What's more fun than the stress of buying your first home? Oh, buying it in NYC you say? Still…read morenot enough steam coming off that turd for you? Then I'd recommend adding Prime Homes to the mix. Full disclosure, I was aware, 100%, from the second I started working with their sales guy (I won't even bother naming names because I'm 99.9% sure they use fake names and have different sets of business cards (with only the first names on them?!)) that they were total scam artists.
However, I had also been looking at homes in Bed Stuy for several years, and really really wanted this house. So despite my gut intuition that I was in for a shadtastic ride, I made the decision to buckle up and yee-haw anyways for the greater long term good of my financial health and happiness (and no, I don't regret it, only because I did want this house and now I have it).
Therefore, because I knowingly worked with them to purchase my house, I feel unfair criticizing their deceitful, immoral, and bullying tactics, because I fully anticipated them. Conversely, for warning/ education of prospective homebuyers, and for my own cathartic fun now that I'm comfortably sitting in the living room of my house, I'll set the stage.
Making you feel like you have a choice: When I first viewed the home, Prime Homes was about 50% done "renovating". I use quotation marks because the quality of craftsmanship is so horrifically deplorable that I think my cat craps better looking tile work. But more on that later. Throughout the long and painful renovation process, many promises were made (do take these with the grain of salt that I did). Everything from getting to 'choose' your own fixtures, floors, etc, to paint color. However, in every single instance when you go to view fruition of one of these choices, you will come to learn that absolutely no consideration was taken and your wishes completely disregarded. Basically go into it with the mindset that they're going to do whatever the hell they want, likely blindfolded.
Pressure to use their "guy": Avoid doing this. Even though I knew I was working with some old fashioned New York charlatans, I'm not stupid and I wasn't going to add their friends to my rolodex, or payroll. Get your own attorney's, inspectors, etc. regardless of how much they whine, complain, and cajole.
Closing day, AKA cue Benny Hill theme song: All those unfinished promises and aspects of the "renovation" that were left undone...ya... this is when you get to sit in a sweaty room and argue over them for hours. Logic and traditional buying practices suggest that it's best to wait until the work is done before going to closing. Sadly, after months of realizing the work is being done so poorly that you're better off just buying the house and completing the remaining work professionally, you end up just wanting the nightmare to end (maybe this is their tactic, if so, kudos Prime Homes, you wore me down).
There are so many tragically comical antidotes I could tell about specific interactions or instances, but I think they are well summed up with some pictures of the final product. Mind you this was after they fixed downright ridiculous errors such as installing the stove in the rental unit sideways (yes, that's what it sounds like...so the door wouldn't open because it was against the cabinets), to all kinds of broken/ mismeasured/ misaligned cabinets and countertops, or that every closet door falls off when you touch it.
I'm having a ball now redoing all the work they did, but that's the price I had to pay for a home with good 'bones' in Brooklyn in my price range.
