Clayton Homes

Right now, we are still doing custom things to the home. We needed more cabinet space, so bought some cabinets and got them in. One other thing was our bathrooms. We weren't satisfied with the mirrors and the light was reflected in the wrong place. But we put in new medicine cabinets in each bathroom. Then, we wanted to hang pictures and it was difficult because they always want to come loose and bolts want to come out. But we figured if the wall was untaggable, we were able to put things in the walls and the pictures would stay there long if we want them.

Aside from that, our home is not going to repair very easy. If something breaks, it's going to have to be replaced. Our floor looks like tile, but it's linoleum. It’s too easy to scratch the top surface and ours got scratched the time when they were moving stuff in and out when we moved in. And since it is linoleum, it’s one thing and you got to fix all of it. If I had to do it all over again, I would say go with a house and don't get a trailer. The lady that lives out here had seen them when they brought the mobile home on to the property. She said that they pushed it in such a manner that it looked like it was going to fall completely apart. But it lived through it and nothing was broken.

All in all, the home is about as good as you can expect in a mobile home. Plus, Clayton has done everything they could do to make things better for us and people could depend on the fact that they are going to sell them a good living space. A mobile home’s got a lot going for it, too. It's easy to clean, to keep warm, and to keep cool in the summer.

We purchased our first home from the Mesa Clayton Homes office. We went to our sales rep and had such a wonderful experience. We said, “We're buying some land in Chino Valley, and we would love to do another Clayton home with you.” They were very happy and really excited to get onboard with that. They suggested that we go to the Chino Valley Clayton Homes sales office and “Tell them that you're working with us in Mesa. Tell them that you just wanna see some model homes.” We went to the Chino Valley sales office to look at some models, and we told them, “Everybody from Mesa sent us here. We're working with them. They told us to come and see some models.”

The Chino Valley sales office got some of their contractors who just happened to be in there, and the sales rep, and they were trying to talk us out of working with Mesa. They wanted us to work with them directly, and they were bad mouthing the Mesa guys and saying, “You know, you don't wanna do that. And we know the area better, and they don't know what they're doing up here.” I don't know if that had anything to do with how our house looked when we first walked in, but I'm sure that the Mesa guys eventually had to say to the Chino Valley sales office, “Hey, do you have contractors in the area that we can use to put the house together?” ‘Cause I'm sure it wasn't the same people as Phoenix.

When we moved into the Chino Valley house, there was glue all over our countertop. We upgraded the countertops, and they weren't granite but Corian. We also had to use razor blades to try to scrape glue off the counters. They didn't even put fasteners on the shelving. When we went to put plates and glasses, the shelves just came crashing down. There were also a lot of things that weren't finished with caulking and grout. There were flooring issues and big scrapes in the laminate, and the flooring is scheduled to be replaced.

There were a lot of things that were vastly different from the experience that we had when we purchased our home in Phoenix. Whether it was doing the cabinetry or the countertops, it seems like that wasn't done very well. A lot of corners were cut, and a lot of things were missing, but the Clayton Mesa individuals stepped up to the plate and remedied everything. However, it would have been better if we went to the Chino office and not even told them that we were working with Mesa. If we would have just said, “Oh, we just wanna look and see some models,” it would have been a way more pleasant experience.

When I met the rep, Morgan, she was very kind. I said to her, “Just go step by step with me because I'll get overwhelmed.” I'm a police dispatcher, and my days are just crazy. She told me exactly step by step what I needed to do. I told her, “Okay, what's the step after that?” That was the only time she gave it to me in advance, was when I said to her, “Okay, I got that.” She also hooked me up with everybody that I needed to be hooked up with like the bank. She went way over and beyond. She was just a great person to work with.

We bought land in July. Right before we bought the land, we went into Clayton and said, “How does this process work if we wanted to buy our own land and have a home put on it?” We told her what we were looking at. She told me I just have to go from there and to get a closing done on that, to get the property, get the closing done, and then get all the paperwork over to them. She just took it from there.

She went a little further. There was a well that was supposed to be on the property that we bought, but we never found it. And we didn't want a well. We wanted to get public water and there weren't any lines. It was never lived on. It was just completely open land. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for it, whether it be the city or the county. She went way over and beyond. She got in touch with the county, and said, “These people just bought this and they're gonna live on it. You're messing with our livelihood. Somebody has to take responsibility for this piece of land and put the pipes down.” They did it with no charge. They ate about $5,000. There was no charge because it was just such a process. They didn't understand who was gonna take it and who was gonna be responsible for it. She went to bat for us.

She gave us choices and options of what we wanted. When we went to look, she gave us an open court of what we wanted. She let us go through each one of them and didn't pressure us into anything. Just told us to take our time and think about what we wanted. If we had picked something that was out of our upbringing, she gave us options for something different. We told her what we had wanted and she stayed in that area.

They had a floor plan, and that was the most fun part out of it. Going in and picking out all the colors. It was great. It turned out exactly the way that I wanted it. When we were doing that, she said to me, “If there's something in here that clashes, we have professional people, and we'll just let you know that might not go together.“ But that never happened. Everything was just the way we wanted it to be.

It started in July and we were all moved in by the end of December. That was all it took and that was during COVID time. So, that was during the time that we didn't know if we were going to get our cabinets. We didn’t know if we were gonna get our appliances. Anything that came from Mexico, we didn't know if we were gonna get it on time. We didn't know how long it was gonna take and she kept on it. She made it work. We were in there a week before Christmas. She’s a top-notch woman. We couldn't thank her enough.

Clayton in Rogersville has went way far and beyond to help us. They are excellent. They've always tried to work with us really well with anything that we wanted to change. Any problems we've ever had, they've always been right there and helped us. We had the construction loan. We both learned a lot in between the construction loan. They worked with the Eastman Credit Union. There was no communication about anything with the escrow place that they went through to do it. We didn't like that part. That did not have anything to do with Clayton. When we got our closing cost, it ended up to being 2,000 more than we thought because they got the surveyor and they didn't let us choose a surveyor. They didn't communicate with us to say, "This has went up. The surveyor is a lot more. Your closing cost is gonna be a lot more." When it happened, it was a surprise.

Neither one also didn't tell us that there will be a fee to do the conversion over what converted from the mortgage loan conversion from the construction loan to the mortgage loan. They didn't tell us that equating it was an $1,800 charge. We had put $1,000 down and they were like $800 short. Instead of making us pay that because it wasn't our fault, Clayton let that go.

I love Dylan. We still call each other. There are a few stuff that they're getting ready to do. What happened was, we have the decks build in. We didn't have the gate put on the back. So, I called him and I asked him how much would it cost for him to build me just the gate for the back like I got on the front. He said, "Oh, don't worry about it. We'll get that." So, he's having the guy that does the decks build us a gate. They're gonna kind of put it on.

I talked to Bobby this morning and he's waiting on the guys to bring the gate to come and do it all at once. One of my blinds broke and he ordered me another blind for my sliding glass door, and they're going to come and put that on. We had rocks put on our driveway that was in our construction loan and we didn't have enough to go all the way up our driveway. When I was gonna get this guy to do it and they told me they would get Chris to come out here and put me some more rocks, and they did. I loved that they surprised me and they did it for me. I would very highly recommend all of them. They've all been really good with us.

Then, we paid our down payment so they would get started and it took them a while to make our home. It was on my birthday, in May, that it arrived to the store for us to go look at it. So the process started from the end of November all the way to May. But that was understandable with the COVID virus slowing everything down. Then for Christmas, they closed for two weeks, which we knew about beforehand. So the process took a little longer than we thought but our expectations may not have been realistic given today's circumstances with the virus.

So we went and looked at the home that they made in May, then it was June 1st that it was delivered on our property. After that, it was end September when we moved in and a lot of that was due to a lot of rain we were having, so it was hard to get things quickly. There were also a few times when I felt like the communication with Clayton's reps could have been better. But as a new person doing something like that, I was just a little insecure.

So far, we're very happy with the home and it feels like a solid one. We've been through one really bad storm, the effects of that last hurricane, and we were nervous because it was our first storm in it. Fortunately, the home's out in the field and the woods are backed off from us, so we didn't have to worry about trees falling on us. But we were nervous because the winds got pretty hard for Georgia. Still, we didn't feel like we needed to leave and go get somewhere safer. The home held up really good and there was no damage to it at all. The air conditioning and the heat seem to be really efficient, too. I'm happy with our electric bill. It went up a little this past month, but that's because it's been so cold. But the home seems to be very comfortable and a cozy place. It’s such a pretty home and it has the little built-in front porch on it with the stones on the column. We get a lot of compliments on it.

We were having an issue with the second bath’s shower drain and the techs had to make three trips out there to figure out the issue and fix it. During the third time, they had to cut Sheetrock, open up the wall behind the tub, and do something to the drain line. Then they had to repair the Sheetrock. They had to send someone else to do the Sheetrock repair. It’s filled up now.