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The Matt Walsh Show
Ep. 1742 - New Build NIGHTMARE? The Scheme That Is Ripping Off Millions Of Americans
00:30:03
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Ordinarily, hearing the news that many more single family homes are being built in the United States would suggest a good sign for the economy and for young people, many of whom are struck struggling right now to afford a starter home. And indeed, over the past few years, the number of new construction single family homes has increased, particularly in the west and in the South. In fact, as the COVID lockdowns ended, There were roughly 1.5 million homes under construction, which was the highest number since the 1970s. These new homes are a lifeline in the market because many existing homeowners who locked in their rock bottom interest rates on their mortgages a few years ago are reluctant to sell. But there's a very real risk to buying a new home in this market. All over the country, major home builders are currently facing class action lawsuits alleging shoddy construction and fraud. They're building homes too quickly with low quality materials, and they're selling them to inexperienced buyers who more often than not are relying on low quality, outdated inspections. And then those buyers are discovering that under the terms of the contract they signed, they don't have much recourse. That's why there's now an entire genre of social media video where experienced inspectors go into homes and identify serious flaws that should have been fixed or at least disclosed to buyers, you know, before they purchase the home. But put another way, we come a very long way from the days of Hammurabi's code, which called for builders to be put to death if they did a poor job constructing a home. And before we get into the wave of lawsuits that have been filed by homeowners, it's worth taking a look at some of those videos to give you an idea of the extent of the problem and to give you a sense of what to look for if you're in the market for a home at the moment. Yourself at another final inspection, which means the house should pretty much be done ready to go. So the air conditioners aren't going to work if they're not powered. All right. 2025 new build construction. This is a final inspection. Let's go check it out. Downspouts on the second story sidewall are loose and not secured to the brick. Missing felt paper on top of the roof sheathing. Patio roof is missing counter flashing details. Here's what the pressure washing crew did inside the garage. No need to test that for moisture. Downspout elbow vent. And here they forgot to install the downspout. Here's your new roof. So this sweep hole cover is good. That one's clogged. That was missing. So. So this is DL Horton main water supply to the house. And look how flimsy that is. The thing just came apart like that and the water just coming out. I had to turn the main water supply off to fix it. Now, people regularly buy items that cost around $1,000, like, you know, TVs, computers and so on, which have much higher quality control than $500,000 homes. It defies common sense for the biggest purchase of your life to be so unreliable and have so many issues. And that works to the advantage of the builders. Most buyers simply can't imagine being defrauded on such a massive purchase. And it's especially true for new construction homes. But it's often the case that especially over the last five years or so, new homes are in worse condition than existing homes. Watch. Well, if you're considering buying a newly built house, you may say, I don't need an inspection. It's brand new. What could be wrong? That's not necessarily the case because some new homes have a lot of hidden problems. Scratches here, scratches here, scratches all back here. Edward Aguirre says he should be pretty excited about his brand new home that was recently built. But Edward says he's more frustrated than excited. I'm wondering, is my house the only house like that on this block? Or has every house been this way and nobody's actually said or done anything about it? Edwards says his home builder claims the home is ready to move in. But this new home buyer says for the money he paid, there are way too many things that need to be fixed before moving in. For example, he says his Front window was installed crooked, making it almost impossible to be opened or closed. Oh, yeah, this is really tough. That should not be that way. Oh, in about 2021, once the market started to get shut down, we've noticed a huge decrease in just workmanship. Cy Porter is a home inspector and tells on youn Cy that he finds more red flags in newly built homes than in older homes that are for sale. One reason, he says new homes are being built at lightning speed across the valley and attention to small details diminish greatly. The builder forgot to finish hooking up the gas water heater vent, which means for about a year, this water heater has been spitting carbon monoxide inside this home. One of the problems here is that buyers assume that if the builder does something wrong, they'll have some kind of recourse. And by the same token, buyers often assume that sellers, regardless of what kind of home they're selling, are bound by all kinds of warranties that they have to honor. So buyers will sign a purchase agreement without reading the fine print. That's the first major mistake you can make in the home buying process. It's tempting to believe that because you haven't actually closed on the house yet, there isn't much risk in, you know, signing a purchase agreement. After all, if an inspection uncovers an undisclosed issue before closing, you don't have to follow through on the deal. But that's not necessarily true. Builders write contracts to give themselves enormous leverage throughout the entire process. And usually realtors won't alert buyers to the risk because they just want the sale to go through. Let's take a look at what happened to this woman in Tampa Bay who badly misunderstood the purchase agreement that she signed with Dr. Horton, which is the single largest home builder in the United States. Watch tonight. A single mom paid more than a half a million dollars in May for a new construction home in Waimama where she planned to live with three children and her father, who's a disable. But multiple construction problems have prevented the family from moving in. And the owner tells I team investigator Adam Walzer the builder has yet to pay thousands of dollars of her out of pocket expenses. So this is home sweet home. This is the mess. This is what Jessica Perez's new Dr. Horton built home looked like last Friday, nearly three months after she bought it. It didn't look much better on the day she closed. This house should have never closed in this condition. Blue tape shows problems in nearly every room. Lots of tape around here, huh? Yes. Some issues were cosmetic. What's that I've not seen that in a finished house. Right. These are for the cameras outside. A pipe to an outside faucet protrudes from stucco. But the major issues are inside X is marked where floors squeak, because, I mean, they're not going to give you a brand new house with the ceiling missing. When Jessica asked her realtor to delay the closing, she says he told her that the Dr. Horton sales rep said that would result in consequences. If she doesn't close today, we're not going to pay her rate lock any further. She's going to have to pay US$250 a day until she closes, and that's if we don't terminate the contract and then she's out her money that she put down on the house. So Perez closed on the $541,000 house and began paying her mortgage and utilities, but never moved in. Now, the reason they're able to threaten this woman with daily fines is that in the eyes of the builder, they fulfill their end of the deal under the law and under the terms of the purchase agreement, they don't actually have to provide a high quality home. They merely have to substantially fulfill, quote, unquote, their obligations. That's a very loose standard to say the least. And the contracts are written to favor the builder. The goal of the contract is to limit the potential objections a buyer can raise. And if the buyer doesn't insist on changes to the contract, then they're bound by it. They have no choice but to close on the home. The outlet Hunter Brook Media, which focuses on investigative journalism, has cataloged numerous examples of builders and sellers using tactics like this. They reported that one woman named Nesha Gee signed a purchase agreement with Lennar for a home in Athens, Alabama. And when an inspector found defects in the house, she backed out of the deal and Lennar kept her 7, 500 deposit. And another case, Dr. Horton told a couple that they would lose their $25,000 down payment if they backed out of the deal, even though they found mold in the floor and on the end the walls. And they only received the $25,000 back when they agreed to buy another home built by Dr. Horton. Quote, According to multiple Lennar and Dr. Houghton, Horton contracts, if the buyer delays or backs out of the deal for any reason, even for known construction defects like foundation cracks, grading problems, or biological contaminants like mold, they trigger an automatic default, giving the seller the right to claim the deposit money as liquidated damages and amounts up to 15% of the value of the home. Lennar's contract even state that the builder's failure to obtain a certificate of occupancy in time cannot be grounds for delaying closing. In many states, the builders require buyers to waive pre existing legal rights such as implied warranties in favor of the company's limited warranty. And the builder's limited warranties often explicitly lack basic guarantees otherwise available to purchasers under the law. Likely the home will be habitable. Nor do the the builder's warranties usually cover issues related to drainage, grading, erosion and soil or the presence of biological contaminants like mold, even though those are common defects caused by workmanship deficiencies that sometimes make homes uninhabitable. Yes, you so you heard that correctly. In many states, under the contractual terms they draft in their purchase agreements, builders can force you to close on a home that you can't actually inhabit. So if you don't read the fine print and demand that they strike that clause from the contract, then you're legally bound to buy a home that may be so dangerous that you cannot even go inside of it. Let's put two examples of these contracts on the screen right now. Again, these were first reported by Hunter Brooks. The first waiver is contained in a 2024 purchase agreement drafted by Lennar. It reads, quote, except as prohibited by laws of the state in which the home is located, all other warranties, express or implied, but not limited to any implied warranty of habitability, are hereby expressly disclaimed and waived. The second waiver is from Dr. Horton standard purchase Agreement. You can see it on the screen. It's the the same basic idea. There are only a handful of states that prevent builders from including these provisions. States like Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. But even those states allow the builders to heavily manipulate contracts to their advantage. For example, this is a Dr. Horton purchase agreement from Maryland. It states that, quote, under no circumstances shall Dr. Horton be required to repair or replace items not on the punch list. In other words, if a defect isn't written down on a list during the pre closing walkthrough, then they don't have to fix it. Regardless of what the realtor or the salesman claims. They can make all kinds of oral promises to solve whatever problem you might identify. But they don't have to honor any of those promises. We here in the Matt Walsh show believe it's important to stay healthy. And one of the most essential components to your overall health is having a healthy liver. Your liver is your body's ultimate filter. It works overtime processing everything you consume While juggling over 500 daily functions like energy production, digestion and more. But when it gets overworked, you really feel it. That's where our sponsor Dose for your Liver comes in. 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Now the other issue is that very often buyers allow government workers to handle the inspections and that that presents a host of problems. This is again from Hunter Brook quote Robert Knowles, President and founder of the national association of Homeowners and a licensed professional engineer who said he has inspected thousands of new builds, estimated 100% of all new builds probably have multiple code violations. According to Knowles, county or municipal inspectors often have an overwhelming number of houses to inspect, sometimes up to 80 a day, and may prioritize quick pass inspections over thorough checks as flagging failures require significantly more time and paperwork. They miss dozens and dozens of code violations in all the homes I look at, knowles told Hunter Brook. One Arizona based third party inspector who asked to be anonymous because he sometimes works for National Builders, said he'd seen county inspectors who didn't even get out of the car before signing off on a job. A legal loophole in states like Florida and Texas, states where Dr. Horton and Lahr sold most of their homes in recent years, even allows builders to hire their own inspection companies to sign off on building code compliance. Now, in practice, this often means that buyers are on the hook for very expensive repairs down the line. You take the issue of soil compaction, for example. In order to make sure that the ground can sustain the construction of a house and that the foundation can hold, it's important to ensure a certain soil compaction rate before building begin begins. Otherwise, you know, walls can crack, doors can stick and a host of other problems, of course can occur. According to Hunter Brook, in one subdivision In Ocean Breeze, Florida, only 14 out of the 143 homes achieve the necessary 98% soil compaction rate in order to for construction to be considered safe and reliable. But the private inspector or the county inspector signed off on all the homes in South Carolina as part of one of one major new lawsuit against Dr. Horton, it was revealed that government inspectors missed hundreds of code violations. Watch Homeowners in Berkeley and Dorchester county say their new homes built by Dr. Horton are practically falling apart despite county inspectors signing off on them months prior. Prior to moving in. Dr. Horton is a home construction company that builds new housing developments throughout the low country. As demand for more subdivisions continues to grow, dozens of homeowners say they're finding problems with their homes. I'll never buy another Dr. Horton home again. Just trying to do too much too fast. Quality was horrendous. Dave Preston and his wife spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and moved into the French Quarter Creek neighborhood in Huge in April of 2022. Quickly after moving in, they say problems arose. They say the septic system in their home and in every house on their side of the neighborhood backed up, needing a full septic overhaul. Within months of moving in, things weren't working right. Preston says issues continued to surface in his home, so he contacted one longtime Lowcountry inspector, Robert Knowles, in March of 2023, 170. 66 page inspection report from Knolls noted problems in virtually every single part of the home. There are so many things from the rafters in. In your attic. Not being correct. Scott Mulway and Mike Barbero live in the same Somerville neighborhood with Dr. Horton Homes that were built in 2019. They say the biggest problem in their development is the roofs. When they were actually putting in the shingles themselves, they weren't using the correct amount of nails. They weren't using the correct amount of. Of felt. Mulway's roof has buckled three times. The first time only two months after they moved in. A winter storm last January removed 70 of Mulway's shingles and damaged the inside of their home, coming with a whopping $17,000 price tag. They don't build these homes in months or years and more, they build them in weeks. And it's just crazy how quick they pop up. Despite the reported structural problems, both homes were approved by a Dorchester county inspector in 2019. It's not operating like a new something should operate. Multiple lawsuits against Dr. Horton have been filed in counties throughout the state, with many of those being in Berkeley County. Everything's on the homeowner, and they don't know what all the shoddy work that's behind the scenes. Lawsuits filed by homeowners against the company include allegations of improperly installed roofs and pursuits. Persistent drainage problems resulting in consequential damage to the houses. Part of the problem with filing lawsuits is that in. In many of these purchase agreements, buyers waive their right to a trial by jury. Instead, they go to arbitration, an arrangement that usually benefits the established corporation because they often have connections with arbitrators. Meanwhile, as they make promises to buyers, companies like Dr. Horton tell investors that they will be, quote, replacing certain high quality fixtures and finishes with less expensive, yet still high quality fixtures and finishes. So they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. Presumably, they're also employing a lot of illegal aliens to save on cost. And we can make that assumption because activists and unions are demanding that Dr. Horton block ice access to their building sites. I wonder why that is. Watch. Yes, we're at the regional office of Dr. Horton, which is a national developer, the largest single family home developer in the nation. And we're here today for two simple demands. That Dr. Horton publicly announce that they will not allow ice onto their work sites without a signed and valid judicial warrant. And that they will make a public announcement that they denounce. The way that ICE has been Harassing, assaulting, abducting construction workers, regardless of status. And that ice get out of Minnesota. Porque ciandado muchos casos. Okay, so he's saying that he was working. He works for a siding company, and they do really good work. And this is the fourth week of them being on a pause from working because his boss decided that it was safer to not work right now because of the high activity of ICE and people being taken while they're just trying to work. So he's in his fourth week of not working. So, yeah, it's been four weeks now of not making any money, not even one dollar. This is how companies like Dr. Horton operate. They use cheaper materials, cheaper workers, promise a cheaper product to investors even as they tell home buyers that they're getting a quality home. It's a shell game. And as they play it, the lawsuits continue to pile up. This one's from Houston. Watch. You own this house outright, you paid cash, but yet you're afraid to walk in there. Correct. Why is that? Because it's full of mold, and it made me sick. You pay a monthly mortgage for this house? I do, yeah. But you don't live at the house. No, we don't. You're afraid to walk in that house? Yes, we are. Why? Well, number one, I'm seven months pregnant, and we have mold contamination in our home. This was supposed to be where Courtney Colville lived after retirement. Do you want to live in this house? Absolutely not. I can't even imagine it. It's so stressful to even be here. This was kind of your dream house. This is where you were going to raise a family. When you look at it now, what is it? It's a disaster. It's a nightmare. I don't want to go into the home at all. Attorney Ernest Freeman is representing Aaron and Courtney in their lawsuits against their home builder, Coventry Homes. It all has to do with how the house was put together and whether the builder employed best practices. Erin says it all started when she noticed that right up there, I had lots of rashes, dermatitis. I also had two miscarriages while I was in the home. These kinds of problems are even more endemic when you look at single family homes that are purchased by large institutions, then leased to families that don't want to pay or can't pay a down payment. The Federal Trade Commission recently reached a tentative $48 million settlement with a company called Invitation Homes, which you may have heard of. They own a lot of the inventory on Zillow. The settlement is related to fees that they sneak into lease agreements as well as quality control issues. This is from the FTC. Quote, the complaint alleges that between 2018 and 2023 residents and 33,328 properties submitted at least one work order within the first week after they moved in for issues including plumbing, electrical and heating and air conditioning service requests. In some instances, residents reported houses that were unclean and had mold, broken appliances, rodent feces and exposed wiring. Even after renters moved in, the company's supposed 247 emergency maintenance was frequently non existent. According to the complaint, numerous residents complained about being forced to endure days and even weeks in unacceptable and sometimes dangerous conditions, including no heat in the middle of winter, no air conditioning in the summer, and flooding or sewage backing up in the home. Now, if you read the full complaint, there's all kinds of evidence that Invitation Homes was aware of what it was doing. One employee stated, quote, the number of resident complaints I feel I field from new move ins related to the home not being lease ready is both alarming and growing. Separately, a senior employee called the process of preparing houses for new renters a quote, train wreck and additionally, quote, the complaint cites a 2019 email from Invitation Home CEO calling on the senior vice president responsible for overseeing the company's fee program to juice this hog by making the smart home fee mandatory for renters. The complaint also points to multiple times the company actively chose not to disclose the fees prior to consumers paying non refundable application and reservation fees. Now, for what it's worth, the Trump administration recently enacted an executive order that's supposed to reduce the number of single family homes that are owned by companies like Invitation Homes. It mostly tells federal agencies that they shouldn't be, quote, approving, insuring, guaranteeing or facilitating the acquisition by a large institutional investor of a single family home that could otherwise be purchased by an individual owner occupant. It's a start, but it's not clear exactly how much impact that order will have or can have. Since the federal government doesn't control the housing market. Nor should it control the housing market by the way. So in order to actually address the problem of shoddy fraudulent home builders for both rentals and purchases, it's going to take a lot more than one executive order. For one thing, purchasers need to be aware that inspections from your local county official are probably useless. You need to get a more thorough inspection for any new home, ideally before the drywall even goes up and then afterwards. Additionally, the administration needs to continue enforcing immigration law to ensure that Builders are hiring quality employees, which is not happening at the moment. Now, to the extent that any major builder is deliberately employing illegal aliens, and as we discussed, there are many indications, including just our common sense that they are. Those corporations need to be investigated. The relevant executives need to be frog marched in front of cameras. If there's evidence they knowingly hired illegal aliens, they need to go to prison. When was the last time anyone investigated these home builders? Exactly. You know, we can go after the rental companies, but when did the federal government actually take a close look at Dr. Horton and Lennar and all these other companies were overdue for some kind of action at this point. And that's because while it's obviously good that more homes are being built, we need to ensure that those homes are actually livable for new families and that hundreds of thousands of people aren't being defrauded every year, which is what's happening right now. That's one of the primary responsibilities of any government, is to enforce the law. And that responsibility is especially important when it's the difference between a young family having a place to live or being stuck in an apartment or on the street while they spend years suing a large institutional landlord. Now, in the meantime, if you're buying a home, and especially if it's a new build, keep in mind that at the moment, these large institutional landlords are completely unchecked. No matter how eager your salesman or your realtor is, and no matter how talented your lawyer may be, take your time, hire your own inspector, and do your diligence. That's the only way to make sure that unlike many, many other young home buyers, you don't end up regretting the biggest purchase of your life. What do Snow White, Cinderella, and smallpox blankets have in common? They're all fairy tales. For decades, you've been told that you live on stolen land. We are right now on stolen land. That the Indians were peaceful Native Americans. We massacred them. Your ancestors committed genocide. And guess what? None of it is true. The Native Americans were some of the most savage fighters ever known to man. Raiding, scalping, torturing, even eating enemies. It was better to lose a battle to the U.S. army than to get wiped out by a rival tribe. And why did the story completely change in the 1960s? It turns out there's a lot more to the American Indians than Hollywood directors and school teachers want you to know. This month, we blow up the biggest myths about the American Indians and reclaim the real history that was stolen from us. 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