sluggish in the second quarter.'' Consumer confidence declined to the lowest level in eight months in April, undercut by concerns about rising gasoline prices and the wave of mortgage defaults. The New York-based Conference Board's index dropped below last year's average of 105.9. This year's 23 percent increase in gasoline prices is taking a bite out of Americans' wallets, and the lingering housing slump threatens to erode their wealth. Fed policy makers are counting on an expanding job market to keep consumers spending. ``High gasoline prices are starting to weigh on consumer sentiment,'' said Russell Price, senior financial economist at H&R Block Financial Advisors in Detroit. ``The added burden is bound to wear on spending habits if gas prices remain elevated through the summer.'' Unsold Homes The supply of homes for sale decreased to 3.745 million last month. At the current sales rate, that represents a 7.3 months' supply, the highest since October. The median price of an existing home fell 0.3 percent last month from a year ago to $217,000. Another industry report earlier today showed a measure of home values in 20 metropolitan areas, the S&P/Case-Shiller home- price index, declined 1 percent in February from a year earlier, the biggest price drop since the index started in 2001. The Commerce Department is forecast to report April 27 that gross domestic product increased at a 1.8 percent annualized pace in the first quarter, matching the smallest gain in four years. Monthly figures on home resales are compiled from contract closings and may reflect sales agreed upon weeks or months earlier. Unusually warm weather at the end of 2006 helped bring out more house hunters than usual, contributing to a jump in resales in the first two months of 2007. After a January gain, existing home sales rose in February by the most in three years. Weather Effect March resales were probably pushed lower because ``the weather was particularly disruptive'' the prior month, said Mike Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado. New home sales, a more timely barometer because they are recorded when a contract is signed, may reflect improved weather last month. A Commerce Department report tomorrow may show new home sales rose to an annual rate of 890,000 in March from 848,000 in the prior month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Sales of existing homes account for about 85 percent of the U.S. housing market, and new home sales make up the rest. Defaults by subprime borrowers, or consumers with poor or limited credit histories, will limit sales this year and put more homes back on the market, economists said. Foreclosures surged 47 percent last month from a year ago, RealtyTrac Inc. reported last week. The failure or sale of 50 subprime mortgage companies has tightened the supply of money for lending. Fed Forecast Fed policy makers, who forecast the economy will expand at a moderate rate as the drag from home-construction diminishes, expect a limited impact. Subprime spillovers ``appear to have been minimal,'' Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin said last week. ``Most borrowers are not likely to face a serious credit constraint,'' Mishkin said in a speech at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. ``The market could be bottoming out.'' Housing starts in March rose for the second consecutive month, Commerce Department data showed. Building permits, a sign of future construction, also increased. Homebuilders' announcements last week suggested the market remains uneven. NVR Inc., the builder of Ryan Homes, reported that first-quarter profit beat analysts' estimates as orders rose 8 percent. Pulte Homes Inc. said new orders fell 21 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, and it will report a loss. D.R. Horton Inc., the second-largest U.S. homebuilder, reported an 85 percent plunge in its fiscal second-quarter profit as sales dropped by more than a quarter and the company had to walk away from options to buy land. ``I don't think the market is stabilizing,'' Chief Executive Officer Donald Tomnitz said on a conference call. ``Clearly our sales are not where we wanted them to be.'' The housing markets in California, Florida and Arizona ``are becoming tougher,'' he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Courtney Schlisserman in Washington at cschlisserma@bloomberg.net Bob Willis in Washington bwillis@bloomberg.net Last Updated: April 24, 2007 12:03 EDT

Carolineb and Qdog...I absolutely agree that, long term, owning a home can be the right choice. If done properly, home ownership can be both a wonderful lifestyle choice and a smart financial decision. Qdog...housing as an investment choice? I'm in your camp. However, in a real estate climate of great uncertainty, renting can be an excellent housing choice. Luckily, my area offers lots of housing choices. Many investors bought SFH's during the boom, can't sell them, and are delighted to be able to have a renter help pay their carrying costs. A smart, resourceful renter has some serious bargaining power and can really negotiate a win/win deal here. It takes some work and I looked for two months before I found this deal. I really like this current home and my landlord is encouraging me to indulge my love of gardening. Heck, my hobby adds value to his property. It works for me. The numbers REALLY work for me...at this particular moment. I do think that people should consider all available options...if you're a short-timer in my market, renting is a possibility worth examining. I have friends who were desperate to leave their condo for a SFH when their daughter turned 3. Mom wants her daughter to have a safe backyard but they can't sell their condo and afford a SFH that isn't a fixer. Based on our experience, they are now renting a SFH and leasing the condo. They are pleased as punch but their goal is to save enough money to buy. Like me, they like owning. They're not waiting for bottom...they're waiting and saving for the fundamentals to look brighter. As for moving...it's not so bad. Having moved three times in the last three years, I'm certainly motivated to keep clutter to a minimum. Nothing comes into this house that doesn't pass the "will I find it in the back of some closet a year from now" use test. LOL. But, I'm still looking for that great home to buy. Harry__Wild, it might help to point out that one thing FORTUNE magazine and CNN have in common is that they are both owned by Time-Warner. FORTUNE's online presence is hosted at CNN's Money site...which is the online host for all TW's business news. I've never really thought of FORTUNE as a liberal business media outlet.