Platinum Custom Homes LLC

Our first impression was obviously very good...Bob had us to his home which was new and very nice. They did a good "dog and pony" show and had some nice auxiliary benefits such as helping to sell our current home, energy efficiency, etc. They also seemed well organized and to know what they were doing. We made it very clear that we were "picky people" and wanted to be very involved, do some things ourselves and that budget was going to be VERY important. They also already had a floor plan from a previous customer that we liked and made just a few changes to. But unfortunately that all seems to have fallen apart along the way. The following are the main areas of contention I think: * Communication - we never really knew where we were on the project, timeline or budget. Seems we continually had to ping them for the information and ask them "shouldn't we be picking out X now?". They also seemed to be frequently on vacations without notifying their current customers! * Follow through - had to repeatedly ask for things, or revised quotes. Frequently jotted down on the edge of another note and obviously forgotten/missed. Told us there would be official signed change orders - but there was never a single one. * Project ran late - waited for a long period for the "framing crew" they wanted I guess, without letting us know that at the time. It was so late that we had to renew the construction mortgage with a fee at our cost. * Unprofessional - Tim would frequently show up to our construction site meeting in flip flops, shorts, etc. We also usually felt belittled and angry after each encounter with him. * Budget - Like I said, this was very important, and I am a very detailed person. I am the type of guy that keeps spreadsheets for everything. This was supposed to be "fixed price" if there were no changes and we stayed in our allowances. I believe we were always within or under our allowances. There were numerous unexpected costs along the way (like more for insulation, etc). We did make some changes where we cut back to have something else - which "should wash" according to their handwritten notes pretty much on scrap pieces of paper. They did not. We had some extra in the mortgage as a buffer, and ended up needing it ALL, as well as contributing around $14,000 more out of our savings. Even the few changes to the existing floor plan was $1500. Overall, probably $20,000 over the original price. My advice for building a home: 1) Get a member of the local home builder association (they are) 2) Get one that actually performs a trade - framing, trim, drywall, whatever. They were just "management" 3) Any change during the process, get a change order in writing and signed with a plus or minus amount from the original contract. The best thing I can say for their service was the selling of our previous home - which they do for a very low commission when you're building a house with them. We ended up doing a lease to own agreement and Bob did a good job screening people to get us good renters (although even that I had to keep pushing to get moving). The only bad thing about that was the previous house dropped so much in value with the economy, they could not get a mortgage for the set price and we ended up having to revise the agreement. Something to keep in mind when try the lease to own option. Overall the house turned out good, and we like it...but the process was extremely stressful with Platinum for us.