I'm writing this report to try and prevent other consumers from falling victim to First Texas shady contract pratices. I recently moved to Dallas with my job and was looking to build my FIRST home. I've owned several homes but never built one of my own. While trying to sell my present home my wife and I started looking at several home builders. We like others on this site were drawn to the large floorplans and sqft that First Texas offered for the price. Boy... Was this a mistake!!!
My wife and I signed a contract with First Texas in January with an initial earnest deposit of $2000. We were told that this was the process along with submitting another another $2000 that was due at redline. The Sales team in the Garden Heights division were very nice and helpful during the building process. Little did we know that this was nothing more than a cover up for their shady building process.
We had numerous complaints and issues that we noticed during the building process but seemed to be addressed by the actual building contractor. Some of the issues that we noticed were: lumps in the flooring, cracks in the sheet rock around the windows, cracking driveways, standing water near curb of home, and electrical issues. Needless to say, due to the housing market we were not able to sell our existing home so our lender refused to fund the loan due to "insufficient liquidation of assets". Even though our loan was denied, First Texas refused to return our earnest money. We honored our contract and were very cooperative during the building process.
We are still trying to work with corporate to get them to return our earnest money. We've written two letters now. Each of our previous request for earnest monies have been denied. Right now we're at the point that we are glad that we didn't move into the First Texas home and are about to just count our losses. We just don't want others to get burned by First Texas/Gallery Homes. We've considered sending out emails to our friends, co-workers and church members in an effort to prevent others from falling victim to these practices. Our mistake might serve as a blessing to others if we are able to get the word out.
We've also considered passing out information about this site and other complaints about First Texas. This seems to be the best way of addressing this problem. HIT THEM IN THEIR POCKETS!!! We've also considered contact local news channels to get the word out. We've done research with some of the other well known builders in the Dallas TX area and the average for earnest money is $1000. It's almost like First Texas knows that they do not build a quality product and will either manipulate consumers or deny you your earnest money when you've identified issues with the building process. This is generally after the "30 day" window.
Do the math... 20 potential home builders with $4000 earnest money equals..." $80,000" and they haven't had to sell the house. The company and president have made some nice pocket change with shady contract wording. Not only are they making money that way, but after our house didn't sell, they raised the price of the house another $20,000 so they are not losing money on the house.
Why not return our money? We've got to get the word out on First Texas and usacomplaints.com so that other consumers are not burned. More importantly we've gotta make First Texas addresses their business practices and quality issues.
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