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Pulte Offers To Buy Back Damaged Homes in Texas
The builder has not addressed other residents� complaints of reduced property values, leaving some angry. �We�ve worked all our lives for nothing,� resident Dell Hammett told the San Antonio Express-News. �It makes us sick.� But since the collapse, six homes have sold at prices similar to before the slope�s failure, Ms. Dolenga said, a sign the community is holding value. In late January, about 90 houses were evacuated following a �significant soil movement� underneath some of the homes.
Pulte Offers To Buy Back Damaged Homes in Texas
By Dawn Wotapka
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Pulte Homes offered to purchase 27 San Antonio homes damaged by a January retaining-wall collapse that created crevices up to 15 feet deep and eight feet wide.
The builder will also erect a new wall, a six-month project with a price tag estimated between $4 and $5 million. Work will begin following city approvals and permits. Given that time commitment, Pulte�s Centex division, which built the homes in this development known as Rivermist, offered to buy back the units deemed uninhabitable.
Pulte, the nation�s largest builder, will also cover moving costs, home improvements and reasonable legal fees. For owners who want to keep their homes, it will provide or fund alternative housing until the new wall is finished and certified.
Spokeswoman Valerie Dolenga couldn�t provide a total cost Thursday.
The community�s average selling price is $200,000, though some of the affected homes commanded more because they are bigger and offer city views. Two of the affected addresses have already closed for an undisclosed sales price.
The builder has not addressed other residents� complaints of reduced property values, leaving some angry. �We�ve worked all our lives for nothing,� resident Dell Hammett told the San Antonio Express-News. �It makes us sick.� |
AP Wire
Crevices, some 15 feet deep, are shown outside three homes at the Rivermist subdivision in San Antonio
| But since the collapse, six homes have sold at prices similar to before the slope�s failure, Ms. Dolenga said, a sign the community is holding value.
In late January, about 90 houses were evacuated following a �significant soil movement� underneath some of the homes. Most owners returned home quickly, but 27 units were deemed unsafe. Those residents are in hotels or short-term housing paid for by Pulte, Ms. Dolenga said.
San Antonio officials later said the retaining wall went up without a permit. A representative for Pulte, which acquired Centex last year, said in January that �it was our understanding that we were in full compliance with the city requirements.� Pulte hired an engineering firm to test and analyze the soil.
Readers, what would you do in similar circumstances?
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7:02 am March 12, 2010
Janet Ahmad wrote:
Texas is the home of the unregulated, unlicensed builders club that requires no building skills to set up shop, only an insatiable appetite of heartless greed and throwing up defective homes without consequence.
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2010/03/11/pulte-offers-to-buy-back-damaged-homes-in-texas/?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
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The reason Pulte-Centex has made the decision to buy back some of the homes is because the community has united with an overwhelming and convincing message. In Texas public pressure is the only powerful incentive for a builder to take responsibility.