It's a lack confirmed by dozens of Ryland homeowners in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, few of whom think that the defects they've discovered in their homes are the result of any malicious action by Ryland. What their complaints all boil down to is this: The service they've gotten from Ryland, their "lifetime" partner in the home-owning experience, has been so odious that most -- John Cobarruvius being a shining exception -- have simply given up and chalked their experience up to, well, very expensive experience.
"It's almost as if," said one Ryland owner who didn't want his name used, "they try to make the whole process of getting a problem solved so difficult that, in the end, you'd just rather not even call them at all."
The Better Business Bureaus in both Houston and Dallas second that idea with files that report, in part, that Ryland "has a pattern of not settling complaints to the customer's satisfaction."
That pattern, it should be noted, was established in BBB files opened in 1994 and spanning a time period -- the past four years -- specifically singled out in Ryland's own literature as a period in which the company deployed a "substantially updated product line."
In response, Ryland spokesperson Ann Madison reports that the homebuilder has been in negotiations with the Houston BBB since July, and indeed, during the course of reporting this story, the BBB has changed its report to the inconclusive news that the organization is "in the process of developing information" on Ryland, and "does not have a report at this time."
"Any large publicly held company is going to have complaints on file, legal issues from time to time," Madison explains. "We wish that we could please everyone. We're glad that we can please the majority of our buyers."
The Dallas BBB's report remains as quoted.
"I want the attorney general to review this," says Cobarruvius. "They should make a decision. I've volunteered my time to go and help them do that. Ryland, I don't think they ever will do anything for me. I want them to tell me what's wrong with the windows and help me fix it. Instead of standing behind their product, they want to stand behind their attorneys."
Remember the Ryland president's call for neighborly recommendation? The Press put that question to a dozen Ryland homeowners in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, and it's not at all reductive to combine the spirit of their responses in a quote from San Antonio's Dwight Mulcahy, who has his own web site (www.lonestar.texas.net/~dwight/) documenting his experience with Ryland, which does business in that city under the name Scott Felder Homes. On the site, Mulcahy includes a note to potential readers: "This started out as just a place that my relatives and friends could see the progress that our future home was making ... it has morphed into the bitterness that you see now."
What embittered Mulcahy was partly the way the builder destroyed trees he'd been promised would be protected, and partly the way he had to hire an independent contractor to convince the builder that the company had poured him a faulty slab. But mostly, it's the sluggish way the builder responded to what turned out to be legitimate complaints, even going so far as to ask him to take his web site down.
Asked what he'd have to say to an advice-seeker, Mulcahy goes the "bitterness you see now" sentiment one better.
"If I saw anyone that was potentially coming in here, driving along, I would run after them in the car and catch them, and basically give them my story. They told me I was responsible for at least four or five people ditching out."
That may not be the sort of "feedback we get from current and prospective homebuyers" that Ryland brochures claim to crave. But it might be exactly the sort of grassroots networking that could keep another few first-time homebuyers from waking up one fine morning in their new homes and wondering, like John Cobarruvius, if one of the nation's largest homebuilders was, unexpectedly, screwing them.
E-mail Brad Tyer at brad_tyer@houstonpress.com.
