We are in the process of building with Fischer Homes, “the leading home builder in OH, KY, IN, GA, and MO.” If you’re interested, you can read some documentation on our process here: Something Is Fishy About Fischer Homes. Earlier in the process, the Fischer rep asked us a few questions about our experience. One of the questions was: Would you recommend Fischer Homes to your friends? I thought about it for a while, and here’s where I stand on that:

Imagine you secured a reservation at a local restaurant and splurged on their expensive prepaid, prix fixe, multi-course meal. On the evening of your reservation, you show up a few minutes early, hungry for the delicious food you have been looking forward to for so long.

You’re seated right away, and because you’re a few minutes early, you’re one of the only diners in the restaurant. Your waitress comes over to confirm your dinner selection, takes your cocktail order, and heads off toward the kitchen.

…

About twenty minutes pass. The restaurant, virtually empty when you arrived, has filled up with other customers. You notice appetizers appearing on other tables — but you and a few other customers still haven’t even received a glass of water. You look around for your waitress, but she’s nowhere to be seen. You wait patiently. The other tables are finishing their appetizers.

…

You’ve been seated for over thirty minutes and still have no water, and other tables are starting on the salad course. You haven’t seen your waitress since she took your drink order, so you flag down a passing busser. The busser checks, and it turns out your waitress forgot to put in orders for you and a handful of other customers. The busboy says he’ll find another server to put in the orders, and the food will be out right away. You ask if he can grab you at least a glass of water while you wait, but he doesn’t seem to hear and walks away. Other tables are now through with their salad course.

…

It’s been over an hour, and other customers have just received their entrees. Your table and several others are still waiting on drinks and appetizers. A few people have thrown in the towel and left. You stop a hostess as she passes by, and you ask for the manager. The manager comes over, all smiles, and you explain the situation. He lies right to your face and tells you the delay is because you arrived late for your reservation. Furious, you ask for a refund so you can leave and find food elsewhere. The manager explains that they have a strict no refund policy on the prefixed meals. However, he assures you he will make sure your food is out soon. And it will be worth the wait. You ask for a bread bowl to tie you over in the meantime, but he says it’s against company policy to give away free food, so you’ll have to pay extra for it. You are starving, so you agree, and he bustles off as empty entree plates are cleared from surrounding tables.

…

It’s now been about ninety minutes since you were seated, and some of the customers are digging into their desserts. You still haven’t even received anything to drink, and there are a few other tables in the same situation as you. There are empty tables now because a few people gave up and walked out. You get up to find the manager, and he looks surprised to see that you’re still in the restaurant. He assures you that your food will be right out, and you go back to your table. Diners that were seated well after you are now boxing up their leftovers and leaving the restaurant. 

…

It’s been two hours, and the restaurant is nearly empty again — there are just a few people lingering over their dessert, and one other table holding out hope that they will still be served. Your food and drinks finally arrive — all at once. Your water, mixed drink, appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert are all dumped off unceremoniously at your table. The food runner does the same at the only other table still waiting, and he vanishes without a word.

You survey the feast in front of you and are disappointed with what you see. The ice in your mixed drink is long melted, leaving the cocktail very watered down. The appetizer had been under the heat lamps for so long it is now completely congealed. The salad is wilted and brown like it had been sitting for days in the back of the cooler. The chicken is raw in the middle. The side vegetables are unseasoned. The dessert is frozen — they didn’t even bother to microwave it. And you never received the bread you paid extra for.

You attempt to choke down a few bites and call over the manager again. You ask for the entree to be cooked more and ask for your bread. He tells you that he can’t accommodate you because the restaurant has already closed. But he’ll be happy to get you a doggy bag, and he assures you that you can just microwave the entree up to the correct temperature. Plus, baking bread is very easy, so you can just make that yourself. And with that, he tosses a to-go bag on your table and walks away. The hostess pointedly holds the door open, and you exit with the last remaining customers into the chilly evening with your doggy bags filled with extremely expensive, inedible food.

Would you recommend this restaurant to your friends?

Now apply this restaurant scenario to a home build. A Fischer Homes build.

• You’re among the first in your community to sign the Fischer Homes contract, but among the last to close on your home. You signed in February of 2021 but won’t close until March of 2022 — at the absolute earliest. People that signed in May of 2021 closed in November of 2021.
• You can look up public records on the county website and see every single instance where the builder failed to submit permits, forgot to schedule inspections, or neglected to fix notated issues — but Fischer employees all claim it’s “due to COVID”.
• Even after reaching out to Fischer reps, managers, and district supervisors to bring issues to their attention, nothing changes at all. Your project is still stalled, and it’s like you have been forgotten.
• Fischer refuses to do a single thing to help recover the situation. They won’t offer a dime towards closing. They won’t toss in a free light fixture. They won’t upgrade your carpet. They certainly won’t offer any money back. 
• Your completed Fischer home is inferior to any other new home build. The included finishes are terrible quality and better suited to a trailer. Even the options you paid through the nose to upgrade are dated and below the industry standard. Craftsmanship is sloppy, and there’s no attention to detail.
• You paid more for your Fischer home than you have ever paid for any other home. In exchange, you received the worst build experience of your life and a “move-in ready home” that will require extensive work after you close.
• You paid so much upfront that you can’t walk away, even when things continue to go from bad to worse. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Fischer has all the power.

Would you recommend Fischer Homes to your friends?

I don’t know what you would do — but me? I wouldn’t recommend Fischer Homes to my worst enemy, let alone my friends.