Seasons at Middletown Place by Richmond American Homes — Local services in Middletown

I've reviewed other RAH developments in the valley, and I feel the need to keep doing so. If you are buying a home with RAH, please do so, you will be happy with the home and the valley. But I have some warnings and heads-ups for you:

RAH is focused on the bottom line. They want to build these homes as cheaply as possible to maximize their profit. Anything else they say to the contrary is just marketing (propaganda). Spare no expense? How about Spare Every Expense. Be prepared to inspect and criticize everything they do, every step of the way. If you catch any sloppy workmanship or errors early, they will correct it. But only if you speak up for yourself!

Build a house with RAH, sure, but be prepared to visit the site frequently, to make sure the details are correct. Did they install that extra windows where you asked? Are all of your doors the correct height? RAH is going so fast, mistakes are common. And if you don't catch them, they may bite you in the posterior, later on down the road, after your warranty has passed.

Do not trust your salesperson. They make mistakes, they make up answers for things on the fly to appease the customer. If you get an answer that doesn't sound quite right, trust your gut, and go above their head to ask it again. Chase down your answers until you know you can trust what you are being told!

If you finish a house with RAH, you're going to have a Home Care Specialist helping you. This person will fix little things and probably do your one-year walkthrough for touchups and corrections. This person should be ready to fix things for you, but in my experience, they couldn't make everything right. So you need to know that person's boss, the Construction manager. Find out who they are and how to reach them. If the Home Care specialist can't satisfy you, go to the Construction manager.

And so on. If the Construction Manager is letting you down, go to the VP of RAH. Last I spoke with him, he was a dunce, so be prepared to go even higher, to the President. Jack Gallagher.

Now I hope you don't have to ever do that. Maybe RAH will build you a perfect home. Maybe you will be so happy that you think this review is a crazy rant from some wingnut in the country. I'm ok with that. But I gotta warn you, in my RAH community, every single home had different problems with them. Every single homeowner is upset with the quality of the build and the response from RAH. We've had several sewer backups from collapsed lines, siding issues, shoddy paintjobs, faulty cabinetry, leaky basement foundations and more. The county has gotten involved with the worst of it, to hold RAH to task, but they can only do a little good. It's up to you to catch as much as you can, and hold RAH to their promises. Oh yeah, get every promise in writing! Do not accept anything spoken.

And get an inspection. Get two or more inspections. Get one done before they put up drywall. Hire your own inspector, don't use Richmond's. Get each inspection report and insist that RAH fix every thing on it. You will see just how your inspection earns every dollar he charges for...

Not happy with RHA at all!! Warranty items and outstanding items from our final walk through a year ago are not taken care of. They are now saying they are not fixing them and if they are, we have to do all the leg work/contact repair companies and HOA! These are some the outstanding items from a yesr ago!! We have been very patient and trusting. Our dryer and microwave were both dented when we moved in and we have consistently been promised they would be fixed. Today we were promised they would again order the parts (that we were previously told were ordered 3 times) but now they will have the parts shipped to us for us to contact GE to repair, i guess that is also our problem now AFTER A YEAR OF BEING PROMISED THEY WOULD BE FIXED! Our grading in our yard is ABSOLUTELY the worse, huge pivots and the swale in the backyard is like a pond when it rains, we can't go in our yard for days! Our sliding glass door shattered for no reason, today we were told for the 2nd time the door would be ordered.... we will hold our breath! Our front steps are cracked, our siding has bubbles, seams in our ceiling. Our bottom kitchen cabinets kept separating from the wall, we fixed that ourselves......

Went by to just look at homes. We actually ran into the superintendent there. Scott was his name and Scott was so helpful answering all our questions. We were with Scott for about 2 hours and he never gave us the feeling like he had to be somewhere. It was a Friday afternoon at that. We finally left around 6pm. Thank you Richmond for having pleasant staff and...