Don’t buy that house.

I see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary really. Basic tract build quality. You are looking at rough framing and it very well may loook rough, especially in a tract home. You will not get the attention to detail you will with a custom builder.

That looks like the quality of a certain big builder starting with an L. If so, do a google search on all the issues they have had.

I suggest walking through the house with your builder and ask them every question you have about your concerns. It will be educational to you both.

A lot of that is awful. I have a tract house and rough framing was nowhere near that rough. That’s too bad about the inspection. I was allowed one and was happy to hear of only minor fixes needed.

I agree with Mark about asking the builder for a walkthrough.

That's a whole lotta nuthin', with the possible exception of the kinked ducts.

Subfloor gaps are required by the manufacturer to prevent buckling. Same with roof sheathing.

Plenty of your pictures of wood not fitting together perfectly are of blocking which only has to hold up drywall and that doesn't take much.

All the mold-stained wood got that way in storage; now that it's properly ventilated it's a non-issue except cosmetically and no one is going to look at it except now.

Yeah, there's a split at the end of a board, but every single hole of the strap is filled with what appears to be the proper fastener. I'll take a slight split over missing fasteners anytime.

Some of the pictures are taken up so closely that I can't tell what's going on.

"We are trying to get a pre-drywall inspection done but our contract won't allow anything before final walk-through without seller permission."

I can understand why.

If you want an inspection you have to pay for and contract your own independent inspector. Do that to get a professional opinion before asking for fixes.

Research & find the best builder in your area in your desired price range before buying. There are a couple in my region (Sac CA) that exceed the quality of many custom specs.

A lot of this may have no negative on structural integrity, but for me the overall sloppiness of the cuts and the fastening with nails going every which way with some hitting their marks and some not has some predictive value of the level of finish of everything else from here on out. Do you really think the same builder brings in great sheet rockers and tapers and finish carpenters to finish this off?

Prepare yourself to read most of the drywall seams, and sloppy millwork miters, and improperly filled nail holes and blobby caulk and an amateurish paint job to top it all off.

Agreed - every trade that comes in after that builds onto this sloppiness (that is structurally sound) will be an opportunity to enhance the waviness / unevenness / appearance. Each will blame the trade prior - as drywall cannot be flat and plumb if the walls are not. Millwork won't conform to a wavy wall. Drywallers can't perform miracles if walls don't meet properly, Painters can't cover bad drywall mudding, etc etc. And each step of the way, the issue is magnified.

I would look for the oldest house in that new neighborhood and go talk to the owners. Ask them how they feel about the quality of the build after having lived in the home. Ask how responsive the builder has been in making repairs. If the answers are all negative, then I would contact a lawyer ASAP for help getting out of the contract.

I don't mean to be harsh, but due diligence is best performed prior to signing a contract. Part of that due diligence is touring homes under construction to calibrate your expectations about the construction quality you can expect from a particular builder.

Honestly, a lot of people do not see cheap materials and cosmetic defects when they are looking at properties on tours. They get a general impression of "New" and "never lived in by anybody else", size, to some extent, and a checklist of whether it has the amenities they want.

I live with a realtor, before that we had friends that were realtors, I look at a lot of real estate in person, and most of the new construction I see is cosmetically lousy when finished. And remodeled projects same.

And the people I am with generally ooh and ahh because it has tall ceilings and big windows, and a master suite with a dressing area or whatever. They don't seem even See any of the details, let alone be bothered by any of them. That's why HGTV and such is so popular and effective. A good general impression overall is what is held as most important, not actual craft. I am really not sure that people even know what to look for anymore because most people have not seen something really great to even compare it to, and that's not really their fault. It shouldn't have to be a high end luxury builder who can pound a nail in straight and drywall without showing the seams and fill nail holes and paint with out blobs and boogers all over. And that's even disappearing in the luxury market around here because luxury doesn't mean quality really, it means sheer volume.

@ Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor said, "Research & find the best builder in your area in your desired price range before buying. There are a couple in my region (Sac CA) that exceed the quality of many custom specs."

Can you give the names of those builders in the Sacramento region? If you don't want to do it in the forum, you could message me.

@Charles Ross Homes, yeah, I would have gone knocking on doors before I signed a contract, but a bit late for the OP to do that, so next best thing would be to do some research while they might still be able to get out of the deal with minor "injuries".

Lindsey - Start with Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor

"A good general impression overall is what is held as most important, not actual craft." Agree 100% About 20 years ago I attended a presentation about how homebuyers assessed quality. It was sponsored by Merillat. They measured the time spent by hundreds of prospects touring a builder's model home and interviewed them afterwards. Homeowners rated the quality of a mediocre kitchen as in the "luxury" category and the builder as a "quality builder" because the kitchen had granite tops and stainless steel appliances. Go figure.

"Big builder" and the new neighborhood probably means spec and you only have a deposit, don't own the land. Nothing to see here.

Some other items talked about in the OP not in pictures:

- window is left out because that's where the drywall will come through for the upstairs.

- shards of wood between gaps at doors are shims

- steel beams show surface rust immediately, and already have rust when they sit outside in the steel fabricator's yard - inherent with steel and no problem.

- some loose ducts and insulation sometimes protrude, it is just temporary. The drywall pushes it back in.

Nobody can predetermine how a builder performs - there are too many variables for each project - time, cost, weather, subs, logistics - and that can change even on the spec house across the street from this one. This house, whether spec or a $20million custom, can have problems after Certificate of Occupancy, or it might not. There is no secret formula with so many varied systems, humans, numbers, and materials coming together in a building. All you can do is try and minimize your risk with whoever you hire, from a G.C. to the lawn maintenance guy to your doctor. G.C.'s hire many subs, so even if the G.C. walks around and points out all the same things in this thread to his subs, those subs will never want to work for this G.C. again. Which is a benefit (beyond insurance liability) of why the target market for these types of homes do not allow construction walk-throughs - that market is too unfamiliar with the process of building and is mainly concerned with Ann Sacks backsplash tile and where the Hobby Lobby "Family" sign sits on the mantel.

There is only one way to insure that something is built the way you want it - do it yourself. And it appears that almost all of the people who comment on these kinds of threads have never actually built anything, so they would not even be able to meet their own standards if they did it themselves. The point is you have to be reasonable in your expectations and understand limits for what something is.

The lack of effective window flashing is the one issue that will cause future problems. (The author of the linked 2008 article says it cost him $15 and 10 minutes extra labour per window, so there's why you've got a strip of housewrap instead.)

The rest is mostly a sloppy tract build. FWIW, we've never used OSB for anything but wall sheathing. (Stems from when my building partner fell right through an OSB sheathed roof.)

Just going to respond to everyone as a whole because well, this took a turn!! Lol Figured the amateur photo notes (aka "ummm?") was a pretty clear indicator but prob should've stated upfront — we literally don't know anything about construction. The 1 am post lacked context because I'm running on fumes as a first-time mom back at work, without daycare and trying to manage this process on my own to get us out of our rental. But now that I'm here, I'll jump on the rant grenade and provide some EXTRA context! 😊

The entire point of my post was to help us manage expectations. The neighborhood changed builder hands a year ago and in the last phase, contractors straight up left the job site so the existing homes aren't a good basis for judgment. The mold and HVAC rough-in were my biggest concerns because SC has zero protections against mold and we are part of the lucky few who discovered this first-hand! We spent the last 2 years playing guessing games with doctors to find out that all these question mark illnesses are from, you guessed it... Mold. After being in a rental with shoddy ductwork, where HVAC problems required installation of a new system that ultimately brought with it humidity levels between 65-80% as well as condensation on the windows/mirrors plus thousands of dollars in medical bills, air purifiers and allergen protections — we felt a new build was in our best interest.

However, those extra shiny, custom built houses on a nice lot come with a much higher price tag than you would ever believe for this area (looking at you seven figures 👀). Almost any land you would hope to build on is already spoken for by either a) other big builders selling the exact same model — no, literally copy and pasted — every 6 feet or b) bigger city transplants who paid for it in cash. Legit no offense to them — I respect it. We left our 6 figure corporate jobs in DC right before Covid to be closer to family and grow our own businesses... Then the area exploded and we are feeling the sting of that commitment now more than ever.

But ultimately, the custom route would've pushed us into a lengthy timeline (another rental) with only the option to either a) build on an overpriced, uncleared lot further out than is feasible or b) build in an area that is just one wrong turn away from parts of town that give law enforcement extra job security (or if you're super lucky, both!). So we saved ourselves the extra $300-500k and chose one of the few neighborhoods left with inventory that was a step above copy-and-paste and still met our self-employed, work-from home, I'd like our fam to not be sick needs.

Anyway, all that to say — the response I received is exactly why I asked the dumb questions here so I could prepare myself for a conversation with my CM before any inspection talk. I asked for opinions on the construction because I truly don't know what I don't know and well, I prefer to question the work integrity in a manner that doesn't directly affect the relationship with the team putting a roof over our head. Harsh comments are totally fine so long as they are superseded by value, but if a condescending tone is copy and pasted every six feet throughout, I'm not your target market my friends. Since some of you are familiar, might I suggest you search for threads started by someone who is in fact perusing the aisles of Hobby Lobby, boasting about their new granite countertops to next door Nancy and exchanging streaming passwords so they can get their Joanna Gaines fix. She don't live here. 😏

Much appreciation to those who addressed the photos, sought to inform me on what I was seeing and exercised tact in the delivery of their feedback! And if you made it this far, you're the MVP so *** here's an update*** Our CM is bringing in mold remediation. And we're getting an inspection scheduled before drywall. Thanks for your part in helping me due my diligence. You deserve to live, laugh, love. ✌🏼

If I came off as condescending because I said people note general impressions and not details I didn't mean to be condescending even though it probably sounded like it. I think that it's kind of been bred into people that if you pay for something the work is going to be of a certain quality and if you pay more for something the quality is going to be even better, and I don't think it works that way anymore. You're not really programmed (that's probably not the right word) to look at certain things because the assumption is that the overall quality has been taken care of.

Why would you know what good house framing looks like? Most people aren' t in the construction business. (Even though I agree that most of these things have no structural consequences, to me the lack of overall care is predictive that the finish quality is not going to be that great, that's my opinion).

And lots of people may not have ever seen really great craftsmanship in a modern house so they don't have a lot to compare to.

In terms of noticing things in big general terms, either in construction or in existing houses, when I was doing some design work I had a client who didn't notice that one of the windows in their just built house was in the wrong place. But maybe why should she? They were reputable builders and the assumption was they would do everything right.

I had a client with a medium aged house (1960s) who never noticed that all the windows in their house were 6 over 6 except for one window which was 8 over 8. And it was next to a 6/6 window on the exterior. It just happened to be in it's own room in the house.

I went on a house tour of a really expensive house with lots of minimalist details: trimless door jambs, flush base boards, Lots of very expensive details to create a very minimal environment. My friend's impression was " This house is so expensive but it doesn't even have any nice mouldings or anything", When I said it was more expensive because there was no millwork around the doors and such to cover up gaps between the door and the wall and gaps at the floor they said "What do you mean? If I took off the trim around my doors isn't there just a wall under there?

None of these people were stupid at all, they just either had never really been in a house that was being built, or they don't know much about construction details or they have never done a DIY project, but why should they? There are plenty of things outside my profession or areas of interest that I know nothing about.

Lastly, where I grew up, even the tract houses that sprang up all at once in the early 70s were well-built. They were less expensive because they were smaller, had basic finishes (carpet and sheet vinyl), basic trim and inexpensive bathrooms and kitchens. But they were well built. Now, the houses that were built down my block for $2M are the same quality as the $300K houses built in slum clearance areas on cheaper pieces of land.

Maybe not even as good: All six had all the exterior brick and sheathing (and it was real brick) and roofing removed and replaced. Some of them got all new windows. One of them which was unihabitable because of mold. It had the interior gutted as well. This happened when the houses were probably about 8 years old. Obviously there were lawsuits. One of the houses is now on the market for $3M because the builder is trying to recoup their losses. (This is a lot more $ than the typical house in the neighborhood, I do not live in a multi million neighborhood).

@Heather there is nothing wrong with not being aware of construction, and I don't see anyone chastised you for it. Hopefully after this project you can contribute to other threads asking the same questions. Having the mold remediation done is a good thing, I would suspect that with a new builder taking over they are keen to make things right - at least here in the beginning before they get worn down - so you might have a window to push for some other things your inspection might see.

The latter soliloquy in the 2nd of my comments was meant for the commenters. The way these spec build threads go you read "forfeit your deposit" and "look for another builder." Like a train commenters pile on when they don't even know what they are looking at. It boggles my mind how anyone can make a blanket statement to just walk away - this isn't a widget you can get anywhere - it is a specific location and the builder is the builder. And picking a new contractor somewhere else involves the same process - based on the final result, not the entire project, and that is blurred by the location, cost, and staging anyway. Even great contractors have bad projects.

Even worse are the layout and plan threads - advice to tear it down or just move, like it's such an easy thing to do. Those even involve commenters who can't read plans (some pros included).

Sorry, another soliloquy.

Lowcountry SC housing prices have skyrocketed beyond average income. The average middle class family cannot afford anything other than tract here. Finding land to build your own home that isn’t in a swamp is near impossible. And there are different “price levels” of the tract homes, but unfortunately, the higher priced homes are priced as such based on zip code and some of the finishes, not really the quality. I am glad you got some good advice, and it sounds like you are getting the mold remediation, so that is great. Good luck!