We purchased a Stratford house from Doug Vander Berg. While we like the house for the most part, the process could have been much smoother.
The Good: We feel the house is well built and it is very comfortable.
The Bad: 1) Doug is very unprofessional. Communications with him were very frustrating. We did most via email as we were not in the area for most of the time and I wanted a record of what was agreed to. Doug’s answers were abrupt and incomplete. Many times I had to ask the same questions 3 or 4 times before I’d get enough information to answer the questions. When I asked him about this his excuse was “I don’t email much”! We spent well over $200 grand and he can’t facilitate communications? Get someone else to communicate then. 2) You need to question his estimates for the on site work as they are not at all complete. For example, he gave us an estimate for the basement but it did not include the concrete pumper, the drain tile or the poly wrap! When I challenged Doug re. that he simply stated he didn’t know how many times the concrete pumper will be needed; so why not state it’s not included? He said not all basements require drain tile, however our estimate said it included a sump basket! Would it not be fair to assume the drain tile was included if a sump basket is included? These are just a couple examples of how misleading the “Total Price” is.
We made all the progress payments exactly as Doug requested. Then when he wanted the last payment I advised that I wanted to withhold 5% until all of the punch list items were completed; there were several. He said he needed full payment or he would file a lien!
Re. The Stratford house. It appears the house is solidly built. However, some of the workmanship is terrible. The mounding trim was terrible; nail holes are very visible, many of the mitered joints didn’t match and the paint was very poor quality (it seemed like primer only). The paint on the door and window frames is very good, so why not the trim? When we asked about it we were told “Most customers hire someone to fill the nail holes and put a top coat of paint on the trim!”
Another example is the HVAC contractor was going to try the furnace to check the install. He just happened to notice there was no chimney on the roof even though there was one in the basement. After investigating we found the chimney extended into the attic but it stopped there. We could have burned the house down!
Again these are just some examples of many frustrations we had. We went this route vs a custom builder because we thought it would be a much smoother process. I think it was a bit less complicated but Doug Vander Berg and Stratford missed many opportunities to make it a...
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