My husband and I are in the beginning stages of house hunting to buy something this summer. Although we'll definitely look at resales, I'd also like to look at new construction. Both Milburn and KB have new developments in our price range. I haven't heard any flack about Milburn, but I know there are some real horror stories out there about KB. Can anyone share any personal experiences, good and bad? Of course, the major issues are quality of construction (interior and exterior), community development, customer service, complaint resolution, etc. Thanks in advance!
People that post here are more than likely going to blast you, but I know where you are coming from, so I'll give you my two cents. I have friends in the homebuilding industry. Basically, both Bill Milburn and Kaufman and Broad aren't that great (relatively speaking), but K&B tries to cheap their way out of everything for the most part. I have friends with Milburns, and for the most part they are happy with them. The only friend I have with a K&B home isn't real happy. I would go Milburn. It is a decent, cheap house. Just remember, like just about everything, you get what you pay for.
I bought a KB home. I love it. So there's one vote in the "for" category. But they did push the completion date back a week, which wouldn't work, becuase then we'd have had no where to live for a week since we'd already given our notice, so we had to rush them to finish. This meant that we spent a couple of weeks have customer service come out and touch some things up that weren't quite done. Customer service has been great whenever I need them. We looked at KB, Milburn and Centex, and settled on KB beause the floorplans were better. The neighbors I've talked to are all pretty happy with their homes, too. The process of buying a home with KB was a joy. Our sales counselor and design consultant were both very friendly and very helpful. My only realy complaints are that the fence contractor must have used the shoddiest wood he could find, (but the frame of the house is ok-- so it's not the same wood ), and they textured the walls after putting in the baseboards so some of the baseboards have a bit of wall texture on them. My parents have only owned milburn homes and those houses were fine. We probably would have bought milburn if the only neighborhood in the area/range we liked (cantebury trails) had at least one design my wife liked.
KB is like a Hyundai. Cheap from the ground up, but for the first part of its life looks good, and they wait until about 3 or 4 mos. after you move in until **** starts falling apart. They built my friend's home in such a way that if they forget to put the A/C hose back down (after mowing), the A/C floods into the kitchen light fixture. Milburn is like a Ford. Solid, no frills, and if you take care of it, then it'll last you a good while without too many major headaches that home owners all over the country don't suffer.
KB is doing the same thing in San Antonio that Ray Ellison did back in the 80's and what RayCo did in the 90's. If your wondering who the hell these builders are, well they no longer exist. I get the feeling that KB is just the doing the same ****: Building a crapload of houses on small lots, with no trees, then getting the hell out of town with millions of dollars in their pocket.
kb was cited for the same thing here in dallas. if you are going to make the biggest purchase of your life, go with something that will give you a peace of mind. afterall, you are more than likely be living in this house for at least 5 years. pay a little more and sleep well at night. $10k or $20k over 30 years is not that big on a monthly basis.
well, my KB home is almost 2 years old and there are no problems with it. And there are plenty of trees -- none in my lot, but other lots have 60 year old oaks still around. Maybe I just got lucky. They have gotten alot of bad press, especially recently.
I have a Milburn home that is crap. It was our first home and they pushed us into it too early to beat the end of the year and we didn't really know any better. The house is solid, but the detail work is ****. There were so many big things that were wrong and we did have them fixed, that we kind of didn't notice the details for a while. Big items: Driveway too steep to get a Maxima up it without scraping. No dryer vent connection. Garage not wired for an opener. The little things are just poor workmanship items - texture on baseboards/doors, poorly caulked windows, stain on stair rail spotty, etc. On the other hand, my brothers Milburn home is very well done. None of the problems we had at all. I would probably not buy another Milburn Home, but I wouldn' ridicule someone who did. I would simply tell them not to give an inch to them and make sure that the house is 100% right.
f Ray Ellison my dad told me about what was going on with KB in San Antonio, f KB like someone said above, if you're going to make the biggest purchase of your life, don't skimp. If you plan on this being a longterm home, you'll regret the KB purchase down the road. Can't really speak to it falling apart, because that obviously hasn't happened yet, but resale value will suck. yes, you do get what you pay for
The main thing about KB Homes that I can tell is that they are just a big volume builder. I work in real estate development and follow this stuff pretty closely. They normally build in their own communities, and I know for a fact they have people that just drive around looking for places to start new development. That keeps their costs down as opposed to going in and building homes in an established community where the lots are more expensive. The contractors that build houses do just that, build houses for lots of different people. I've heard the finish out on a KB isn't that nice, and although I know some people that work for Milburn, I couldn't tell you that much about them either. If you want to maintain your property value make sure the community has a solid set of deed restrictions. That would be the best advice I could give you for a long term home purchase in a suburban type community. Also, see if you can look at or afford Lennar they seem to build a pretty good home and they seem a little more selective on where they build. I just realized this is probably no help at all, but I'll post it anyway.
kb ain't going to disappear. they are a california based homebuilder that moved into the houston and san antonio markets primarily through acquiring smaller local builders. Many, many builders on the landscape from 15 years ago are gone, not because they were scam artists, but because they were bought out. all large home builders perfer to start their own communities because their lot cost is cheaper, and cash flow is better, kb is not the only one with this strategy. good luck to you.
Home builders are bought and sold all the time. Milburn would have disappeared long ago if DR Horton hadn't let them keep their name. They build the houses as Milburn, but acquire property (such as the soon-to-be new development across the street from my neighborhood) as Continental Homes.
Put me down as a bad experience with KB. One of my family members (a school teacher) bought a home from KB in Buda. She asked me to get some of my contacts (I used to own a construction Co.) to check out the work KB had done because "something doesn't feel right". Sure enough, I called one of my inspector friends (I highly recommend getting one to check your house out if you do not know what to look for, it is worth the money) and he said the finish out was pathetic. They put in the carpet AND THEN finished some trim and paint work inside, the carpet looked used. They promised to "fix it" and their way of fixing was to cut squares out throughout the house instead of replacing the whole carpet. When they cut the squares, my aunt took some of the pad underneath to check and see if it was what she paid for, it was not. Not only was it not the thicker pad (which to some is more important than the carpet) but when she asked a carpet co. to show her a sample of the thickness the salespersons for KB were offering as an upgrade to their customers, they told her they DO NOT even make that thickness. After they tried denying they ever said that (she caught another salesman telling another customer the same thing and now had proof), telling her it wouldn't happen again (it still did 2 weeks later), and then finally telling her it was only ONE ROOM that they made the mistake in (ironically it was the room she pulled the sample from) they caved in and replaced the pad (with an upgrade) and the carpet throughout the whole house. Of course this IS after a letter to the main headquarters, a threat to not BUY the house, and threat of a lawsuit. This does not even include that someone "broke into" her new house and stole the microwave, and stove before they moved in and KB tried to replace it with a cheaper microwave and stove. It was a nightmare.
The above experience doesn't surprise me as there were a few mistakes in options not being put into the house, etc. We were able to straighten them out pretty easily. I was also expecting them, as my family, friends, and well-intended strangers all warned me that "you have to keep an eye on them builders, they tend to screw up a lot", and that was long before we ever picked KB to do the house.
No matter who the builder is you need to go out to the site no less than every other day, to make sure that they are doing things right. of course if you don't know what to look for then it doesn't help as much, but a crew that KNOWS the future owner is going to be dropping in every day is usually a bit more attentive to their work than if the future owner is nowhere to be seen.
I have a Perry Home and have been incredibly impressed with their customer service, warranty, etc. Seems to be holding up well (so far)after 4 years.
Henry Cisneros is a big backer of KB Homes. That should tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about that piece-of-crap operation. Their homes are cheaply made. They charge you a full price, then buy ****** materials and pocket the difference. The house will fall apart within a few years, trust me. My company does a lot of work on homes in San Antonio, and everyone agrees that KB sucks.
Perry Homes is bar far the best in spec home building, but to my knowledge they don't have any central texas subdivisions. Morrison Homes is also really good.
I agree with the above post. You have to go out everyday and make sure that your home is being taken care of. I've been in the real estate field for quite some time and I've heard horror stories about every single one of the builders out there. Personally for me, the biggest thing in buying a new home is your future resale value. Do research on what sells for what after 5,6,7 years and base your search on that. There is no point in buying a home if in 5 years you can't sell it.
My fiancee and I are in the process of building a house with Gehan right now. I can't give you much of a scoop, but I know that she did a ton of research before we decided on Gehan. I remember Milburn as being on our blacklist, but I think we did consider KB for awhile. Take a look into Gehan though, and if you want to get put into contact with my fiancee, I'd be more than happy to.
