A one-star is might be too high for this company. We would give minus five stars if we can.
We worked with Sitterle last year and lost over $10,000. Their sale people and Steve VonHofe, the Division President are the worst, unprofessional people we have ever known. Their business practice is so dehumanized.
We signed the contract in July 2018 and they initially gave us the "lower" price since they said it was almost the end of the month, and they wanted to meet the sale quota. We were hooked since the price per square foot was quite low compared to other builder and plus our realtor agent was a very nice and trustworthy lady. She recommended Sitterle for us at the beginning.
We put the deposit for the preliminary contract ( $5,000 engagement design preliminary deposit and $34,000 commencement deposit) and started the architect design process.
We started with a 2 stories plan and turned out did not like it. So we had our floor plan revised to 1 story. The Architect who we worked with, also, had an extremely bad attitude, just like anyone else works for this company. We then decided to pick the 1 story plans instead of the first plan. We then, with the help from our agents, renegotiated with Sitterle to change the plan to 1 story.
Sitterle turned out to be a bad guy at this point. They proposed us back with an extremely high price quote. Their explanation was that they were just started on a new development project and it would take them 2 years to complete and their price was then increased due to that.
We knew that the price will go up if we change from 2 stories to 1 story and smaller sqft. But the price they gave us is ridiculously high (an increasing $30-$40 per sqft?). Even some of the floor plans that they owed that similar to our were not even priced at that high. They clearly took advantage of the situation that we were in the contract and they were holding our money in their pocket. And because of their upcoming big projects, they would rather focus on building that than our small custom house? Think about the time before that "big" project came up to them, we were there so they talked pretty nice and gave us a crazy low price so we can "help" them meet the quota?
Our agent did some comparatives market analysis and told us that with that new increased price they gave us, we will be at lost if we want to sell our house later.
We were extremely disappointed at that time since we were left with either move on with the old, unsatisfied 2 stories floor plan or with losing our deposit money. We then decided to keep up with the initial floor plan and want to fix a bit from the layout trying to keep the price that we were offered before. Guess what, Sitterle at this point, said that they will have a company price increase by the end of the year ?!?!?!?! It was only about 1 month left for us to make a change or we have to sign the contract again with them with the new price increase. How funny is that sound?
We immediately felt cheated and were not comfortable to move forward with this company, so we request to back out of the contract. They, again, took advantage of the situation and believe it or not, greedily kept $10,000 to their own for some of the MANAGEMENT HOUR and ARCHITECT DESIGNS, even though the price for custom drawing fee was $5,000 initially, which was still high compared to other company in the market. So we actually required to pay $5,000 for the guy name Steve, the division president for Sitterle, for him to be on several phone conversations with my agent? That was ridiculous.
Believe it or not, after that $10,000 loss, we would not be allowed to keep our paid floor plans. Sitterle denied releasing plan without any explanation.
We just couldn't believe till today a company like this can still exist. We learned our lesson in a hard way and honestly wish no one, anyone would suffer what we have been through with Sittler. Good luck with keeping our hard-earned money. You won't go far with the business practice you have done and the way you treat your customer disrespectfully.
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