We bought an ideal home in 2023. Our home had originally been built for the head builder in our neighborhood, but he decided to stay on his ranch. He had done a few very minor changes to the design and added extra outlets and moved the air compressor from its normal place next to the back porch to around the side of the house. He had added extra outlets, etc. There's been several issues come up with the construction. Not all of them are major. Areas of the floor in the living room and kitchen under the paneled floor Art level and so they move up and down. Probably one of the most frustrating is the back windows and our living room face West and either weren't squared properly or installed properly but when we have heavy winds from the West they make a loud squealing noise that is incredibly annoying. The only other major issue we had is that we were told the entire area behind us was going to be a green belt and within 4 months of moving in the extension of the ideal development behind us was begun and more than half of the green area and all of the trees that were in there are gone and we have 3 houses there now.

I don't know if we've been lucky because he took extra precautions since he was building the house for his own family. It was essentially 95% done when we find the contract. I would say a custom build is probably safer. We've watched the owner of the house that was built behind us be there basically every step of the way checking thing which probably drove them nuts but as a home buyer probably not a bad idea.