April 2022- Planning & Contracting (30 page Powerpoint on design finishes down to paint, hardware, and flooring) We discussed our vision with Casey, the sales lady with very much detail including frameless doors, level 4 drywall, linear lighting, stone fireplace up to the ceiling, 800+sqft gym w/ mirrors, master bathroom w/ almost 100% porcelain walls w/ renderings provided, 7in baseboards, 2 bar areas, laundry room w/ complete tiled walls, $100k+ in custom modern cabinets, 2 complete glass walls, circle driveway, and many additional very “custom” items. The budget that was built for the loan was waayyyyy off for what was presented to JAnthony’s sales lady, Casey. They did not build enough into just about every line item and definitely underbid some of the jobs and overbid even more. Casey is very nice though.
Janthony homes are more like track homes versus true custom homes. We think JAnthony typically wants to take your money and build whatever they can, as fast as they can, and on to the next. The quality of these “million dollar homes” is majorly lacking and nowhere near any of their spec homes. Don’t forget your total of 4 very traditional options for bathroom faucets/shower heads that are included in the JAnthony custom home contract. If you decide on a different option outside of what they offer be prepared to be charged for the price of that faucet, plus markup, and then double it due to them having to “re valve” the plumbing, even though they make no physical changes in order to install the one you chose no matter the brand. You also only get to pick 1 option to paint your entire house. If you change any color on any wall or ceiling, that is $500 per. It’s simply a money grab. We had custom cabinets installed with no backs and they simply painted the wall, stained cabinets that looked like they were painted 6 coates or more, our wood floors have huge 1 inch gaps with tons of filler and places look worn after a couple of months, our main kitchen sink is supported by a metal piece screwed to the inside of our cabinet, almost all of our outlets were installed crooked and have tons of overspray on them, they tried to cover our vent hood with multiple pieces of stone, our doors are peeling after 2 months of being in the home, our accent wall had major paint runs, electrical boxes were left unfinished on the exterior of the home, we have several broken concrete pieces at our driveway, and both our front and back yard have been completely under water at least twice since we have been moved in about 3 months ago (french drains were never installed.)
They overwork their couple of GC’s they have giving them a workload of 40+ homes all across DFW at one time. The sheer amount of time doesn’t exist that it would take to visit every home you have in 1 week or even months. Therefore, at least in our situation all of the issues and multiple “redos” we had on our home likely happened due to lack of supervision and accountability. They basically built in the money they were losing with the “redos” into other future jobs on the home. That’s when we began asking for bids/estimates for the bigger jobs, but after multiple requests, they still chose to never provide these. Any jobs that needed to be completed for each week would be emailed to subs, printed, and stuck to the window at the property. Then I guess someone would pray that the subs actually show up and do the work and do it correctly. Most GC’s that had a normal amount of job sites to tend to would be out early in the morning when everyone is getting started to get direction and go from there. Ours was given way too many properties at once and could barely make it to ours around 10-11am. There were also never any site plans at the job site.
The “designer,” Susan Roche, more like an order taker, we had to email 7 times during framing to get an appointment for color and appliance selections so our kitchen would be framed to fit the oversized fridge/freezer we had planned to purchase. It ended up being framed entirely before we got to meet with the appliance company (the following day.) Then they tried to charge us almost $10,000 to reframe where our fridge went because they didn’t get our appliance meeting setup in time. We pushed back and did not pay that. We couldn’t even get in touch with the designer Susan, almost the entire last 15 months of the build and our GC began having to order our selections. Sad, because she even had a powerpoint with every selection from paint to tile to hardware broken out room by room with links. We moved in January 2024, finally to a VERY dirty million dollar home.
We also received a lien notice from Acme brick that they had not been paid. We were the 4th or 5th house in the neighborhood out of 15 homes and 3rd to last to be completed. We will say that our home is likely the most custom in the neighborhood, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for a year delay in completion. We also only had maybe 4 change orders total from day 1 of our build. Our GC was great at trying to do everything in his power to make it right, even though he was worn thin. We have spoken to several of our neighbors and they all have experienced similar things with this company. A lot of overpromising, underdelivering, misleading, and price gouging. I would steer clear of this “custom home builder” and the owner/crook Tony Prutch. Somehow he and his team keep “winning awards” and getting on Good Morning America–What a joke.
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