Kettler Developing Harbor Station. WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BUY!!! Kettler is also the builder of Midtown Bethesda North and Midtown Largo Station among others.
There was an article in the Washington Post on Monday, March 10, 2008 about Kettler, a Real Estate development company based in Virginia that was interesting to me.
Kettler has built many Homes, Condos and Town Houses For Sale in and around the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. The article talks about how developer Robert C. Kettler has plans to develop the eastern corridor of Prince William County. Turning it into an up scale community featuring a luxury town center, a 400 slip marina and 4000 homes. The community will be called Harbor Station and will offer an 18-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
My boyfriend happens to live in a Kettler development in Rockville, MD (although Kettler will have you believe its in North Bethesda, I will explain this later). The condo building he lives in is called Midtown Bethesda North. Kettler has built many condo buildings sporting the Midtown name such as Midtown Largo Station, Midtown North Reston Town Center, Midtown Alexandria Station and Midtown Reston Town Center.
I would like to offer my opinion about the developer Kettler since I have first hand knowledge of the way they have built a community such as the one proposed in Prince William County called Harbor Station.
The building he lives in, Midtown Bethesda North is plagued with faulty and or constantly non-working equipment, elevators, HVAC systems, door access readers & fire sprinkler systems just to name a few. Some of these issues have been problematic for almost a year now and no date of being permanently fixed is in sight.
Now, I will give Kettler, the developer credit where credit is due; the building is very attractive. But when everything is in constant need of repair, well, the inconveniences that those cause quickly begin to out weigh the attractiveness of the building.
Simply put, my advice to any potential homebuyer and or Real Estate Agent / REALTOR about doing Business with Kettler is: DON’T DO IT!
Since he unfortunately had the misfortune to do business with Kettler I hope you can learn from his mistakes. Avoid at all costs doing business with Kettler, he has made that mistake and he will eternally regret it. Hopefully after reading this, Kettler will not be someone you chose to do business with in the future. If you chose to take your chances and disregard this, please take it to heart when I tell you BUYER BEWARE!!!
Faulty equipment is not the only problem we've encountered when dealing with Kettler. In my opinion, Kettler engages in too many deceptive practices. As an example, the name Midtown Bethesda North would imply that this community is located in Bethesda, right? To this day on the Kettler website they boast an address in North Bethesda. Many homebuyers were surprised or shocked to find out at the settlement table that the condo they thought they were buying in North Bethesda is actually located in Rockville; my boyfriend was one of them. Although Rockville and Bethesda are both very nice places to live, there is an air of prestige associated with the city of Bethesda more so than with Rockville. Kettler in my opinion, decided to exploit this and deceive their prospective purchasers into thinking they were buying a property within the Bethesda city limits when in fact this is not true.
Another example of deceptive and unethical practices by Kettler in my opinion is luring customers with promises of low condo fees and then finding out that in fact their actual condo dues are MUCH higher. When he signed his contract to buy a unit in Midtown Bethesda North a Kettler project he was promised monthly condo dues of $275 (it’s in my contract). The actual condo dues are $403.24 that’s $128.24 more than what he and many of my neighbors were promised. $128.24 is a considerable increase.
In conclusion Kettler to me, and to many of my boyfriend's neighbors at Midtown Bethesda North, is unethical and deceptive in their business dealings. As you can undoubtedly guess I urge all my friends, family and anyone else to stay away from buying in any Kettler Project it’s not worth the hassle. Take it from someone that went through it and regrets it every day he walks into his own building and unfortunately has to call it home.
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