Saturday I received a phone call from a friend that went like this: “Hey do you know why there are people protesting Liarnar at Riverbend? They have a big ole sign that says buyer beware of Liarnar Homes.” I said, “Probably because they build crappy homes.” Now I wasn’t sure that was going to be the case because it is a much better story when it’s the FBer’s protesting the price reductions. Like a good blogger I decided to go check it out for myself and here is what I found.
Sure enough the protestors were local 2361 carpenter union members letting people know that Liarnar builds crappy homes. Unfortunately the gentleman in the picture wouldn’t say much but he did give me the flyer below and the business card for an attorney. He said the attorney would be more than willing to give me more information. I called the attorney late yesterday and I will try again today to get some more info. I know it is not Irvine but he did say that there are others protesting at Liarnar projects. If anyone else has seen something like this in or around Irvine please let us know.
Now I am not sure how many people read Mish’s blog but he has been following Mike Morgan’s fight against Liarnar in Florida for their faulty construction. Mike Morgan is in so deep that Liarnar is even suing him over his website. If you have not read some of the stories on his site and Mish’s I highly recommend that you do. Some of the stories are so disgusting that you may never look at Liarnar the same again. As you can tell from the flyer it sites an OC Register article that can be found here. As with most in the MSM the Register has not done any follow up. I checked www.occourts.org and searched for Liarnar but nothing came up. It will be interesting to see how Liarnar handles these types of things because they have a majority of the units in the pipeline for OC. They have a big pipeline in Irvine with the Great Park project of 9500 homes and 1400 homes at Central Park West. Of course Liarnar touts its commitment to quality.
For the record I have nothing against Liarnar nor are they the homebuilder that I used to work for. I just do not know of any other major homebuilder who receives as much negative news about faulty construction as Liarnar.
This is disappointing. I always liked Lennar homes and their everything included pricing.
Who are the real quality builders? It seems like all the builders I used to think of as being decent turn out to be pretty bad.
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Haha, that’s awesome. I got the same flyer from the protesters, not that gentleman though. I wonder if there were some changes to Lennar when they were bought out by the Saudis. . . The Riverbend homes I saw were pretty nice though. . . not quite as nicely staged as homes in Irvine, but as they realtor told me: “If these homes were in Irvine, they’d be 150k more.” Then I asked him how much more they would be in Newport Coast, he just sighed, “whew!”
Saudi’s and Lennar? You mean the UAE and John Laing right?
This looks like your typical union protest against a non-union construction site. There are dozens all over OC. They have one in front of the sales office at Central Park West too……though I am not sure if that one is for Lennar. These things are so common now that I’m not sure anybody really pays attention anymore.
I can tell you from insider experience that Lenna* is known to build crappy homes. We have went head to head against them in multiple California developments and have witnessed first hand how low they would go to save on sub costs and materials.
Of course, builders do change for the better. I am not surprised to see this complaint though.
Graphix-
Is it Lennar or Liarnar? I’m just curious why the name has different spellings. Thanks.
It is Lennar. They are spelling it as “Liar”-nar in this article as a not-so-subtle jab at the company.
You are right it is fairly typical and people tend to ignore it. But if you click the links in the post Liarnar has had more problems than most. They also have asked their contractors to lower their already accepted bids by 20%. The point was to show they do not have the best record when it comes to quality and they are building a lot of homes in Irvine and OC. If they are protesting in front of CPW then they are most likely the same group.
Thanks SmartMoney. Yes we like to play with the names her like William Lyin.
You guys and gals really need to get a life. A real one that is.
What’re you doing here?
The president of the So Cal division from what I,ve heard cut corners and would not go for the extra mile to build a better house. The incidence was from a framing walk with architects and interior designers at Newport Ridge. His background was in construction and he knew how to value engineer the structural and infrastructure to the bare bone. Everything hidden behind the drywalls have been stripped to save money to pay for the “EI” everything included program. The company’s entire philosophy is to concentrate on the cosmetic approach by wowing the consumers with appliances, granite and floorings.
Never judge a book by its cover. In the case of Lianar Homes the cover of the book is sure beautiful but the pages are rotten. Every builders know how to make the model homes beautiful.
Before purchasing a new home ask to walk the “still under contruction” production units to check for flaws, mistakes and quality of construction. Never rely on the staged model home for quality.
Good information to get out there for people who are considering a home. Lennar is the most active builder in OC so I am sure there are a lot of people considering them.
FYI….from what I have heard the initial sales at CPW have been extremely disappointing. They missed the mark with their initial pricing…..which to me looks way too high. Not sure what they are going to do now. They do have some time to figure it out though since I don’t think they have any deliveries until late in the year.
KB Homes has by far the worst reputation of any homebuilder. On Hobb.org they are identified as:
KB Home – The most investigated home builder in the nation
continues pattern of building defective homes
Maybe Lennar’s quality is getting worse but it would take some serious cost cutting to get as bad as KB.
When it comes to resale homes, is it easy to find out who the builder is? This kind of information is great to know but is only helpful if buying from the builder. When we are looking at resale homes, most of the owners aren’t the original owner and don’t know who built the house.
Just teasing oc_renter. I really appreciate all the info you guys and gals post. I’ve learn about about fundamentals. The problem is that I’ve been preaching the same things to my family members and they do not want to hear it. My sister just got married a few months ago and they are looking for a home. They told me to find them a SFH for $700K in irvine. I told them to wait a year because the better locations will take longer to come down. What do you think??? Do you know where to look??? I’ve expressed to them that the best time to buy would be in late 2009 based on what everyone is saying here. Thanks….
COST COST COST….
What do people expect out here in California? These homes are built as cheaply as possible and as fast as possible by unskilled sleepy migrant mexicans.
The difference between a cheap CA stucco home and a strong dutch built home in the midwest is astounding. There are homes that last for over a hundred years in other parts of the country. If it rains too hard in Cali, your roof may collapse.
Build home for 250k…..sell to unsuspecting homeowner for 385k who’ll filp in 2 years…..Make 135k per unit for 5 months work!!
RickHunter,
Some of the older areas are already coming down. University Park has seen some significant price reductions.
There used to be a site called KBHomeSucks, but it was sued out of existence. I did find the sites below:
http://www.geocities.com/PicketFence/Street/6903/
http://bobandnita.www.50megs.com/scraphome.htm
http://www.hadd.com/websites.php
rkp – It depends on how old they are. The older the more difficult, the newer the easier it is. Most in Irvine should be pretty easy and most owners or good listing agents will know who the builder is. It is public record and a title company can get the info on specific home.
LendingMaestro…..that is hilarious and the sad thing is you are so right. My family and I bought a lake cottage back home in the midwest and that was 80 yrs old. Good deal and the only problem it had was so minor roofing problems from all the mildew build up. Regardless to say it was an easy fix but I have noticed things like windows and non-solid wood doors on all the homes that I have visited.
What is the exterior of the homes here made out of other than stucco? In FL it’s all cendar block and stucco on the outside. Then they put like 1 x 1 framing to hold the drywall.
Joe, I agree with your comment on CPW. I visited the Lennar studio about 4-5 weeks ago, as I was interested in finding out more about their townhomes. The cheapest they had was a 2br with tandem garage for $775k. The one I liked was a 3br for $975k (!). The salesperson told me that there was only 1 left, so I better hurry. Well, I am not about to sign on for a million dollar townhomes right off the 405.
On a side note, property taxes including mello roos are 1.6%… Also, the school district is Santa Ana Unified, not Irvine…
In any case, the sales lady also told me that lennar was upgrading everyone to Viking appliances at no extra cost (what a deal!). she went on saying that buyers of next phases will have to pay for those appliances, and the price will definitely be higher as a result… Well, now she keeps calling telling me saying that I need to rush, as it will go fast… however, it still available…
Also, I asked her what the mix of home buyers were, and she told me that many of them are out-of-towners who appreciate the value of Irvine real estate… that to me means that there are still plenty of “investors” purchasing those properties, and that if I want one of those townhomes, I’ll be able to get it cheaper from one of those out-of-towners in 2-3 years.
Move-in for the first phase is scheduled to be October 2007.
Lawyers are whores. I was involved in a lawsuit against another builder along with many of my neighbors years ago and my conclusion is our lawyers did it just for the money (what a shock right). At the end of the lawsuit the lawyers made more money than all of us combined. I did a bit more digging and found out this is typically the case and there are lawfirms that just specialize in suing builders all across the west. Every builder has been sued multiple times by these lawfirms. In our lawsuit, they just cut and paste allegations they made in a different lawsuit against a different builder. How do I know this? In different portions of papers they mistakenly named a different builder in a different city and later admitted to me their mistake.
There were definitely things wrong with the homes but I remember our lawyers trying to convince us that there were more problems than actually existed. They told us we shoud just say everything was wrong because in negotiations it would raise our asking price and then we’d settle for a higher amount.
The whole experience left me very bitter and more upset at my lawyer than the builder. We walked away with minor repairs done to our homes and our lawyer walked away with a new condo on the beach in Hawaii.
Rickhunter,
I also have tried to tell friends and family not to buy now. I show them evidence, the charts, articles etc. But you see that twinkle in their eye and you know they have their heart set. Home buying is no doubt an emotional thing. Its like when a good buddy is dating a new girl and you tell him ‘shes no good’.. they just ignore you. And you cant change a persons mind once they fall in love.
So my buddies bought anyway. one got a condo conversion in santa ana last summer. They now cut prices by 20%. Another bought a high rise condo in long beach high rise over-looking the freight yard. its got 500 buck hoa fees and its still not built. but hey what can you do. You just offer the advice and some listen and some ignore.