Is Quality Building a thing of the past?

Since Keith and I are fairly new to Vail, we are still trying to gather a lay of the land, so to speak. We're calling vendors, realtors, land developers, trade people, HOA presidents and homeowners and finding out what the needs are here in Vail. What we are discovering is a bit disturbing to say the least. We come from an Ohio where homes have to be able to withstand a lot of freeze thaw situations and so they are built differently than Vail/ Tucson area. I'm not going to say one way is better than another but I will say that we felt we needed to build a higher quality house than was required by code here in Vail. Last year we bought an acre parcel and built a home that we were willing to live in if it didn't sell. If you wanna see the building process you can check it here. We weren't sure how the market was going to go and we were ready for anything, really. When we were finished with the house that was truly a labor of love and a dream come true for us the final inspector told us it was the most well-built house he'd ever walked through. Keith and I were kinda dumbfounded because it wasn't really all that amazing. It was a quality house but it wasn't like it had all the bells and whistles in the world.

Honestly, we shouldn't have been that surprised after walking through many houses in the area we noticed a few ways builders were saving money but not necessarily making the best product for their clients. One way was keeping the square footage of the house just below 3,000 square feet. Why? To keep from having to install a second air handler unit. Believe me I didn't want to put in a second air handler either but the house needed proper closets and bedroom square footage, deep enough garage to walk around the car, not to mention, storage space. So we bit the bullet and built a home for a family that would actually meet their needs. Another red flag we saw was the lack of air returns in the homes. Many of the homes we walked through had 1. Supposedly this is fine and the cracks under doorways will help move the air around in your house. Well, not according to the neighbor we talked to who said his never cooled down. We put TEN air returns and the house cooled in literally 5-10 minutes. Seriously, the neighbor would come over and bask in it. Air returns in every room really help your HVAC system work efficiently and if you have 2800 square foot house in AZ 1 unit may not be enough. Just something to think about before you buy a home.

A few months ago, we walked through a 1.2 million dollar house just to see what we could aspire to and were walked away shocked! Not only at the absolutely ridiculous floor plan but absolutely shoddy construction. There was a shower in the laundry room and a toilet across the hall from it and a pantry across a hallway from the kitchen. Just not something I would expect from a 1.1 million dollar price point. All the trim was floating on top of the carpet!!!! The walk in shower had a tiny opening like my husband would have to turn sideways. But the REAL humdinger was a stone kitchen table that had way too long of an UNSUPPORTED span. I'm talking don't lean on it, heaven forbid someone from sitting on it. Literally, a huge accident waiting to happen for some poor unsuspecting future home owner. Truly, a house of horrors.

Anywho, fast forward to two days ago when I was talking to flooring supplier in the area, the owner of Vail Floors, (not Vail Flooring because the LED sign cost $800 more for the 'ing) and he told me that people were having to renovate fairly new homes in a nearby development because of shoddy construction practices. Ugh! He said entire bathroom floors were disconnecting from the sub floor. Meaning every time you walk on your bathroom floor it makes creaking and moaning sounds and is going to literally break under your weight. He said wall tiles were falling off and many other situations. What a total disaster. Think of the builders reputation, people are livid (one tradesmen said it was like going into a hornets nest), and the word is going to get out that his product is crap. Is the builder having to deal with warranties and going back and fixing problems on his own dime? I dunno. However, just managing the project taking a little more time to research products would and who was installing would've made a huge difference in the lives of the homeowners.

Taking someone's biggest investment and not taking your time and putting in the right attention to details is gross negligence. I know why this happens everyone thinks time is money. Taking more time to build something correctly is not always more money its future revenue, it creates good community, in 20 years will Vail look like a trash heap of homes that no one can afford to fix? These are real issues. Just think of the waste in building materials that are increasingly hard to come by. People have to do better.

That's my spiel. If you are interested in building a home in Tucson/Vail area and want a building/design team that is committed to excellence and will make you choose quality construction over gourmet kitchen appliances (unless you have the money for both then you won't have to choose) then we're your team. Our schedule is filling up for 2023, so if you have a future project in mind call us, text us, or send us an email.