Clayton Homes

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.

We are from Maryland and we've never been to a home building process. When we first were looking at the houses, we asked if would he be able to manage the whole process from permits to well, septic. He took care of all that. Everything is complicated nowadays to do anything, especially during a pandemic, but they made it as easy as it could be by taking care of all these things for us that we had no clue how to do.

For the most part, the quality of the home is great. However, the day we moved in, a doorknob fell off of an interior door. Something like that shouldn't happen. But they came out and fixed it right away. One thing that surprised me was there's no access to the attic. We had a water stain on the ceiling around the light fixture in the master bath, cause the house sat on a lot for about a month before it was ready to put on the property.

When they were getting ready to come out, said, “We'll go in your attic and make sure there's no issue.” They came out and there was no attic access. I don't know if there’s supposed to be or not. But, the stain was no issue. It’s just like a little teeny thing which was painted over. As far as the carpet, we got the upgraded carpet and then we had some features. We were looking online and saw a couple of things that weren't on the house listed as options. So, we asked the rep. We wanted a utility sink in our laundry room and he worked that out.

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.

Last manager lied to me about an access door in the foundation. J R Electric (heat pump installer) confirmed the heat pump Clayton sent is not big enough for my house, the heat pump runs all day long in the summer, it will not shut off! And no gutters, another lack of information on their part. There's a list of smaller things that were supposed to be fixed as well, these are the biggest issues. Get yourself a house. Clayton homes is not professional. The only positive thing I can say, is their secretary is very nice.

I'm happy with Clayton and we like our home. But I'm very dissatisfied with Bowling Green. I wound up trying to get in touch with Kevin Clayton and I wound up with his assistant. That’s when I started getting things done.