Firstview Homes

We bought a house from this builder last year, the aftersale service is a nightmare. Call the office,send e-mails, most of the time didn't return the calls or respond the e-mails (hang up on people). Actually, most of the community has a backyard hydroseed problem and the builder don't want to fix the problem. The backyards are filled with 20 % of lawn and 80 % of weeds... Very deceived considering the cost of the houses.....

We moved into our new home a few months ago in Goodwood and it was a great experience! We have a beautifully finished 4000 sf ft home full of extras on a HUGE lot. We were able to make changes with the sales staff and the decor center has a huge selection. The quality of our home is outstanding - cabinets, trim,paint, hardwood ,everything. Everyone we dealt with was very knowledgeable and treated my family and I very well. We highly recommend First View Homes. Keep up the good work!

Bought a firstview and complained about various drafts from windows and doors. Missed appointments or no answering of phones. Hanging up on us. We sold after two years and our old neighbor told us the basement collapsed two months later. So if buying one of these homes flip it quick or ask your agent about the history of firstview. Apparently agents are now told to inform potential buyers about the basement leak problem in keswick before they buy in this subdivision.

I bought a home from this builder a few years ago in Barrie. My over all satisfaction with this builder was good. The price of the homes wes reasonable at the time. The home was built on time and without any mayor issues. I don't recommend making changes from the original home layout. This builder is not very good at compensating for changes and makes mistakes that's what my neighbor learned. Good value for the dollar.

We've been trying for 3 years to get first view to fix this poorly installed window. You can see the plywood behind it and the coating on the inside of the faux window is running like wet paint. Horrible post purchase service and communication. Will attach photo of window later.

Although I didn't buy this home new, is it now 13 years old. The home is attractive though lacking a bit in practicality, the mason work is neat, the concrete is sound and the basement is bone dry, though I’m at the highest point in Barrie. There are clear indications though that the builder is not "First" rate. My main gripes are floor squeaks, cheap (seemingly no name) wood windows even cheaper vinyl sliding windows, and the cheapest shingles money can buy (incorrectly installed). It's sad to see that the level of buyers' expectations has dropped to such a poor level. Once upon a time people knew about what they were buying and demanded quality. Now, the demand for housing exceeds the buyer's knowledge of what quality is and it shows in the housing market in a very bad way...

There is no reason in this world that wooden windows should be used on a house when suitable materials can be used for a few dollars more, much less cheap glass that seals go in only their 11th year!! Shingles that are not nailed as per manufacturer's recommendation, (double nailed) blowing off on a windy day, or sagging and eroding in 10 years and leaking in 12... It's disgraceful and people who build houses with the mentality that monetary return on a home is more leagues more important than respect and business generated by building a quality one don't deserve to build your next home. Demand quality... Do the research and do not accept shoddy workmanship or materials... I’ll be contracting my next home independently.

I was looking for FirstView's web site to send an email about the lack of action on deficiencies when I found this site. Well, let me tell you that this builder is so focused on finishing units to get occupany that they miss just about everything else. We have been living in mud hole. They can not seem to get the water to drain out of here since the storm sewers are plugged or not existant- let alone the water that pours in from Stanley St.and the huge Georgian Mall parking lot. (This was a free flowing pond Mr. Richardson- That is why the duck grass still grows here.) Mind you, the builder has done very little to try to correct the problem other than dig trenches and pile maure laiden dirt up. It seems they can have a cat here when it pleases them to get a tenant in but for the one's already here our kids and dogs can't ever walk down the street safely or unmudded. Let alone our vehicles. I am surprised the City of Barrie has not cited them for numerous property standard violations for leaving piled up junk beside the rec centre for years, obstructing Stanley St., etc. I would hope the City has not assumed the inner court since the garbage trucks can't even get in here at times. No concrete pad for the mail boxes so we have to go pick up our mail across town. FirstView does not seem to understand the concept of quality control and Customer Service. I am surprised because this is not their normal rep- Not like Pratt. I think I'll give the City a call, now. Thanks for listening.

We have been in for a couple of weeks and there has been a lot of activity with them trying to finish up in the snow and cold. I seem they are too busy doing that and forgetting about their list of unfinished items. Real liked the bricking but finishing poor and the messy job site is a safety hazard for all concerned. Sorry have had better and not much needs to be done to get it done right:)

The house needed after a year all kinds of touch ups like: broken tiles repair, all kinds of cracks everywhere, tiles in shower are not all the same colout, screw comes thru the ceiling, concrete steps are damaged, etc. We had to make quite some phone calls before they finally came to repair the most simpel things. After that, we phoned, and phoned, and phoned a little bit more, till finally someone phoned back to tell us that it was far over a year for touch up possibilities, and that they won't come anymore. When I wanted to explain that it wasn't fair because we made all kinds of phone calls to get them over here, he hung up in my ear. So our experience with FirstView homes is bad, and we will never advice anybody else to trust their loyalty.

This builder is so incompetent they applied for a building permit and submitted plans to the city based on the wrong model of home. They committed numerous building code violations and many violations still exist today. They made over 60 errors in the construction of our customized house from footings to finishing. They had no on site supervision and we had to attend the property daily to point out all the mistakes because they never caught any of them. Even the city inspector never noticed the obvious, that the house being constructed was not what their plans showed. How can you properly inspect the construction based on the wrong plans? On occupancy the builder left several health and safety building code violations such as loose stair railings at the top of two 9' high flights stairs that were not secured to the stud walls. This caused an extreme falling hazard and even the service manager noted the loose railing on the PDI when he nearly lost his footing descending the stairs. Speaking of PDI, this incompetent service manager did not even know enough to bring the proper deficiency listing forms and instead scribbled deficiencies (illegibly) all over the face of our New Home Warranty Certificate. The furnace was also in violation as you cannot give occupancy with a non working furnace. It was not passed by Enbridge which was required by the Ontario Energy Act. Now of course when your builder violates serious building codes you would hope the Barrie building inspection department would at least enter the property and catch obvious health and safety violations before giving it an occupancy permit. Well not in this case, they might as well have signed off on it at the office, wait a minute that would make sense because you would have to be either absent or blind to pass the construction of this house. The builder back filled the poured concrete foundation wall and entirely framed our 2 storey home prior to the installation of the required (by code) engineered 2 x 6 lateral foundation support wall. This caused undue stress on the foundation and the wall moved causing two large 9 foot diagonal cracks to develop. The Barrie building department (also very incompetent) finally realized the building code violations and ordered the builder to obtain a engineers recommendation for a support wall. This support wall went in over a month too late and this foundation has continued to crack and leak 5 times to this day, 3 years later and 2 previous repaired cracks have leaked and been fixed again. The Ministry of Housing adviser for the province stated that the building code would require the foundation to be sufficiently damp/water proofed so as to prevent the ingress of moisture into the basement. Even if this foundation is structurally sound (doubtful) it requires excavation of the exterior surface and installation of a flexible rubber membrane to prevent leaking on any future cracks. We have filed over 260 deficiencies over the first 2 years and currently are in dispute of over 50. We have never had more than a few deficiencies combined in all 6 previous new homes we have had. This builder has forced three home warranty conciliation inspections, then refusing to complete warranted items has now forced four cash settlement offers. Now here is a builder worth avoiding unless you want to be involved in years of repairs. Our expensive upgraded 100,000 btu high efficiency furnace could not heat our home. We have experienced max temperatures of 60 F on the main floor and as cold as 50 F in some areas of the 2nd floor on cold days. When we complained to the so called builder, he said "turn the heat up". What kind of idiot tells you this when the furnace is running flat out 24/7 and can't satisfy the thermostat at 68 F. Any person with the least bit of knowledge of heating knows a single stage furnace runs at full capacity and turning the temperature up is useless when it can never achieve the set temperature. We froze for 2 winters because this builder could not bother to ensure we got the necessary service to find the problem. We had to call the heating contractor ourselves and after several visits they never found the problem. We contacted the furnace maker who came out after the 2nd winter was over and diagnosed the problem after a few minutes at the furnace. The gas pressure was set at about only a quarter of what was required. This effectively made our 100,000 btu furnace operate at about 40,000 btu. The blatant errors made by all involved, wasted an incredible amount of gas with the furnace running continually in cold weather. This is aside from the electricity and additional gas from using electric heaters and our fireplace to help heat our home. Aside from this the heating design is also faulty and there were two supply air vents omitted and two 2nd floor return air vents not even connected to the system. There is a current estimation of thousands of dollars to repair the heating system errors.

Overall experience buying a Firstview home was fair. We moved into the neighbourhood early on in construction and the contractors working on other homes were a nightmare!!! Speeding up and down the roads and through our yards. Plugging power tools into our house,using our water for bricking another house. Very unprofessional and dangerous for children. Builder refused to put up a children playing sign! The home is good guality, but still need a repair on garage door 3 1/2 yrs later.