I wanted to take a moment to share my very negative recent experience with Richmond American Homes in Menifee California and with the local Regional President Leonard Miller.  Mainly, I want other agents in the area to learn through my experience so they can protect themselves and their clients.

I brought a client in to show a furnished model in the late February.  My clients were challenging as I had already put them in two other homes that they subsequently cancelled.  They seemed to really want turn-key so I couldn't do much better than a fully furnished model.  They loved the place but the price was high for the size and we calculated the payment a few different ways (with the builder agent) and it was a no go.

Afterword, we then found another house and they loved it.  Well shortly after getting them in the 3rd escrow - right before our inspection - they had some marriage difficulties, apologized, and said they needed to stop looking for the summer and focus working together.  Overall, very nice people but struggling a little bit.  I respected that they wanted to wait until after Summer.

I later find out that within 4 months of me registering them in the place, they closed on the model I showed them.  Not a matching model - the exact home! I called the builder and the sales agent confirmed that I had registered them and didn't understand why I wasn't contacted or paid.  I dug deeper to find that after showing the unit, the builder later increased incentives to pay down the loan rate to 3.25%, had my clients come in while cutting me out of the communication completely - even though I was clearly in their system.

The clients did a VA loan so they must of done the contract in May and I was clearly in the system as the source or the client, etc.  Not a contact from them.  Speaking to the agent, she contacts the manager who says that in order to get paid, we need to re-register our clients every 30 days!  I hadn't been told this and I have never had a builder operate under that policy.  Has anyone heard of a broker co-opt you have to register every 30 days?

After being turned down for any information about reservation date and contract date, I contact the Regional President who proceeded to put me on speaker, listen to my complaint and then consistently challenged me in a very condescending and mocking manner (my opinion - to the point I asked him directly if he was talking down).  He insisted I should of been in better contact with my client - after I told him the situation - he said I obviously couldn't close a deal and his sales staff could.  It was an amazing conversation.  He then promised he would just as hard on his sales staff "researching" the issue.

His research came back totallying all of one email from a sales staff again challenging me from "coming out of the woodwork" when this all closed with a VA loan within 4 months on the exact home I showed them!  It doesn't appear he looked too deep but he sure had some speaker fun at my expense.  Again, they have ignored my request for reservation and contract date information. So I am pursing this with their registered broker for Southern California based out of Redlands.  They wouldn't provide me the license number or contact, only confirm it after I pulled it up - DRE violation.  I am also contacting CAR, the DRE, and the parent corporation MDC Holdings.  Any people experiened in dealing with a similiar situation, please advise any other avenues.

It is clear in their own system I am the procuring cause and yet they have treated me like some person looking for scraps.  I am furious and wanted to let people know my experience to for reference in the future.  In my opinion, their registration system and sales staff obviously didn't try to protect my client relationshiop in anyway and seemed to have actively cut me out on the very unit I tried to sell.  I will update this blog as I get more information but if you walk a client in their tracts, please keep this post in mind when thinking the system is built for your protection.

I have worked with so many builders and this is the worst experience I have had by far.  While I will never put my own preferences above my clients, I will work diligently to avoid all Richmond American Homes developments and what I believe to be very unethical business practices.  I don't understand the point of a registration system when they are going to market better deals after you show and cut the agent out at the same time.  I walk in a client, register them and in 4 months they close on the house I show but I don't deserve a advertised co-opt?

I would love to hear any similiar experience with Richmond American Homes as I put together my information for the local realtors, CAR, and DRE.

Thanks!

Stefan West