Builder's test finds high levels of arsenic at Wellington project
In preliminary testing Centex Homes has found high levels of arsenic contamination in the groundwater and some arsenic contamination in the soil of its Oakmont Estates project, according to a report released by state environmental officials on Friday.Testing done by Earth Tech in Orlando found arsenic in the groundwater at up to 16 times the state's safe level, said Stephen Webster, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The state's safe level is 10 parts per billion. Centex found readings as high as 160 parts per billion in the groundwater of its unfinished neighborhood off U.S. 441.

South Bay Beaches Housing Bubble 
... $3,120 a month on a high-end Fusion home. I am no financial wizard. It looks waaaaay too complicated for my taste, and I don't like prepayment penalties at all. Why all the complication? A fixed rate 150 year mortgage would be easier to understand than this gobbledygook! Show me a table of what my payment, principal, and interest are for the next umpteen years, that's what I want to see. When I studied the Centex complex, the units, and then the pictures I took, I decided it wasn't the colors that made the place seem drab to me, it was the architecture. The Centex complex strikes me as very "institutional" looking, with the units looking almost like the city tenements of 80-100 years ago.

Lenexa Woman: New House Is Falling Apart
Susan Sabin bought the house less than five months ago, and she said shortly after she moved in, she started noticing problems, such as cracks in the foundation and doors that won't shut... "It's such an accelerated rate, and the engineer told me that he didn't know what was going on with my house, but it's happening very fast," Sabin said. She said the builder, Pulte Homes, isn't helping."Warranties are only as good as what the builder will do," Sabin said.

String of arsons grows
Jeremy Taub would never have bought the newly constructed house in South Bexar County if he'd known that someone had torched three unfinished houses on the same street four months earlier...Roused by a neighbor at 3 a.m., Taub and his wife carried their 2-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son from their beds and stood in the street to watch as the flames, carried by the wind, gutted their own house...In June, residents reported seeing two cars outside a home under construction on Arkansas Oak moments before it burned down. Less than two weeks later, someone reduced two more unfinished homes on the same block to rubble. The wooden frame of Taub's soon-to-be house also was charred in that blaze, prompting the builders to knock it down and rebuild it, Maris recalled.

Pulte named in lawsuit
Five local painters filed a wage and hour lawsuit Friday in federal court against two contractors and one of the Las Vegas Valley's biggest home builders.The class action lawsuit claims that Centennial Drywall Systems and Burnham Painting and Drywall Corp. -- both contractors that Pulte Homes retains to perform work on its local new homes -- have failed to pay the plaintiffs for overtime work performed within the past four years.

Del. contractor files $10M lawsuit against home builder
Lawyers for a Delaware contractor will tour the site of the Glen Riddle development today as part of their preparation to seek more than $10 million, which they say is owed to their client, from building giant Centex Homes...The Delaware contractor has already won one breach of contract battle with Centex. Horsey obtained a lien against Centex/Taylor from Circuit Court on Aug. 11, 2004, for just over $2.3 million.

Delays dog Del Webb defect cases
...lawsuits filed against Del Webb claims that plumbing, roofing, retaining walls and concrete slabs are defective, with alleged defects costing about $30,000 in repairs per home... When the "Right to Repair" law was passed by the Nevada Legislature in 2003 it was hailed as the key to stopping the tide of construction-defect lawsuits that many said was slowly killing the industry. But three years since that law was passed nothing has changed, many in the construction industry have said. If anything, construction-defect cases haven't decreased since the Right to Repair law was passed. At least one industry insider said that in spite of the Right to Repair law, construction-defect cases continue to be filed and the numbers continue to increase. See related article: Homebuilder's Right-To-Repair Illusion