Some are, some aren’t. It depends on what your builder has done to protect the home.
If you’re hoping to buy a new home in Arizona, you need to know about more than the number of bedrooms and the size of the yard. You should know what kind of soil the home sits on, too.
The good news: If you’ve fallen in love with a location that has problem soil, your builder can take steps before building the home to prevent it from heaving and settling.
Don’t sign a contract before you ask your builder for two things:
- Whether an engineer has done a soils report on the property—and what it says. A soils report will identify soil that is prone to collapsing or expanding, and will recommend ways the builder can resolve the problem before building a house there.
- What the builder has done to prevent heaving and settling of your home.
In fact, the best way to deal with foundation problems is to prevent them by dealing with poor soil before pouring a drop of concrete for the slab.
Be “in the know” about the soil on your property and what precautions the builder has taken against future heaving and settling.
