Garrette Custom Homes

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• By Henry P.

  April 26, 2022

  Building a house

  $1,006,000

  Community: Terrace at Twin Lakes (Federal Way)
  Price: 1,006,000$
  Floor Plan: Willow Multi-Gen

  We agreed to buy the a house by Garrett in the above community as it has the multi-gen suite, which fits our family’s needs. Before buying the house, we checked out their model home in Puyallup. We were told by Garrett’s listing agent that although our house has different floor plan, the overall quality, features, and details will be very similar to the model home. We liked model home and decided to sign the contract with Garrett in January. Fast forward, we decided to cancel our contract with Garrett today. It was a painful decision but in the end we’d rather lose our hard-earned earnest money (30k) than live in a Garrett-built house. Here are some of the reasons:

  1. Schedule: We were initially told by Garrett’s agent in writing that the house will be completed in March/April (when mortgage rate was still very low). We’re now told that the house will not be completed until mid-May. With the unforeseen delays and the historical rate hikes this purchase no longer makes sense for us from the financial and value standpoint.

  2. Design and Quality: We’re very disappointed with the design, selected materials, and construction quality. According to the listing agent, the house is fully spec’ed (meaning no design change can be made) but she assured us that the design team “had made beautiful selections” and the house will look “very similar to the model home”. Well, the house is almost done now and I can tell you that it is much uglier and cheaper than the model home that we saw. First of all, I think the Willow floor plan has a serious design flaw. You may not believe this but the entire second floor has a total of 2 small windows (I’m not kidding). The loft area on the second floor has no window and thus zero natural light. They should have know that this is the PNW where we spend almost half of the year in darkness. To make it livable you will have to spend extra money to install skylights, which you shouldn’t have to do after buying a million-dollar brand new house in fricking Federal Way. In addition, the house has no fence and the covered patio is just an eyesore. The outdoor fireplace is just massive compared to the tiny 8x10’ patio. This fireplace essentially block all the lights and view to the backyard from the dining area, which is already dark. When my wife and I saw this “outdoor living area” for the first time, we just looked at each other in disbelief. It is nothing like the spacious outdoor living area in the model home and we feel like we’re cheated. Building quality left a lot to be desired. They completely forgot a door from a bedroom upstairs to the bathroom until I pointed out to them. There’s an ugly seam on the kitchen’s countertop where they “cheap it out” by merging two small pieces of quartz instead of using a single piece. Keep in mind that this is a relatively small and straight countertop (not a L-shaped with a corner). When I complained to the listing agent about this, the response I got from her is “we got seams in most of our homes including the president of our company’s home” (so basically don’t expect much). The materials that they picked for the house is either entry level or just plain ugly. Our brand new master bathroom looks so dated with plain dull tiles everywhere without any kind of pattern.

  As I said before, backing out of the contract at the last minute is a painful decision. We really wanted to love the house and tried real hard to compromise but in the end we just couldn’t see ourselves living in it. We have tried really hard to make the builder whole by bringing in a qualified buyer who is willing to take over the contract. Sadly, Garrett decided that taking our earnest money a better way.

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• By Jim B.

  January 10, 2022

  Build home

  $815,932

  Garrette was non responsive and difficult to work with. Their sales team was OK. They lack construction oversight and quality control I closed on my house in Oct 2021 and as of Jan 2022 still have unfinished items. I don't recommend them having purchased and lived in 7 new homes to date. This is the worst builder I've experienced.