So to start there is no such thing as an upscale tract house. A tract house by definition is a same as the next guy's house. As for the issues those become apparent in this type of housing they do everything the same in all the houses and when you want something different it sends them into a tizzy. You know " we have always done it this way" mentality. You will need to be on top of everything that means a visit every day to check on what is happening. I have no clue what you want for quads in the electrical and no idea of the codes in your area so can't comment on that.

PCC nailed it. If you are deviating from the builder's tract home plans by requesting your own modifications, you will need to be on that Builder every day to insure you get what you want and have paid additional for. I would suggest being there first thing in the morning to review the previous days work, and review what they are planning to to on the current day's work, so you can point out your specific deviations from their typical tract build before they begin that day's work. I believe the quads you are talking about are 4 plug outlets in specific places instead of the standard two plug outlets. Best wishes on your new home.

There is a disconnect between the person receiving your changes and the person responsible for implementing and/or changes were made late in the schedule. Normal? There's a range. If its a large national, I'd say that's less organized than expected and costly to the builder. If the builder is a local tract builder, it's not surprising, but most experienced tract builders will have this under better control as this is a profit center for them. Personnel changes can cause this also.

Is it worth moving on? Not really. This industry isn't close to the precision & automation of a modern auto assembly line with menu driven changes. The builder may build only 20-30 of your model in that project, each with customizations. Redlined plans from the builder need to get to each responsible trade and get passed to each jobsite installer. That's not your responsibility but it wouldn't hurt to create your own redline pages for the walkthrough. Otherwise consider buying a completed version.

In my business there is one person responsible for receiving change requests from the client and transmitting for execution on the job site - me. It eliminates misunderstandings. That comes at a cost as I can manage only so many projects. The larger more complex projects often have a larger number of changes as clients cannot always visualize their choices.

And after reading some of the previous comments, don't expect to have daily access. Insurance and safety regulations often restrict that. You don't own the property. Remember that you already did your research and were comfortable.

Provide a written list of issues/things you want built to plans. The plans are the rule book. If the home is not built to the plans you agreed to, the builder needs to change it at their cost to meet plans. Sometimes a change is better than the original. Sometimes an outlet or other feature has to be moved a bit to work with framing/trusses/pipes etc.

If the plans do not have the details you say are wrong, it can become a who said what. So the written contract would matter.

Dual or quad outlets should be easy to switch.

Even tankless heaters need some kind of vent and piping. I don't see why they can't cover over and "disappear" any vents that are not needed.

I would give the builder a chance to fix issues. Mistakes are made even in multi million dollar completely custom homes.

A tract home can be upscale depending on price and features. Many posters on here love to put down any home that is not over a million dollars and completely custom designed by an architect. Those are just not the reality for the majority of homes in the US.

Some posters on here tend to be mean and insulting when there is no need to be that way. Ignore the negativity if you can.

HA! Really applaud that your builder is fixing the items. "They have not given us any grief about fixing things," We finished a semi custom home two years ago and it was a nightmare from start to finish and still at 2 years remains one. Take Flo's advice and make yourself a spread sheet/punch list. Be diligent with daily visits, we went every afternoon right before sunset and walked the house. I sent in my punch list every Sunday night because I knew they had their builder meetings every Monday morning.

Is this normal for a tract home to make all these simple mistakes ? Yes I would say it is common. Go check out your same model being built two doors down. Don't be surprised to see your upgrades being installed in that house. It is hard to have a successful production line when you have several different subs/workers interpreting what needs to be done and a site manager who isnt on top of it. Do they have the blue prints and a punch list up in your home somewhere to be followed? Or are the subs just walking on site with an assumption of what needs to be done?

Get to know your neighbors who are building at the same time as you and the ones already living in the community. Knowledge is power. Losing one buyer is not of any consequence to them should you decide to back out. Losing a whole street is.

Upscale tract house is an oxymoron.

And a really bad idea for your Training Wheels House #1 house. You don’t know enough about houses and living in them and fixing them to have new build be a first home. Especially at that price level. There’s a lot you’ve gotten wrong, and you have no idea, because you don’t know what you don’t know. How you get to know some of that is to start off at a lower level for a couple of years. Sweat and cuss and experiment. And learn. And improve it, and sell in a couple of years. Then move up to House 2. A bit newer and bigger. Do the same. Learn. Then sell. You’ll be ready for a new build at the end of House 2.

If you’ll only lose 15K to walk away, that’s small tuition on life and how houses are and aren’t built. And if you buy well on your House 1 Training Wheels House, you’ll more than make up for that 15K loss. In 10 years time, you’ll be miles ahead of where you think you are now.

We are just finishing a free standing condo in development similar to what you're describing. What we found was that, although we were told we could customize our home, once we "colored outside the lines" we had to really push to get some of the things we wanted. And we ended up monitoring everything on a near daily basis. (They did offer us a key early on and said we were welcome to visit the site at any time.) We found things that weren't right or were not what we specified more often than we would have liked. Our construction manager corrected them pretty quickly, but it would have cost them less to do it right the first time. My advice is to document everything and keep records. When I was able to show them the signed layout sheets and communication threads that illustrated exactly what we specified and they agreed to, they corrected it without argument. Still, it's a fair bit of work.

My brother-in-law and his wife bought the same style tract house in our development but its layout was flipped from ours. As their’s was being built, we would go over to check it out, as we did with ours. On one occasion, I thought their family room was much larger than ours until I noticed that the sliding glass door was put in too close to the kitchen. This would have shortened their counter space and cabinets by 30”. I then noticed their master bath didn’t have plumbing for a dual sink vanity. The builder said that’s how it had to be until I showed him mine. (He was also our builder.). They installed the wrong tub and had to rip it out. It was pink! Even with watching their progress, they ended up with a powder room with no vent for heat/air. This was a development of 98 homes with only five floor plans and they still screwed it up. I would advise you to go weekly to check their progress.

Very normal for tract home crews to be making mistakes all the time. You would think their profit margins must be huge if they can afford to have to fix and redo things 2 or 3 times!

You need to become the polite, but insistent, squeaky wheel. Document your findings with email, photos and a voice mail, then keep following up as necessary. Include the sales rep, job foreman and project manager, and any others involved, in your emails.

My parents just built their 4th tract home and my father has become really good at being that polite squeaky wheel, even at 84 years old he still got it done.

Sigh. Very Common in tract building. Lucky for you, you are catching the errors before it’s complete and much more costly to fix.

OP, in your place I'd continue with the house that's under contract to be built for you and document each and every problem in writing and with photos as Chispa suggested. Submit your list of issues/problems to the company at least once a week and even more frequently if something needs to be addressed immediately. Act as if the builder will, of course, make everything right.

We've owned a dozen homes and helped our kids with several more. Our own houses have ranged from very small (<900 SF) to ridiculous (>8,000 SF) and have included both tract and custom houses. I could tell sad tales about both types. Not one has been without flaws, and the custom homes had just as many as the tract ones. Builders and subcontractors are humans prone to make mistakes just like the rest of us.

Everything you mentioned can, and should, be corrected. We once purchased a tract house because there were no other options when/where we wanted a second home. It was already under construction, but we were able to select all interior finishes except the cabinets that had already been ordered. Our choices overrode the builder's design center selections, but someone failed to inform the site supervisor and so he continued to follow the original plan. The company probably lost money on that house as every last item was eventually corrected, from paint colors to backsplash to counters.

Don't let these temporary problems steal your joy in owning your first home. Continue to point out anything that deviates from your contract and don't close until you're confident that everything has been corrected. Then once you're in your new home, try to forget any construction hassles and enjoy making the house your home.

There is definitely such a thing as upscale tract home. Some tract homes around here 2-3x the size and price of our custom home, fancier in every way.

I do think you need to check things weekly or so . Just based on my one experience, attention to detail is required when building People who are not detail oriented either need to hire a designer to oversee or not build new in my opinion. Also you need to trust yourself and speak up but also be flexible. Not that you are not these things but just reflecting on our own Experience there are some traits that help the process.

When we built, the builders asked us to check the progress routinely and if we saw something that needed attention, to please alert them but to not discuss with the subs, that way all communication came from the same source. I think your experience is par for the course.

As our house was being built, we caught several mistakes during our scheduled walk through with the builder at the various stages of construction. Before we closed, we hired an independent inspector to thoroughly inspect the house. He found several things that needed to be fixed or modified. We refused to close on it until everything was repaired or completed.

@thewinterking - "Spouse is thinking we should look at attempting to fire the builder if things like this keep happening."

You can't "fire the builder." The developer contracts with the builder. If you want to work with a different builder, you'd have to either purchase in a different development or build a custom home.

I've had my name on the title to four homes. The very first was a custom home, but it had been custom built for a previous owner. The second, third, and fourth (our current home) are tract homes. All were purchased as brand new homes, but with differences. The first tract home had fallen out of escrow, so when we bought it the only decision we were allowed to make was the flooring. Counters and backsplash were already installed. The second tract home had been one of the models, so there were lots of upgrades, but, of course, everything was done and we got to make zero decisions or changes.

We purchased our current (tract) home when it was in the framing stage (30 years ago), and we were allowed to make some changes and got to choose flooring, counters, etc., but only from the choices that the builder offered. We also were able to add more phone jacks, cable outlets, electrical outlets, and gas log lighters for the two wood-burning fireplaces. We also specified that a few of the outlets were to be in locations other than where the builder usually put them. For example, in one of the extra bedrooms that is my "office," we added a cable outlet and we specified where it was to go, and also specified that the closest electrical outlet be repositioned (still within the code-specified distance). In the master bedroom, we specified that an electrical outlet that would normally be under a large window be instead located just to the side of the window -- because we wanted to someday-in-the-future replace the window with French doors opening onto a to-be-built-in-the-future balcony. The electrician, even though he hadn't been told of our future plans, suspected as much because of the new position for the outlet (as well as the fact that we added an outdoor outlet just to the side of the window on the exterior of the house). So, instead of running electrical wiring under the window as they normally would, ran it up the side and over the top of the window so we wouldn't have to worry about cutting through it when we put the door in. Nice!

Every Friday on my way home from work I would stop by the construction site and walk through, taking photographs with a 35mm Canon SLR camera. If anything had been done incorrectly, I had proof of it. I also have great documentation of where every plumbing pipe is, where every electrical wire is, etc.

And, yes, there were times when I would find that things had been done incorrectly - both things that we added, as well as standard things.

"They have not given us any grief about fixing things, but at what point do they just do it right the first time?"

They'll only do it right the first time when they are building their own home. Other than that, they really don't care. But, consider yourself very lucky that they haven't given you grief about fixing things. The developer of our current home gave us a hard time every time we pointed out something that had been done incorrectly. And I would always tell them that either they fixed it now, when it was easy to fix, or they could wait until the construction was finished and it would be more difficult and expensive for them. For example, the shower head in the master shower was installed too low. It was too short for me (I'm 5' 6") so I knew it would be truly awful for my husband. The builder balked at changing it. I pointed out the the shower head in the model home was a good foot higher than the one in our home (yes, I had photos with a measuring tape), and that it would be easier to fix now than for them to have to rip out the solid slab of marble on that wall, as well as the drywall, to raise it after we took possession. They fixed it.

As others have already said, visit the site regularly, take photos, and document everything.

And enjoy your new home!

Since the builder isn't giving you any grief about "fixing" things, continue with the builder as your chance of finding another builder to finish the project without extra cost or even finding a builder that can jump onto your project right now will be pretty slim. My experience with builders is that in the "olden" days the builder would actually be on the project swinging the hammer but now they have become everything but the "builder." They have a Project Manager for your build but usually that Manager is also "managing" several other projects so the focus isn't 100% on your home. So then it comes down to the subcontractors and crews. There is a huge shortage of "crews" that have much experience in building homes. When these crews are building tract homes they are usually fine as long as everything is the same ( such as water heaters) from one house to the next. But as you are experiencing make changes and problems arise. Moving forward, you have to become your own Project Manager and as Sara says- discuss the issues directly with the builder and not the subs and keep a good diary of the problem and the resolution. Building is stressful but hang in there as down the road most of these issues you won't even remember.

When you take pictures, take a tape measure. You want to document what is behind the walls.

People just don't care. I know that sounds awful but they want to do it and move on. The lack of accountability is shocking. We have a custom home and even still had to micromanage so much in order for it to be decent. I resented it the whole way through as we paid a project manager and site supervisor to do those very things that they clearly did not. But I also now know that is part of the process. It is ultimately my home and if I want it done right I need to come every day and check the progress all the time. It is the only way.

"There is definitely such a thing as upscale tract home."

No it is still just a tract home but possibly larger and the standard finishes are better, at an obviously higher price point. Other than that its the same subs he used for the affordable subdivision he built last year........................

It’s not uncommon for the tradesmen to speak English as a second language. And tract housing is like an assembly line - the subcontractors who are doing all the work go from house to house to house doing the exact same thing. So yes, changes do send them into a tizzy. Hope things go a bit smoother!

On anything as big and complicated as building a home, some mistakes are going to happen. People are rarely perfect and building a home involves like a million things. Carp happens. :) They're fixing it. If you need perfection from square 1, building a home may drive you insane.

Sounds like you're building with a production builder. Their business model is to replicate particular model plans quickly and efficiently. Some are pretty good at doing that. Some will upsell options to boost profits. Changes and customization are not consistent with their business model. Don't expect them to be good at them.

It shows that some people chime in who have no idea how something is done in another state.

TX most definitely has “upscale” tract homes. Yes, tracts. As in developed by a big corporation in a master planned community but with several different floor plans and elevations that cannot be repeated by HOA covenants.

Some of these look super high end.

There are in fact ultra upscale tract homes. I just visited a subdivision of $1.8M homes in Atlanta last Sunday. You can certainly build a custom home for less than that in Atlanta.

Tract refers to backward vertical integration where the builder buys undeveloped land, develops the land by installing roads and utilities and then builds houses on the lots, making profit from the lot and the house. It has nothing at all to do with the quality of the house. I know a gentleman who does tract developments who is very high end, each house is designed by an architect specific for that property. So these are not even production homes, but they are still tract homes as he moves a significant amount of the profit to the lot development.

The typical tract builder will make profit from the land, sell the basic house at or near cost and then make profit from the add-ons. However, let's be clear, tract or production builders are not lower quality as a function of being tract or production builders, there is just a lot of demand for those types in the market. If there is a enough demand for it, you will find a builder willing to meet that demand... We have another builder who is only building LEED Zero community. I assure you that you don't get a LEED certified Net Zero home using cheap labor and inferior products.

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To the OP - mistakes happen in every build from custom to production and often are a real battle to get fixed, even on custom builds. I am sure the mistakes are concerning to you but what you have described sounds like a communication problem, and while concerning, those things are getting fixed. I don't think these issues are worth walking away over.

We just moved into the second custom home that we had built. Even with a custom home, there were errors (which got fixed), and were handled mostly amicably.

If you know someone who is knowledgeable about home building, consider hiring that person to help you review the house as it is built. That will help you feel better that there aren't any mistakes/errors that you couldn't see.

Stay pleasant, be willing to work things out. For example, one of the more amusing mistakes was that the tile guys put our (nicer) master bathroom tile in the laundry room. I offered to not have them rip it out if they charged us the original and contracted-for price for the cheaper tile. Or another thing, there was a disagreement about placement of the kitchen island. Based on the construction plans, the builder and we felt it should be placed in different places. We gave on that one, and paid to have it moved over (to where we thought it was supposed to be in the first place).

My first build was with a local tract builder. Early on, my GC told me that he has never built a perfect house - even when building his own house. Stuff happens. Custom or tract.

In my market, we don't have upscale tract very often except condos and townhomes (if we want to count these which are essentially all tract). Toll Brothers could be considered an upscale tract by some but certainly not to discerning house customers. $500k in Texas is probably something like Toll.

But of course, upscale means different things to different people.

A/C connections on wrong side - that sounds like a big deal. Must not be since you can live with it but that is something so clearly specified and discussed because changing it would be huge. And it most of the time is not something you can live with. In my house, I wouldn't have a driveway. This to me is the only red flag issue of yours. The rest is par for the course. I just can't fathom having the a/c in the wrong place (large house, multiple units).

You have received the best advice for building a "tract" home with changes.

Be on site everyday. You need to babysit the job if you want it to turn out the way

you want it. As stated, even very high end homes have mistakes made.

This will be part of your learning curve for when you build home 2 and 3.

Good luck, and don't despair. A lot of us have been thru this process and

it's worth the effort.

I would even venture to say be on site morning and afternoon. BIL passed his build everyday on the way to work..stopped coming and going and STILL there were major miss steps. In the end it is your time line that gets messed up IF you have a contractor willing to always fix at their cost their mistakes!! BIL's house was put on the lot deeper than planned. Cost him THOUSANDS in driveway cement. Ya don't re-dig a basement!! I think ESPECIALLY with a tract home..it isn't the contractor that is the issue. It is all the trades he has hired to do all these homes..they don't have to LOOK at the specs..they do this all the time THEY KNOW...hahahahaha

Mistakes happen on all types of builds. Expect that they will continue to happen. You have to visit the site often and look at everything,

Our build was semi-custom. We had a similar incident with ac/heat pump placement. I partially blame myself on this because it was not on the plans and we never discussed with our builder. You know what they say about assuming. I assumed they would be put on the other side of the house. That side of the house faces woods and a hollow. They would be below a powder room not any bedrooms. It made the most sense. The way our house is situated on our lot the side of the house faces the road in order to take advantage of views. We arrived onsite one day and see that all the connections for the units were on the side of the house that faced the road. Not only were these ac units going to be facing the road they would have been right below our master bedroom windows. This is where the foreman/site manager decided they would go. They got moved. Wrong paint color being used for a bedroom. We caught that. Various other things got caught because we were onsite almost every day.

So yes mistakes are a normal part of building. You have to try and be on top of everything. You need to visit the site as often as you are able. Don’t assume anything.

Thanks for all the solid ideas and thoughts. Quick update - we called our realtor and told him what was going on - he wasn’t happy. He went in to the office and talked to the building realtor about things. Time will tell how this turns out - but now we will be keeping him in the loop with all further communications.

When building a house, if you have not hired someone to observe and report on the progress and quality of the work, that person will have to be you. A tract builder will try to make that task difficult or pointless but its up to you to find a way to do it and it appears you have at least opened up a channel of communication. I would hire someone with construction knowledge who only works for you and gives you reports in writing. I do this for all my clients so issues are only brough to their attention when they involve money.

Lots of good advice. We are in a tract home that was framed and winterized when we found it in January. Only studs on the inside, so we were able to move a few walls to better suit our needs. In our case, the realtor kept track of our selections. We were told that these were reviewed by the site clerk to ensure our modifications were followed. Sounds good, but not necessarily followed. For instance, the standard was to install a certain type of wainscoting in the dining room. This was not our style so we asked for pricing for something else-which was outrageous so we opted for none. Stopped by on a Friday night and found the standard installed. Thankfully it was clearly stated in our selections document, so no questions with tearing it out. The following Monday morning we went by and found the person who had installed it now undoing his work. He was not happy. I asked why he installed it when we had said not to on the selection document. His response of, “I don’t look at that and just do it like the others,” was a red flag for us to keep on top of everything with even more diligence. Glad we did, as I now have the home I wanted. It amuses me when neighbors come in and see the different things we changed from the standard and say, “I didn’t know you could ask for that.” For the most part, these are intelligent, savvy professionals who are downsizing to a 55+ community and paying cash for their new home. Lawyers, engineers, college professors. Amazing.