I am wondering if Neumann Homes is in trouble financially. They have stopped work in our neighborhood, even homes that they are building for someone and not on spec.
We even had a notice of a lien to be placed upon our house because they have failed to pay their contractors.
They have been working. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, they have reworked their loans and now have $55 million in revolving credit.
It would be nice if they were going to finish our neighborhood, but I am not too optimistic, even with this new money. The new home market sucks and the number of homes on the market because of fraudulent or bad loans leading to foreclosure is crazy.
I just hope the market improves soon so that the remaining lots can be built out and the homes sold. It is just not helping our home value at this time.
You can read more about Neumann Homes trouble in the housing market in Michigan in the Detroit News. Link…
Mile High Soapbox 
I think you are right, Neumann is going down the tube. They were working for years on several large projects in suburban Chicago and then ended up abandoning the projects and simply auctioning off the underlying land. This is very unusual when planning and land entitlements have been worked out. It makes the buyer baiscally start from scrath and gives no value to the investment made for planning. To me, that spells a need for quick cash to address a problem. Considering that there since have been other signs (such as you lien, a end of work, and other news reports out of Detroit), we can see the writting on the wall…they are on their way out.
Contractors that work for large home builders typically do a high volume of return business. Large builders use this as a tool to dleay payments to these subs, allowing the large builder to save money on the “float” before a closing. It takes quite a few jabs before the little guys shuts down work on a lerger builder. If they have shut down work, that typically means the builder is way behind in payments.
I knew several few people who worked at Nuemann Homes. They have since all left. They described the company as having horrible turnover for employment and could not wait to get an opportunity to leave for a new job themselves. In my opinion, large and cronic employee turnover is a tell tale sign of a piss poor company… Let the insiders do the talking.
If you have a lien, I would not wait to resolve the issue. Consult an attorney so you are not left holding Nuemann’s bag.
OD
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment. We have already taken care of the lien. Just not waiting for them anymore. It will be interesting to see what happens here. We did some pretty good due diligence before we bought from them, but I guess that was not enough.
LikeLike
[…] They have been suffering some money problems and owed their contractor a lot of back payments and construction completely stopped in our neighborhood. You can read more in a previous post. […]
LikeLike