KB Home communities across Texas and South Carolina have not evolved into the “development” or “community” that many buyers were led to believe during their purchase.  These buyers invested and trusted KB Home to development the product that was presented during their home buying process, and KB failed to deliver on their obligations and verbal commitments to these homeowners. More importantly, many continue to have their homes devalued with these deceptive decisions at a rate that exceeds the city and area average, costing some owners $30k-$100k in depreciated equity.  KB Home will blame the “bait and switch” of home collections on the economy, but they have no excuse for their corporate irresponsibility of non-disclosure of significant community changes. KB argues that they cannot control the economy, but they CAN control their corporate actions and communication to home buyers. KB has a history of keeping information secret and confidential if it might adversely affect a home sale, and depriving the home buyer of making an informed decision and denying them a choice. 

Buying a home is typically the single largest purchase a person makes throughout their lifetime. Buying from a builder brings another element of consideration during this process. There are two separate and distinct parts that a company such as KB Home produces during their product development. The most obvious is the construction of the actual home itself. The second part is the actual development of the neighborhood or community. 

From the development aspect, KB Home has a proven track record throughout Texas to over promise and under deliver. They do this by selling the remaining lots to another builder, or by downgrading the product line offered with a cheaper home series after the initial homebuyers have already finalized their purchase.  This “bait and switch” type behavior results in devaluation and depreciation of the previous nicer home series at the expense of homeowners’ equity. Every home owner or potential buyer in an incomplete KB Home community, regardless of neighborhood, should have these concerns. This track record of bait and switch behavior has recently occurred throughout San Antonio in Saddle Mountain, Trails at Herff Ranch, Sundance Trails, and Quarry at Iron Mountain. Woods of Alon is the newest KB Home community and is still on its first series of homes. With the slow sales and 90% of the community undeveloped, buyers should have a high level of concern because of the risk involved of a lower series entering this community in the near future. You should also be aware of the risks involved buying into a neighborhood controlled by a single builder.  When this exists, the actions of that single builder can have drastic adverse effects on the market value of the homes in that development regardless of the market conditions in the area surrounding the neighborhood. 

KB Home has a market niche in Texas for building homes below the median price point. Currently the median price point for homes in Texas is approximately $142,000, and KB home has tried to enter the market of higher priced homes but has a history of failure in doing so. This failure extends back to approximately 2003 when KB Home was trying to develop a neighborhood called Iron Mountain located at Sonterra and Hardy Oak in the Stone Oak area of San Antonio, TX. Their lack of trust and reputation of construction defects in San Antonio was one factor that prevented them from selling homes at this higher price point despite the strong housing market of that time. KB Home abandoned the development and sold all of the lots to Pulte home, which was able to make it the nice neighborhood it is today.