City Ventures

I just bought a brand new home at the Bellflower location and had nothing but problems since I got my keys on 12÷31÷15. These are ongoing problems ranging from paint, leaky walls & pipes, ac/​heater, air vent, etc. They did a rushed job just so they can sell their town homes. Buyer beware please do not buy their homes its a rip off. If you want problem after problem this is your place. They look nice on the outside but shoddy work in the inside. Please buy elsewhere.

Buyers Beware! The escrow closing on the property I am under contract to purchase at Ambassador Gardens in Pasadena has now been delayed nearly three months. The room sizes on the Website and marketing materials are exaggerated, so I am now stuck with an office and guest bedroom that are dramatically smaller than they were advertised as being. Though the homes are priced at more than $ 1.5 million, virtually everything in them is considered an «upgrade,» meaning that it will be tacked onto the sales price. I was even told I would need to pay extra for paint if I wanted the walls primed! The sales and design staff seem friendly but are, at best, remorseless swindlers. If I could possibly walk away from the purchase, I definitely would.

The only reason there is even a star there is because you have to have at least one to write the review. These guys are a bunch of liars and cheats. They do not know anything about building. They are rude and completely inconsiderate. Once they have your money you know longer exist to them. Good luck getting anything fixed properly if you have any issues and expect to get your house at least 7 months LATER than promised!
The one point of contact they gave us, Mark Wooten, never gets back to you and when he does he is extremely rude and unhelpful.
I assure you, any positive reviews on them are fake.
All I can say is if you see these people run the other direction!

The home is beautiful could not be more happy with the purchase. Had a few issues and the quality manager Mario Gonzalez has taken care of all of them. Any time we found something wrong even after closing this guy was on it like white on rice. Great

If working on your house is something you like to do, City Ventures is a perfect builder for you. Their sub’s work quality is marginal at best, customer service is non-​existence as they simply disappear once you give them the money. The «warranty» is virtually useless as it takes them months to get anything done. I have problems from my walkthrough that they still haven’t fixed! The sad thing is that their material they offer is actually better than places like KB Homes, but the subs and the people at CV just aren’t very good. If you have a place with them or is under order, good luck as you will need it.

The worst builder experience ever! Horrible quality, rushed job, super delayed, forced and blackmailed into closing for first quarter profits, horrible repairs, curved walls, comical management, horrible all around. Seriously, run from this builder.

After moved into the Glendora village collection for almost year, here is an update review.
All «*» content are things need to pay attention if you plan to buy from city ventures.
Pro:
New – move in ready
Solar system and buyer get the tax refund credit
Location is good
Outside architecture design is decent (except the no water gutter issue)
Con:
The electric bill is definitely not as advertised. At least not in our community. One reason might be the solar panel for each home is not big enough. Anyhow, nobody that I know had $ 1 bill in our community.
*Check how many solar panel you will have, and how much electricity it could generate. AC and plug-​in cars cannot be supported by the solar panel.
*Cleaning the solar panel could be expensive and complicated! Multiple homes’ solar panels are placed together. Dirty solar panel dramatically decreased the electricity it could generate.
House quality is low. Many quality problems after moved in:
Wrong color tile in our restroom (one piece of the tiles is total wrong color, they had to replace it)
Curved walls (they had to make a hole on our wall and replaced it with another piece of straight wood, I found out few other residences had the same problem)
Non-​sealed counter top even though they told me it is sealed (I believed them, and used the kitchen without double check, ended up damaged the countertop with two permanent stains that I could not remove. I sealed it by myself the next day)
Grout started to fall off one month after moved in especially in restrooms (*grout is not included in the one year warranty)
*Take times to exam every detail during the final walk through! Be prepared to redo the Grout!
House design issue ! !
There is one thing made one of our bedrooms basically UNLIVEABLE. We have THREE air compressors sit right above our second bedroom on the third floor, and when our neighbors run their ACs, it causes this low shaky noisy in this bedroom (like the bass sound of a large speaker). When all our neighbors run their ACs at the same time at summer time, it is UNBEARABLE. I can hear it even at the second floor! We had a residence lived with us couple months in this bedroom, forced to move out due to this noisy. We have been contacted the builder again and again since the beginning of last summer, but so far this problem still exist, and we are beyond frustrated.
These are not even our air compressors, and the builder should be responsible for resolving this problem. I do not think this should happen in an appropriate designed and built NEW home.
* Ask where is the air compressor, and insist them to RUN YOURS AND NEIBOURS’ ACs!
The other issue is no water gutter for the roof. When it rains the water pouring in right at our front door and front yard. It washes the yard dirt everywhere.
I raised one start because the marketing ladies Natasha Z. contacted me after read my review. She was willing to contact the customer services to help me to resolve the bedroom noise issue, and we will see how it goes.
City ventures is going to build two more communities like Glendora village collection in Glendora (foothill and arrow highway) If you are considering to buy from them and need former buyers’ input, you are welcome to contact me. I hope everyone will find a dream home and do not need to deal with the issues we had.

Not good customer service nor a sense of professionalism. A lot of lip service but no progress. Delay after delay after delay. Many verbal finish dates but nothing in writing a complete violation of the integrity contract. BUYER BEWARE get everything in writing for finish dates. Hold them to a written contract… they seem in over their heads. The Construction head changed twice… another lead construction manager left the job and the sales office is always overwhelmed. Good customer service stopped the minute we gave our deposit. This company says being small is good but in our experience small means we have been lost in the sea of their in-experience…I hope things get better.

This builder is a joke. If you want to spend your money on a house that is made by low quality material with poor finishing, go ahead by all means. Pre closing quality control = 0; Post closing customer service = 0. I suggest you to talk to any of the 13 homeowners of their small development called Almaden Crossing in San Jose and hear their experience before you sign the contract. Good luck with your purchase with City Ventures!

Bottom line: an A for design, a D at best for follow-​through and customer service.
I bought a house in the Azusa Courtyard Bungalows development, which consists of 14 units in a small complex, most of them standalone two-​story structures, with several one-​level flats above a rear unit that contains garages for all 14 homes. The development is well designed and in a good location, near the center of Azusa and a half-​block from a future Metrolink commuter train stop. The complex looks good. What is not good is the behavior of the developer/​builder and his staff — repeated delays in the completion date, ignored phone calls, and a curious procedure that allowed him to close escrow Dec. 31 under a «provisional» occupancy permit from the city, collecting full payment from the mortgage lenders but refusing to let the new owners move in for 17 days. The water heaters were not functional until much later, Feb. 2. On the positive side, the builder provided some compensation for out-​of-​pocket expenses in early January, but the places were still not ready to move in when the keys were turned over January 16. Owners were given a two-​hour window, got a hurried final walk-​through (two weeks after escrow had closed) and received their keys. This was after two months of delays in the completion date, initially scheduled for November. The delays themselves are hard to fathom. There were no earthquakes, massive rainfalls, etc. It seemed that the problem was city inspectors, suggesting that construction was initially not up to code. Among many issues, the units were supposedly wired for cable/​internet access, with lines that run between an exterior «communications» box on each unit, a distribution hub inside the units and cable/​phone company’s incoming wiring. But there’s a problem: the Charter cable installer told me that the hub does not connect to the incoming line from his company or to anything outside the house. I rely on the Internet for my work, and so still can’t move in. I gave the installer the phone numbers of the onsite construction and quality control managers, but as far as I can tell, they didn’t return Charter’s calls. One of City Venture’s realtors relayed a message to me: try Verizon, since that wiring is in place. The Verizon installer, who spent 90 minutes probing the boxes, told me it wasn’t. The Verizon outlets, wired with underground cables, had no Internet connection, and the «communications» box on my house had a only a nylon cord, seemingly with nothing at the other end. This all should have been ironed out before escrow closed, not more than a month later. The first problem with this builder is disorganization. The second is unresponsiveness. The developer, or his staff, apparently feel that once they have your money, you can safely be ignored. This is no way to run a business.

As a homeowner in City Ventures project at Glendora Village, I have to say the project is overall nicely designed from architecture point of view, and I have not yet had any issues with my unit (except common walls much thinner than I would have expected — I hear a lot more of my neighbors sex lives than I would like, and it is not as well insulated from energy efficiency POV as I hoped). The landscaping is not that well designed and less well executed, but most people probably aren’t real concerned with that I imagine.
BUT, they are pretty shoddy with exterior construction and finishes. We have many issues as an HOA that we have brought to the builders attention, and the answer is always the same: not our problem, the HOA should pay to repair building design and construction flaws less than a year old. The issues are many, and the biggest crime is that they would be easy to resolve by the builder if they cared at all about doing good work.
By far the best example of City Ventures’ attitude and approach (both amusing and painful to us at the same time) is our common area BBQ. Fully knowing that our development is a solar plan, with electrical utilities AND NO NATURAL GAS SERVICE WHATSOEVER, City Ventures installed a natural gas BBQ unit in the common area. When the HOA asked that they connect it and make it functional and useable, they declined. In their opinion, it is the HOA’s responsibility to actually make it work, since the City approved the plans with the gas BBQ with no gas service. They could easily replace it with a propane type unit with refillable tank, but they refuse. AMAZING.
Our HOA now has to consider legal options to get the builder to perform and actually do quality work, and we are concerned that many of the noted construction and design flaws will cost the residents a lot of money to repair in the future.
Buyer beware.
To City Ventures: for God sake, just fix what needs fixing, and don’t be such a jerkoff company!

Good luck buying from them There are so many hidden costs I would buy from a resale in additional costs are outrageous

My wife and I recently purchased a new home with Chris Benway of City Ventures at Dolcetto of La Costa Ridge, Carlsbad. AMAZING experience. Chris and his team walked us through every step of the transaction, always went the extra steps to ensure things were completed properly and follow-​up after the close has top notch. We look forward to our next purchase with City Ventures.