I purchased this home in Livermore, CA at the end of 2014, and waited until mid-September to move in. There were multiple delays having to do with the project manager not knowing the city planner's schedules, so the house wouldn't have water and electricity until a later date than we were originally scheduled to close. Dealing with their "preferred lender", Wells Fargo was an utter disaster. Before finalizing the loan prior to closing, there was a period of THREE weeks, when we could not get in touch with the loan agent, Devoreaha Smith- she simply went AWOL, as they were "upgrading" the bank software. She neglected to return phone calls despite repeated voice messages and efforts to reach her via the sales office rep, Even later, when trying to report her and reprimand her, Wells Fargo and Ponderosa Homes turned a blind eye to her mishandling of the situations.
After we moved in, the home still had many problems, beginning with the hand-off/walk thru, where the light switch in the garage wasn't even hooked up! Over the next few days, we inspected the rest of the house finding many issues, including 17 double-paned windows with razor scratches on them, shower glass panels with scratches, walls that were painted unevenly, toilets that could not flush properly, carpeting that was bunched up in multiple locations, under-kitchen-cabinet lighting that wasn't even the same shade of white, kitchen sliding drawers that would fall off (some of which still had wood screws sitting next to the drawers indicating that the installations weren't even finished), and scratches on walls and doors. Weeks later, during a hard freeze, our furnace stopped working, only blowing cold air throughout the night. More recently, we have found water stains on our garage ceiling along a joist, indicating that the upstairs plumbing is leaking.
While the layout of the home is nice and the essential building of the house is good, the problem lies particularly with the cheap vendors that they use. (The plumbing vendor is called "Value Plumbing"). Ponderosa has been pretty responsive in trying to get the vendors to come out to do repairs, but usually answering one ticket will generate another two tickets. It took Value Plumbing three trips to the house to fix the toilets! When the window vendors came out to replace the windows, they had to come out three times, as well, but after they installed the windows, repairs had to be made to the stucco that they cracked around each window, then the surfaces had to be painted, including the wall that they leaned a ladder against which left dark marks, plus the windows need to be cleaned by another party!
Value Plumbing came out to my house to inspect the water stain on my garage ceiling, but since the drywall wasn't "bubbling", they didn't feel it was a problem, so they didn't bother looking for the leak. Mind you, it's just my wife and I that live in this big house, so we don't use the upstairs guest bathroom very often, nor the laundry room basin. Value Plumbing was supposed to fix a couple of other issues during the visit, but promptly left after "sealing" the stain, then painting it the wrong color white- that visit will call for the painters to come out, plus Value Plumbing will have to come out again to fix what they forgot to fix, one of those fixes being a botched job on the last time they repairs something.
Although Ponderosa Homes has a one year "fit and finish" period, it's been seven months and still my shower glass is not done! The glass installers came out to "fix" it, but did it wrong, so we're still waiting for that vendor's manager to come out to inspect the bad job on the glass, before ordering another repair.
My concern is that my one year is going to expire and there is still a very long laundry list of things that need repair, including items that were listed during our original walk thru. Will Ponderosa stay the course and fix everything that they never scheduled during that one year? I truly doubt it. My faith has dwindled immensely.
There aren't a lot of new construction homes going up in this area, so if you're looking for a home out here, your choices may be slim pickings. For what I paid, the home, as I see it, is still a good value, but I was expecting a NEW HOME, when I moved in, not something that was still under construction! Just be prepared, if you're going to buy a PONDEROSA HOME- THERE WILL BE LOTS OF THINGS NEEDING REPAIRS AND THEY WILL TAKE FOREVER TO GET DONE PROPERLY! Heck! The repairs may never get done! PONDEROSA NEEDS TO HIRE REPUTABLE VENDORS TO DO THE WORK, AND STOP TAKING THE LOWEST BIDS! They're not saving money, they're just wasting everyone's time!!!!!!!!!! read more