Largo-cr Homes

This builder should NOT be in business and how this company can give them a rating of 98 is incredulous!

It took them 18 months to build our custom home when his contract states 10 months. There was not 1 rain delay or any other delay in regarding the building of our home. We prepaid for 2 very custom items before they even started building due to having to preorder so these items would be ready in time. One was a full metal roof. The other were reclaimed solid wood beams. After the home was started we found the lot had not been graded correctly so we could not have the 2 steps we were supposed to have leading up to our front porch. The actual porch was only maybe 2 inches off the ground so technically it was a safety hazard. After many discussions we found a solution we could all live with. Please note the Craig sent his account to our homesite to work out a solution with us. He did not bother to come himself and in fact never once after we signed the contract for him to be our builder did we ever see or speak with him again. Any email sent to him got only a reply of "read your contract" or email the construction manager and not him. The lot was cleared prior to ever speaking with us so when they sent us pictures of our lot they had actually removed all the trees from the front of the homesite but left all the trees at the back and did I mention the lake lot we are on which is in our back...It shouldn't take a genius to know if someone pays for a lake lot then they would want to actually be able to see the lake! We had to agree to plant and pay for out of pocket 5 100 gallon hardwood trees in order to get permission to remove the pine trees that had been planted for pulp farming. After the framing of our home we kept asking about when the reclaimed wood beams would arrive. We were told time and time again they were in transit, they had forgotten to be ordered, they would be arriving at any time..the excuses went on for months. They kept building the house. They had put in all the walls and lighting fixtures and kitchen cabinetry kitchen island ceiling fan everything you can think of except the 3 800 lbs each reclaimed wood beams. When the beams finally arrived they were placed inside the home. They went all the way from the front to the back sliding door. They had to bring in hydraulic jacks to lift them up in place. However prior to that they had to come back in and remover sections of drywall to add in the necessary supports for these 800 lb each beams. Can you even imagine the amount of stupid that was. They in turned damaged all the cabinets and the granite and all the paint so everything pretty much had to be redone. The wrong garage doors were hung, the wrong interior doors were hung (all) nothing was what we had ordered and paid for. We had a barn door and the finishers kept drilling a hole for a doorknob in it so they had to change out the door 3 times. All 4 commodes that were completely installed in our home were not the ones chosen. We had to have them all removed and the correct ones installed. There was not one item done to our home correct the first time. I am I very serious about that statement. They had painted the walls the wrong color 3 times before my husband actually when to the paint store with them to get the right color. The walls had been painted so many times that after the fourth coat of paint all the areas around every door and window cracked and spidered out. They had to come back in (we were already living in the home at that point) and sand all the walls and remain them again. Our service yard fence is being replaced now (less than to years) because it is sinking because the correct amount of footers were not put in place originally. Our full paver driveway was sinking because the correct % of sand and rocks were not put down first. So far on this issue neither the paver company nor CR-Largo have responded to our calls regarding this issue. So to wrap this up were are thinking of suing at this point and are talking with all the other CR-Largo home owners to see if we might go forward with a class action law suit. We still and at coming up on 3 years never had all the punch list items completed. We gave up and out and just hired outside people to come in and finish our home. Just to get an idea our home is worth 800K-850K so your would expect the builder to respect that kind of money....CR-Largo is so cash poor they need to take the money that new home builder pay at time of contract signing to keep working on the home of the prior new home builder. I could go on and on. Please use any other builder but this one.

Below is our experience with Largo-CR Homes.

PRE-CONSTRUCTION: I met with 7 builders, and while all were extremely nice and informative, I was impressed with Largo as they were the only ones who actually went to our lot prior to our meeting. They were also the only ones who had an architect there at the meeting to discuss the design of the home in relation to the lot. Their pricing was extremely competitive, felt very comfortable with Craig Rymal, and my wife and I signed a contract with them.

DESIGN: Having never built a home before, we were intimidated by the "selection" process but Cheryl Rymal made the process pleasant and palatable, scheduling 1 day on, 1 day off, 1 day on, 1 day off, and 1 day on. She did this to give us time to let the previous day sink in.

Also, based on the quoted price, we assumed that the "standards" would need to be upgraded and made an assumption that it would be around $20-25K before we met. As the selection process proceeded, we were surprised to find that the allowances were much higher than we thought. We did do a number of upgrades but the total overage only came in about $5000 over.

CONSTRUCTION: The construction was started when it was supposed to start and other than a 10 day delay during the weather (can't pour a foundation in rain which is for OUR benefit) everything has gone as planned. Again, we have not experienced any significant delays with work continually going on each week.

As the project progressed, communication has been excellent and on our trips down to see the progress, we have been extremely satisfied with the workmanship. The project manager has made many suggestions based on both his personal and professional experience and each suggestion has proven to be correct. It is obvious he takes pride in his work and it shows.

CONCLUSION: While our house is not yet complete (appears to be on schedule and should be within a month or so), I have no doubt that any issues that we may have after the home is complete, will be addressed accordingly. In my personal and professional experience, people just can't change like that. If they do, I will amend this review.

The bottom line is I didn't have to post this review, I WANTED to post this review. If they had done a poor job, I would be the first to blast them with a negative review, but based on my experience with them, I cannot recommend Craig, Cheryl and the entire staff at Largo-CR Homes enough.

We closed on our Largo-CR Home on December 15, 2017, 15 months after our contract was executed. In December 2016 we had shared with Craig Rymal, the owner of Largo-CR Homes, that we would need to close by December 31 in order to keep our construction loan-to-mortgage rate lock. Craig assured us that we would have no problem with this. In May 2017 our home’s project manager told us that we could be on track to close in late October. We asked him to go ahead and expedite our closing if possible. Imagine our chagrin when Craig told us in November 2017 that we would close mid-January 2018. No delays had occurred on our construction due to our part. We pushed back and insisted on a December 2017 close because of our mortgage rate lock.

We had been told by Craig that his and his wife Cheryl’s policy was to walk and inspect each home prior to owner occupancy to ensure that the house was completed. Cheryl serves in the capacity of design consultant for Largo. The walk-through never happened. Furthermore, we were never provided with a punch list of Items to be completed on our home at any point by Largo. A punch list was created by us and presented to Largo, who accepted this as the document to be followed going forward.

When we moved into our home in December of 2017, a different Largo-CR Home project manager stated to us that he was surprised we were allowed to close on our house as it was not complete. We had a punch list of well over 100 items and we did not disagree with his assessment. Wainscoting was incomplete, the stairs were being sanded to remove the wrong color stain, painting was not finished, cabinets were missing shelves and trim, electrical circuit breakers kept tripping, the landscaping was graded improperly and the house was painted the wrong color trim to name a few issues.

Since our closing we have had to continually pressure our builder, Largo-CR Homes, to complete our house. Our issues are not unique. At the same time we were pressing Largo to get our punch list completed, Largo was working with three other homeowners on our street in Hampton Lake on many issues they had with their homes. The issues in working with Largo-C.R. Homes are so significant that none of the 4 clients (all of whom have closed within the last 15 months) will recommend Largo-CR Homes as a builder to any prospective neighbor. Completion of anyone’s punch list has also been drawn out well past a year’s time and each of us has had to continuously initiate contact with the builder to get them to complete our homes.

In a November 2018 meeting the newly hired Customer Service Coordinator with Largo-CR Homes informed us that the owner of Largo-CR Homes had told her that our home and 2 others had major issues to be resolved and they had dropped the ball on completion. It is January 2019 and we still have several critical items yet to be completed, some of which are safety hazards. Some issues include potential flooding of neighbors’ property, construction dirt filling the lake at our kayak slip rendering it inaccessible at times and incorrectly hung doors that could fall onto our grandkids).

We are happy with most aspects of our house however the after-closing building process has been very time-consuming, inconvenient and anxiety provoking. This information is being provided to enable all Largo-CR Home potential customers to do their homework when working with this builder.