Inland Empire

[Dag44]

It's really hard to get a true sense of whether Lennar is a good builder cause it seems everybody on the internet has bad stuff to say about every builder. Does anyone have any experience with this builder or an opinion on the quality of the homes they build?

[juslookn]

In my opinion, (I emphasize "my opinion") Lennar is below average in bulding quality.  I have experience with a number of production construction builders and Toll Brothers rate near the top from the construction I have seen. 

Cost per square foot is one indicator of building quality - the higher the cost, the better the construction....but you do have to figure in land cost into that cost per square foot equation.

[soopercommuter]

While Toll Bros is definitely better, they also build much more expensive homes. The average Toll Bros house around So Cal is probably north of a million bucks. Lennar builds for a different audience.  Back when I first started looking at houses I actually liked most of the Lennar homes I saw. The quality of the builds looked good and the floorplans and features seemed better than a lot of the other builders in the same price range. The one builder that often saw quality issues with was Standard Pacific. Didn't like many of the Hovanian homes either/

[Dag44]

Ah, thanks for the opinions. Lennar is building one of their "home within a home" communities in Murrieta and we went and looked at the models. The layout is awesome - separate unit for my husband, walk-in pantry, really long kitchen islands, downstairs bedroom and/or single story models, and the "everything's included" package. The total tax rate with assessments is 1.6%, which is pretty dang good for a brand new home community. Considering that interest rates are nearly 2 percentage points lower now than when we bought in 09 we could likely trade in and up and end up with nearly the same house payment. Just mulling it over right now though.