What’s often overlooked in the Chinese drywall matter is regardless on liability, many builders have been caught off-guard and hit hard by the faulty wallboard issue, even when homes they produced do not have the material. With an understandably cautious home-buyer base in the Gulf Coast, some builders are reaching a breaking point with their business, and patience.
One builder in Florida explained his, and many other builders’, plight
“The stigma that’s been attached to us as a builder because people know we have two homes that were built with Chinese drywall … it’s just a nightmare,” Harvey said.
He said he has an interested buyer, and that the home has been under contract twice, but that the potential homeowner keeps backing out.
“He’s so fearful from everything he sees and hears that he could be moving into a tainted house,” Harvey said, adding that his company has spent about $2,000 doing tests for defective drywall in the home. “I’m so frustrated. I don’t know how to prove it to them, since there’s not any sort of definitive test or anything. I’d eat the drywall if it made him feel better.”
Indeed, Harvey said he cut holes in the walls of the new house to check for markings on the drywall.
On top of that, he has offered to replace the defective drywall in the two homes without making a profit, but the homeowners want more.
“We’re sitting here eating up whatever reserves we have. I just hope we have the staying power to stay through.”
That Palm Beach Post article does a good job of humanizing the builder perspective of the matter, as well as bringing up the often overlooked plight of those who did not even use Chinese drywall in their construction efforts. Hopefully this matter will improve so that the housing market can rebound and thrive once more.