Clayton Homes

After we looked at it, Tammie asked if I wanted to do an application. I explained to her what happened at the other place and she told me that she couldn't give me an exact figure that day, but she could give me a figure and she promised that it would only go down. She didn’t beat around the bush and she was exactly right. My payment is lower than what she had first quoted me, even with my insurance included. We discussed 20 or $25,000 down. I put 20,000 down and it was still almost $100 lower than what they told me in Shallotte for the same house.

The house was delivered and set up and we moved in on February the 12th. My other house got damaged during Florence, so I was displaced from September until February 12. Tammie did everything in her power to get things done quicker. She may have put me ahead of a few or pulled some strings and she got me in the new house. She had somebody come out and tear the other house down and haul it out. They wouldn’t pull it out because of the shape it was in and it would collapse on the road. Then they brought the new house in and had it set up. The day it was delivered, Tammie called me and said that the crew left with the first half and that they should be in my driveway within an hour. She also called me when the second half was leaving. She was on top of everything.

I like the openness of the house, which was what sold me on the house because my wife was in a wheelchair. I've also got an island in the kitchen. The kitchen is a good size and the dining is in with that. The living room and the master bedroom are huge. But I had a problem with the carpet in the master bedroom and the living room. There was something in the padding when the house was built and once we moved in, the traffic pulled whatever it was up into the carpet. There were 10 big, oval stains. I told Tammie about that and she had the guys come and replace the carpet in a day.

I haven't had a better experience of buying anything from anybody than I had with Tammie. She made it more personal than business. Then when my wife passed, Oakwood in Chadbourn sent flowers. This was after everything was said and done, the carpet had been replaced, and there were no more issues with the house. When I sent a close family friend up there, Tammie was the same way with her and my friend bought a house from her after I bought mine.

I wanted a non-split home, which I realized is very rare in manufactured homes. But I told Matt from Clayton that I’ve got four little kids, and I’m nervous about being on the other side of the house. I don’t even think he was looking at it. He knew down to the inch, how far it was from the master bedroom to the kids’ room. And he knew everything about the house. He knew all that different stuff.

I told him, “I can’t find a Realtor that knows how to look for lands that can do the well and a septic, make sure it can have a manufactured home.” And when I got in there, he handed me three business cards. He gave me my options, but he told me who they’ve had great experience with, which made me feel so much better. The realtor, Heather, and I are still very close friends. She was amazing and so helpful. And because she knew them and they knew her, questions were able to get answered. I could get to be an overly detailed person, so if Matt couldn't fill in all those details for me I called Heather and she would go, “Oh, yeah. This is what we do. It’s okay. This is what we’ve gotten.” There was always somebody that knew what was going on.

And they really fought for us. We had issues with the land where our first land was in a flood zone. I felt horrible -- things kept getting delayed and different engineering stuff had to be done. At the very end of it, we got everything taken care of. And the Realtor that was running that land came back and said, “Hey, this land is in a trust, and we can’t sell it until the trust is figured out. It could be a couple more months.” And by this point, the house had been sitting on the property at Clayton up here for a few months. So, they were paying the interest and everything on it. They kept doing it until we found more land, and they totally took care of us, Matt and Dave who is the manager. Even if they were frustrated, you never knew they were frustrated. I knew it had to be hard on them, and it’s taking so long, but both of them just went over and beyond.

When we came in, they never shared their frustrations with us about how long it was taking or anything. They were always smiles and, “How’s it going guys? Good to see you.” They’re so patient with us. We had to bring all the in-laws to come see the house and they would always say, “Yup. Come on over, let’s go see it.” I remember too, the day that the house rolled off their land on the truck to come to our land, Matt videotaped it for me and sent it to me. It was great. It was just so personal. It was like we all sat there. He’s like, “We’re all crying here at Clayton.” And I’m like, “We’re crying here watching the video.” It wasn’t like dealing with a business, it was like dealing with a friend that’s just as excited for us as we were excited for ourselves. I’m so happy it was such a wonderful and personal experience for everyone involved. I have two people coming to Clayton for houses soon.

The rep offered us a snack and he said that if we wanted, he could tell us good places to go for dinner. He showed us homes, layouts and insurances that were available. He didn’t sell anything. He just showed us everything we wanted to see. It sold itself. We put down payments on three of them that afternoon. One for each of us. The home buying process with Clayton Homes was so simple and easy. Matt was the best-informed and the most reasonable. He was on top of everything. Sharon was great and the owner, Dave, was incredible. Even Jay, the manager who came out to survey the property, spent more time with me so we could figure out the layout of the house. Eddie was right on top of any questions I had.

I had plenty of customization. I wanted the soaker tub, instead of the regular. I didn’t want a back door, so I got an area where I could put in a freezer or a sink in the utility room. I didn’t want any carpeting at all, so they traded me the shutters that were in there, for putting in the wood floor. Then, when we were signing the deal, they said that they would give me the mini-blinds for free. I loved it. Everything about the experience was 100% over the top.

I was out there by myself because we were trying to sell my house here in Hemet. At 1:30 in the morning on a Sunday, the winds were blowing at 60 miles an hour and there was rain. I couldn’t hear a thing in my bedroom which showed how well-made they are. But I heard this drip and I got up and looked all over for it. Finally, I was ready to turn off the bathroom light and there was water in the tub. I looked up and I saw it coming in the mini-blinds. I called the rep, Matt, and he answered the phone. He told me he would take care of it.

He sent out two emails to the owners, one to Jay, the project manager, and one to Eddie, who does all the repairs. Eddie called me at 9 o’clock the next morning. He said he got the email and asked if it was okay to come out. He took down the fascia and pulled out the caulking. He told me what happened. They had multiple homes that were all alike, and they caulked some of them for Northern Arizona and some for Southern. They did that on a Thursday. On Friday, they hauled my home up here and it didn’t even have a chance to stick or dry. He took out all the caulking and the windows. He dried everything off, put it back, put on the fresh caulking and the fascia back up, and repainted. He came in the house and did the same thing with those windows. He dried up the floors and left two towels out because he was not sure what was gonna happen with the two. He said they should be okay, but it was where most of the water came in.

There are 11 windows in the house and he did 7 of them. He said that they never had problems with those windows above the sink and the washer and dryer. I asked how often they have these kinda problems and he said that they did 88 homes last year and only had problems with 5. I have not had a problem with it since. I have recommended Clayton to friends. I have friends who are going out with me in August, right at the hottest part of the year, because they don’t believe how nice the temperature is where I live. I've invited all of my friends to come out and stay so they can actually see it and see where it is.

There are a few checkpoints that they should ask their customers. I didn’t have a checklist of things to consider and that would be a more helpful tool. There were some very minor things that was a little confusing.

For instance, the particular model I have comes with a power supply in the house, the place where you have all your cut-off switches or your breaker box. So, this particular model takes a 220 power from whatever source you get it from, and you bring it into the house, you plug it into the copper box. But there’s no space whatsoever to run power to the septic. So, there’s confusion. And the first thought was, we gotta run another power cable from the power meter. So, I had plans to have that thing fixed up again.

Right at the end, I ended up in a situation where I had the home and everything else done except the power to the septic. And then there was all kinds of confusion and the manager there at Clayton kept saying, “Oh, that’s on you, Mr. **.” I said, “Excuse me, we negotiated this at the closing. No, this is not on me. This is on you. You gotta come out here and do it.” They did do it and they did pay for it. They complied with the contract and I saw it. So, I had no real complaints, except 10 days that I should’ve moved in, and then I realized that there’s no power to my septic tank. It took 10 days for them to do it. That was kind of a little rough road. But that had nothing to do with Colin. It’s only the misunderstanding of the clause of the particular, peculiar contract. It wasn’t a normal, straight process. But other than that, everything else went well.

I ended up having to view some of their contacts because they knew certain processes that they had from Clayton. I appreciate that. Our salesperson, Colin, who walked us through the whole process was outstanding. When there was ever any confusion or if the schedule had to switched because of rain or whatever it was, Colin was really on top of the show. He impressed the heck out of me in many ways. Everything he did was great.

Every time I called for each step of the way, for instance, “Hey, it’s time for you to run the power to the house. And you can do these other things at the same time.” Every time, there was an argument over who’s responsible for paying they sent contractors out here and the contractors say, “I’m expecting you to pay for this.” I had to get back on the phone with Clayton and sometimes it was off hours. It was just a headache. But other than that, the purchase of the home was very smooth. The people there are very responsive. All things considered, Clayton Homes did a wonderful job.

One day, I went into the dealership in Texarkana to see what they had. The salesman there said, “Oh, we can get you into this house for under $60,000, blah, blah, blah.” I said okay, then I left. I thought about it and said to myself, “I'm gonna call back and talk to the manager.” I called back and talked to Leon and he was absolutely the best thing that fell out of the sky that day. He was amazing. He said, “Come back up here. I'll walk you around. We'll find you something. We'll find you something you like.” We went back up there a few weeks later. We were walking around and I saw the trailer that I had seen at the Sulphur Springs dealership. I loved that trailer -- the layout, look, and everything. I said that I love that one, but I also said that their salesman already told me they can't do that one. He asked, “Why not,” and I said that I didn’t know.

We started talking and he asked how I was gonna do it. I said that I was gonna pay cash and he said, “Well, it's that much big difference.” Nobody else had let me get me that far. He said that they could do it and that he could get me a discount. We ended up doing the paperwork. We got it done and cut in the check. Not even three weeks later, they were bringing my house out and it was amazing from the beginning until the end that I got the one I wanted. I got the one that I was in love with and I got to deal with somebody like him and got to meet him. I feel blessed because he was absolutely the best, the sweetest person I've ever met.

I've given great reviews to Clayton in Texarkana because of the fact Leon went above and beyond. As a salesman or as a dealership manager, he didn’t even have to get involved and he didn’t even have to do anything. He could have just let it go. He was so pleasant and so nice to deal with. He was an awesome person. The guys in the office were really sweet and very helpful, and always wanting to know how things are going. I would really love to nominate Leon or whatever I'll have to do to get him some recognition for the work that he has done. I called with a complaint and he was on it. The stove was messed up and he was on it. He has been fantastic and I really would like to see him get the recognition he deserves.

I picked the home up straight off the lot. There were some things that were different, like the refrigerator, that were different from what I had picked out. I didn’t choose any colors, flooring, and carpet. I fell in love with the house just as it was set up. It had a very rustic farmhouse style to it. It was called the Anniversary, but they changed the name of it now to the Farmhouse. It had the farmhouse sink and a lot of cute little neat stuff. However, we had a little bad problem with the snow. We had a guy come out and tell us, “Oh, it's this. Oh, it's that,” and supposedly fixed it, but not even two weeks later, we had somebody else come back out to do the same thing again. After about three times, we finally got one and so far, it has not messed up since we got it replaced. They brought us a different unit all together and it has been fine ever since. There have been no problems, no issues.

The dishwasher is still messed up, though. It will not do the heated dry cycle at all and it is getting to where it is not washing really good. I'm gonna give Leon a call and see if he can send someone out. He is very good about getting on the problem and getting it solved, and that is what I liked. He is a man of action and when he finds out there is something wrong, he takes care of it. He is amazing. I feel blessed from the moment I walked in the door and talked to him until now. I feel lucky because I had a great salesman. If I hadn't dealt with him, I wouldn’t have the house right now.

I love the house overall, although there were just a couple of things. We've had some appliance issues with the stove and we had one with the refrigerator freezing up on the inside and not doing what it was supposed to do. But other than the appliances, I'm totally happy with this house and I couldn’t be happier. We got an extended warranty and mine is around eight years. It covers everything, so we are pretty set on that and I'm glad I did it because, with the stove issues, you never know. Just because you buy something new doesn’t mean it might not be defective.