I have to say that you need to follow all the book's advice. I followed MOST of it, and now we are in a big mess. Be sure to have your contract looked over by an attorney and have a clause in there to be able to get out of the contract if the quality is not good. We are having trouble trying to get out of the contract because we did not do this. We can't get out of it either because we already closed on the loan with the bank and this will ruin our credit. We also own the lot, so we cannot lose it either.

Our nightmare is that the concrete basement foundation walls were not mixed as they were poured and they did not continuously pour the walls. As a result there are large cracks, ok cold joints, in the walls on every wall of our basement. These cracks are so bad that they have been declared structurally unsound by 2 structural engineers. The builder does not care because he believes it is fine since the concrete subcontractor said that it was fine. We are currently trying to see what our options are legally in this mess.