Comments to JD Powers 10/20/06: I have lived in one of your JD Powers award winners Pulte homes since June 16th 2006. The home has become a nightmare, they don't want to honor their warranty, etc. Basically the basement floor is moving (and at accelerating rates) causing it to move and also the pier points in which the metal posts rest is being pushed up causing my living floor to be pushed up. This in turn has caused various damages to the house none of which pulte wants to address except for patching drywall.
Regardless
How do I file a complaint with your company? I am not the only homeowner in this new subdivision in Johnson County, Lenexa, KS that has issues with Pulte, however I have to address my own.One of the reasons after conducting research I decided to take a chance and by a Pulte home was because of your award. Now I know it does't mean anything. If you would like me to expand on the situation, I can. I find it absolutely remarkable that JD Powers gives awards for a company that is known and has been known for not honoring their warranty. What ever advice you can give me, I would be appreciative.
Thank you.
Susan Sabin

JD Powers Response: Susan, Thank you for your e-mail regarding Pulte. We appreciate your taking the time to share your situation with us, albeit an unfortunate one.
One of the driving forces behind J.D. Power and Associates is to serve as the catalyst for positive change among product and service providers based on the voices of customers like you. Our product and service rankings in no way reflect our opinions or preferences, and we do not review, judge or test products and services ourselves. Our annual studies are based on actual customer satisfaction survey responses that we collect from more than one million consumers around the world.
As an independent third-party, J.D. Power and Associates is unable to intercede in these matters. I would suggest contacting the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org if you would like to file a formal complaint. If you would like to respond back to this e-mail with additional comment, I will be happy to forward it to our research department for their reference. Sorry I can not be of more help to you in this matter.
Once again, we appreciate you sharing your experiences with us, and hope that you receive better service in the future. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me. Best Regards,
Stephanie Haina
Corporate Communications
J.D. Power and Associates
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Comments to JD Powers: How do you obtain lists of customers about a home builder to form statistics (what is your source)? Also, what is the time frame stats are gathered on new homes (ages of the home). Do home owners with incomplete homes, make the survey list? Our builder, Ryan Homes ,continuously claims to be highly rated by your surveys, but that appears to be in limited areas, otherwise they appear mostly average. All I cansee in time range is after 1-2 year of ownership in customer surveys,which doesn't seem to me to project realistic expectations of real quality in a home. Our home switched on us from our being satisfied to disgusted with the company, after five years in quality and customer service. This is a NEVER AGAIN company. There is very little information on how bad this company actually can be when things go wrong. Things like using low quality wood and paper based products for trim and such,don't rot or soften until a few years have passed. We found there was no actual ten year warranty the was useful for anything (filed report with BBB Richmond VA ). I'm concerned that data collection on new home buyers may not be accurately reflecting the expected durability and quality of new homes. Ronald Jackson

JD Powers Response: Mr. Jackson, Thank you for your e-mail regarding Ryan   Homes . We appreciate your taking the time to share your situation with us, albeit an unfortunate one.
One of the driving forces behind J.D. Power and Associates is to serve as the catalyst for positive change among product and service providers based on the voices of customers like you. Our product and service rankings in no way reflect our opinions or preferences, and we do not review, judge or test products and services ourselves. Our annual studies are based on actual customer satisfaction survey responses that we collect from more than one million consumers around the world.
For our home builders study, J.D. Power and Associates mailed surveys to buyers from March - July of 2005.  For the 2005 study, we cover the 2004 calendar year new home closings that are recorded in public records for each of the markets surveyed.
We mail surveys to buyers whose builders close over 150 closings, and we need to receive back a minimum of 50 completed surveys per builder. We get our sample through independent sources of publicly recorded closings and mail to the population, so everyone gets a survey that we find through public records. I hope this gives you a better understanding of the home builder study process.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
Corporate Communications
J.D. Power and Associates
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Ronald Jackson comments to JD Powers: ...the survey isn’t really a useful reference to buy a new home... Many serious defects take more than a year to really show up. The standards only show customer satisfaction for still new homes, which for our builder is “average” compared to other home builders. The survey doesn’t provide a great deal of useful data for purchasing a home from any particular company. It provides some insight for a purchasing decision, but certainly shouldn’t be a primary source of research. IMO, builders should not be quoting this source as proof of quality assurance.
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Comments to JD Powers:  Subject- KB Homes - Although I do not own a KB Home I was just wondering with all the negative publicity, the investigations, the fines levied by the government, the enormous amount of complaints and deceptions, not to mention websites, how do you have the nerve to put them in the top three of homebuilders? This is very perplexing to me and deceptive to people. This takes real credibility away from your survey as far as I am concerned. I have read where people were offerd things to give them a good rating. I do not understand this.