The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[navin]

Pretty sure DJ had some issues with the Reston HOA as well when he sold... Yep, I'll live on the outskirts of Reston in Herndon all day rather than deal with that...

[.RJ]

Pretty sure DJ had some issues with the Reston HOA as well when he sold... Yep, I'll live on the outskirts of Reston in Herndon all day rather than deal with that...

Wife insisted on living in Reston.  She can pay the fucking HOA dues next year.

[Sijray21]

Yep, I'll live on the outskirts of Reston in Herndon all day rather than deal with that...

Yeah, this.

Hell, I even get the pool membership for Reston Pools and pay for that separately. Something a lot of Reston HOA residents subsidize that they don't even use with their HOA dues.

[Ryan T]

Why do you need liquid filled tires? Better traction?

Yep. Adds a good bit of weight to the tires.

[JustinG]

I'm dealing with the fact our developer failed to put in a county required swale prior to building.

They did this in 2hrs on Monday, "Should be done by Friday". Hasn't been touched since, and with the inbound snow, probably looking at a July completion date.





Someones phone is gonna blow up.

[ScottyB]

looks like the start of a nice golf cart path.

hate to say it but yeah, gon get a little messy after this precip over the weekend

[D_Eclipse9916]

I am 99% sold on never buying new again. The BS that we have had to deal with on this new house astounds me. This is the wife and I's third home we have owned. The shoddy workmanship and pride shown in these homes is outrageous and I am constantly touching up and fixing things. You just don't know what you don't know unless you have been through the process of buying a new home. Mainly, I would refuse closing until everything was fixed on the list beforehand instead of trusting they will get done what's written in the fucking contract.

Our power pole that was written and signed in on our contract in April, STILL HASNT BEEEN REMOVED. We literally call every 3 days for the past 6 months after we realized our point of contact was garbage. We can't put up our fence until this pole gets pulled (because our side yard needs to be regraded once pole is out, and is in the contract as well).

[JustinG]

Yeah, you guys have had a shitty experience.

Ours was good house wise, but our house was also built in a lull where the PM only had 3-4 houses going up.

Others have had issues that built after us when they had about 20 houses going up and they had to get whatever contractors were available regardless of quality.

Once the house closed, getting stuff done was a bit of a hassle. We just kept calling, luckily it's gotten done in a semi timely manner.

If this yard thing doesn't progress, I'll keep bitching. Haven't had to reach out to the owner yet, but I'm not scared to play that card.

[.RJ]

That blows, for both of you. Sounds stressful.

[Apoc]

#mcmansionproblems

Buy a house that's 80 years old. Then all you have to worry about is when will everything in it die of old age.

[.RJ]

Knob & Tube aint a porno

[WRXtranceformed]

Yep, having built luxury homes myself and bought a few now, production home building is by and large full of problems. I am pretty sure I documented here all of the issues we had on our new home down here south of Ballantyne, it took me filing a BBB complaint to finally get them to fix the last of our punch list and 1 year walkthrough items. In other words, it was about a 2 year ordeal until our house finally feels sort of normal. That doesn't include the wood floors that have massively separated across our entire living room because they put an expansion joint in the middle of the damn floor slab. They won't even touch that. I told my wife when we moved in I'd probably have to end up replacing the crap wood floors they installed in there in probably 2-3 years anyway, she didn't believe me...now she does

The next home we buy I'm hoping to go through a low volume custom builder, as they just don't have as much on their plates and can put more emphasis on the quality of their work. After having spent Thanksgiving in my uncle's 10,000 sq ft. custom built mansion in Marietta, it made me realize how much more attention to detail the best of those guys put into building homes.

RJ, that sucks man. That paint definitely ain't the right color at least in those pics. I'd put that back on the painters if you can, did they paint it the wrong color or did you tell them to use that one?

[.RJ]

RJ, that sucks man.  That paint definitely ain't the right color at least in those pics.  I'd put that back on the painters if you can, did they paint it the wrong color or did you tell them to use that one?

They did exactly what I asked them to do, which was go to the store, buy Benjamin Moore Polaris Blue #1641 and put it on the house.

The photo really exaggerates the difference in colors.  In person its barely noticeable, at all.  And, in 6 months it'll look a fair bit different than it does now.  I wish I'd picked a different course of action at this point but live and learn.

[WRXtranceformed]

RJ, that sucks man.  That paint definitely ain't the right color at least in those pics.  I'd put that back on the painters if you can, did they paint it the wrong color or did you tell them to use that one?

They did exactly what I asked them to do, which was go to the store, buy Benjamin Moore Polaris Blue #1641 and put it on the house.

The photo really exaggerates the difference in colors.  In person its barely noticeable, at all.  And, in 6 months it'll look a fair bit different than it does now.  I wish I'd picked a different course of action at this point but live and learn.

Is Blue #1641 not what the HOA needs it to be?

[D_Eclipse9916]

Closing is on my old house today.... I'm glad for this rollercoaster to be over.  All in all things went pretty smooth, but the thing that absolutely killed me was community (Reston) HOA.  

My realtor advised that we should wait until we had a contract before ordering resale documents, which includes a walk around of the exterior of the house and takes two weeks to receive.  On a 30 day closing it didnt leave much time to address the things that they came up with.  I should have done it the day I listed the house, and I would have been in the house and easier to deal with stuff - like repainting siding and power washing the fence is easy when I'm there and all my tools are there and I can knock it out in a few hours instead of getting ghosted by 2 contractors and paying $800 for the job when its 40 degrees outside and no one wants to take that work on.

None of them were major but I'd already moved across town and I had back surgery 2 weeks ago which just made things real pain in the ass, at a time when the HOA is also being a pain in the ass and illogical.  Sometimes I think they forget that they work for us, not the other way around. 

Once the money comes back from the sale its new kitchen time in the new house, so at least I have that to look forward to.

And now the HOA rejected some of the work I did, saying the exterior paint doesnt match.  Yeah its a shade off but its also new paint.  Their only insight was to paint the whole house.... sorry, thats $3000 to paint the whole house to cover up some discoloration from an old gutter and shutters?  They DGAF that its an unreasonable solution.

The house closed yesterday anyways but I'm on the hook and have 90 days to resolve the HOA nonsense, which is a more reasonable solution than trying to get a house paint done in the middle of winter.  I feel like I've been taken for a ride by the buyer and the HOA here and it leaves a real sour taste.  I didnt make the best decisions about this while recovering from surgery but live and learn and I guess this is this rounds version of losing your cell phone, cost inflation included.

The offending trim color, FWIW.  New paint on bottom.  

Just saw this, bahahah I did the same thing.  Except I snooped it under the new homeowner's nose by doing it myself.  Reston HOA never noticed.

[Apoc]

Knob & Tube aint a porno

Don't forget galvanized steel plumbing and terra cotta sewer lines. Everything is a ticking time bomb.

[JPolen01]

That is absurd. Give it 2 months and there will be a nice layer of dirt over the new paint and you won't even be able to tell.

[Evan]

That is absurd. Give it 2 months and there will be a nice layer of dirt over the new paint and you won't even be able to tell.

seriously.

did you try powerwashing the 'old' paint?

[.RJ]

Yeah the whole house got powerwashed and cleaned as part of my sale prep.

The problem is, these houses are 30+ years old so its not easy to match the paint - they give you a couple of different vendor paint codes that are close matches, but not close enough apparently. It really is bullshit that they give you a paint code but then tell you that yore on yore own for matching. I have 90 days to resolve it, so my first course of action is to do nothing for a month. I dont even think the paint is fully dry & solvents evaporated yet, 3 days after being painted in 30-40 deg weather.

[JustinG]

Just rub some fuckin dirt on it.