Jensen Mm Homes

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• By Jt

  January 12, 2023

  Custom Home Build

  $1,200,000

  We were referred by friends who were using Jensen MM Homes to build their pool at the time (they later retracted the referral), and we were invited by Jensen Homes to see a major remodel project they were working on for a local doctor in Mapleton, where we could see that they were at least capable of building a custom home. Entering into builds of custom homes appears to have been a new venue for them following their work building this custom home in Mapleton, where the owner was not particularly involved in the build and had relatively unlimited funds available. To be fair, these are very nice people, running a family business and with whom we thought this would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately our experience ultimately turned south. To start, we discovered their "revised" cost estimate was off by more than 2X for wood costs, and an average of 40% off for other combined costs, and when confronted with this, we were told that managing the funding was our responsibility, not theirs. No recommendations, suggestions or ideas were offered to offset costs. Each build phase also encountered a major problem. To start, we (as client) discovered the initial excavation was way off (by 20+ feet in our case), as it turned out were all three of the builds being done by Jensen in our area at that time. Next, we (as client) discovered the foundations and footings not laid out and/or installed per plan. Finally, during the framing phase, there were significant framing issues and delays attributable to lack of advance planning, and ultimately discovery on our part (again as client) that a twice superceded revision of plans (not the permit set) had been issued to the framer, and had been used to order and install the wrong major structural and architectural components. When confronted with this last issue, Jensen Homes refused to take any responsibility or ownership to resolve. We were actually told by them that it was no big deal, despite significant county redlines and fire code impact of the wrong plans being used. Each of these glitches were attributable to basic carelessness, a lack of attention to detail, lack of foresight and a lack of sub contractors oversight; all factors which ended up costing us significant time, money, stress and personal labor to address (example: we repeatedly had to clear snow out of the house due to an unfinished roof for 3 winter months waiting for long-lead roofing components that had not been ordered in advance despite multiple requests by us to address). During this period, we received no assist from our GC or framing crew, and even had to drill holes in the floor to let standing water on our OSB flooring drain to the basement). During the framing phase we were also heavily coerced by the GC and Framer into advancing funds to the framing contractor ahead of the agreed upon payment schedule, and found throughout the process that the GC appeared far more interested in looking out for the interests of his preferred subs than for his client. With regards to competetive bidding, Jensen later openly admitted that they provided their preferred framer the bid from a competitor and asked if he could do it for that price so that the framing contractor's crew could get the "experience" framing a custom home.
  After 15 months in contract with Jensen Homes, we finally got the framing mostly complete and the roof dried in before parting and moving to a new builder.
  While Jensen Homes may be an excellent pool builder, and even possibly a good spec home builder, they lacked many of the requisite skills to work directly with a client on a custom home build and instead of engaging with us and taking ownership to work out problems, told us to "stay out of the way", despite a lack of involvement that repeatedly required us (again, as the client) catching some fairly major glitches and bringing to their attention. I hope they can improve their model and we wish them success down the line, however for us this was pretty much a nightmare for a good portion of the 15 months we were in contract with them. After making final agreed upon payment, and both parties signing a termination of contract agreement, we still continue to recieve bills from them for additional costs they claim we're responsible for. Based on our experience, I unfortunately cannot recommend Jensen Homes for a home build.

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