Question from a Reader:
I am trying to purchase a home in Julia Gardens and I was wondering if you new if this building had chinesedrywall...the address is xxxxx Julia Gardens Dr. The owners said "it wasn't built with Chinese Drywall" but I am reading horror stories regarding Julia Gardens and came across your blog. If you have any info besides the stuff I already read it would be very much appreciated Thank you so much!
My Answer/Opinion:
About half of the Julia Gardens community has it and the other half does not. Standard Pacific, the builder, realized at some point during construction that they'd better stop, but then they continued to sell the properties that already had it.
Here are the main problems with buying a house in this community...
1. You don't really know if you had it unless you have it properly inspected. And even so, it may have had it previously and it was remediated. I can tell you that the remediation offered by Standard Pacific was sub-standard which is why I decided against going with it. They were only going to rip our "some" walls and they were not replacing most of the damaged appliances. It was a half-measure. The problem is not knowing what they really did and what they only claimed they did.
2. Since half of the community has the toxic drywall you can be sure that foreclosures will be plenty of people walking away from their toxic homes. This means that the HOA will not be getting paid from these people and so therefore, all of the HOA fees for the remaining homeowners will be increased. So in effect, you will eventually (if not already) be paying for everyone who had to leave their homes (through no fault of their own).
3. If it were me, I definitely would not buy in any community with chinese drywall. Your property value will never increase much because that community will be forever "tainted" so people (like you) will be hesitant to purchase ANY house in that community... this leads to a very poor investment.
But those are just my two cents and my own personal opinion.
Hope that helps.
It's also a good idea to have a drywall contractor inspect your home or a potential home. They can look for certain things, such as discolored wiring, that show indications of harmful drywall in your home.
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