RightRevBear said:
BaylorGuy314 said:
It's not housing inventory, per se. We are sitting at about 4 months of inventory. That's better (for a buyer) than it's been in a long time. The problem for Waco vs Temple/Belton is not housing but reasonably priced housing.
Temple/Belton are very developer-friendly and builder-friendly. Waco is absolutely against new construction except in the inner city. The city (and I'm painting with broad brushes here) has spent MANY tens of millions of dollars trying to encourage infill development while pushing enormous costs/hurdles/burdens on anything outside of the core. There is a strong culture against development not only in Waco but in other areas like Woodway and Lorena.
Numerous national homebuilders have come into Waco and quickly left because the Waco inspectors are little Hitlers with massive egos that want Waco to be San Francisco or Austin. Combined with impact fees, excessive inspections, slow inspection times, poor communication and delays, it just makes it unnecessarily difficult. Throw in abnormally high development costs, land costs, etc, and you end up spending more on a house in Waco than you would in Temple/Belton.
With Temple/Belton being closer to North Austin (high growth), good schools, and reasonably priced housing, I'm not surprised it's growing faster.
There are several national home builder subdivisions in Waco's suburbs. Also, I really don't think it is a horrible thing for them to make them do it right. I worked construction in high school and saw a lot of shoddy workmanship. I can't tell you how many times I had to fix crappy drywall or deal with walls that weren't straight.
The work done by a lot of home builders is shoddy, especially national home builders. Here are links to articles about some of the lawsuits.
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2023/09/20/homeowners-strike-161-million-deal-with-dr-horton-over-claims-of-faulty-construction/?outputType=amp
https://www.kadn.com/news/local/news-15-investigates-homeowners-say-d-r-horton-left-them-stuck-in-hell/article_e2de89be-cb80-11ee-acb4-27a930317d0c.html
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/records-lawsuits-reveal-foundation-problems-plague-massive-austin-development/amp/
https://www.builderonline.com/building/regulation-policy/pulte-charged-13-6-million-in-defect-suit_o
First of all, let me say that there is a pandemic of crappy homebuilders. As others have mentioned, many are so focused on cost at expense of quality that you pay 20-30% less but end up with a much crappier home at the end of it. Using thermo-ply for sheathing, subpar materials, and the cheapest labor is a real problem in my industry. Good news for me is that it's easy for me to sell against those slipshod products if people can afford a slightly higher price.
I'm 100% ok with inspectors holding builders accountable for "doing it right." The problem with Waco isn't that, however. It's generally poor processes, poor communication, egos, etc.
Story time -
I failed a final CO inspection recently. The only item on the list? The sticker in the electrical panel wasn't held on by two pieces of tape. The inspector wanted a piece at the top and a piece at the bottom to better secure it. Is that code? No. But that's fine - I get it. I agree that it needed to be better secured even though it's not "code."
Before his truck was even out of the development, we had it rectified. Sent him a photo showing that it was now secured. He wouldn't accept that, charged us for a failed CO so we had to pay a fee to reinspect, then took a week to get back out there to actually reinspect. That's just a waste of everyone's time and money.
I'm talking about failing frame inspections because the SHGC on the window stickers is .01 off what was on the projected energy report. (Which is not a material difference in any way.) This creates unnecessary delays and costs in construction.
I'm talking about not liking how one of several hundred brick ties are attached, not communicating which one or giving us any guidance so we have to go out and spend an hour starting at a wall trying to guess what he doesn't like and then hoping we fixed the right one only for them to take a week to get back out there and re-inspect.
I'm talking about delaying a slab pour because a few chairs on the rebar aren't stood up how he'd like and it delaying the slab pour for a week.
I'm talking about passing a house all the way to CO and then pointing out a small electrical discrepancy and making you rip open walls to replace wiring that isn't wrong (per code) when you've already passed the electrical inspection - twice (rough and final).
You get the idea.
There is only one "national" homebuilder (DR Horton) and two regional home builders in Waco (Stylecraft and John Houston) that have survived longer than a couple of years. Lennar, Omega, KB all come to mind as builders that came and quickly left because the inspection processes were so bad. DR Horton and Stylecraft have only made it this long because they got into Waco before the inspections became such a crazy house and they developed a profitable business model that it was worth adapting to Waco rather than leave. But others coming in fresh haven't had luck. There is a new one coming soon out of DFW and it'll be interesting to see how they fare.
For Waco to really grow on the housing front, this has to be figured out. Frankly, as a builder locally, the stupidity that is Waco protects me in many ways from a rash of crappy builders coming in. But I also build a product that not everyone can afford.
