Victoria at Plum Canyon

John Cogan on Victoria at Plum Canyon

Okay, the model houses are beautiful; tastefully accented, adorned, built out... You will not be buying those.The model houses are literally impossible at the price-point you see when you walk in the door. I feel like a goober that when I saw those prices and toured those houses, I was ready to just move in, that I thought the Zillow price would get me the model house. I think perhaps everyone just knows this is the way and I was just the goofball that didn't. IDK. I was so naive then. Watch me as I play my tiny violin. World's tiniest.

I have looked at a lot of houses. This review is not for people who have bought in. If you're all in, you need to read a review about the customer service experience. If you're on the fence about this process, I think my words have substance. I did see more than one home that was built within the last 5 years. If you're buying a new house in SCV, it's likely Toll Bros, KB, 5 Knolls, or Pardee. It's a crazy market so I toured over 30 houses before finding mine. (It wasn't a toll bros home and this is why I walked away.) the model house I saw looked nothing like the houses built in the last 5 years.

The houses built in the last 5 years from these vendors that are already on the market had some hardwood/laminate/vinyl on the first floor and tastefully cheap carpet on the second floor, and nothing in the back yard. (At least the ones I remember seeing) The model houses I toured had built-in BBQs, square pools, step-down fire pits, glass cases in the closets... The model houses are literally impossible at the price-point you see when you walk in the door. I know, I wrote that above. I'm repeating because... Even if you pick the most expensive brand of everything... You can't get a square pool from Toll. You likely cant even get the faux brick facade that goes all the way to the top of the 20 ft ceiling.

I mean, let's be fair, there's a 20 ft ceiling. That's cool. There's a lot that's cool, but, if you're just now thinking about getting on that wait list, ask them... "How do I get that square pool? How do I get the funky cool geometric wall paneling? How do I get that step down fire pit? How do I get that [insert cool thing]?" If the answer to any of your "how-cool-is-that's" is, "Not from us, but you could probably do it," then it may not be for you.

I'm not saying this is bait and switch because I'm no lawyer. But when I worked at Sears as a teenager, once a month I had to check all the prices to make sure they were accurate. Because, if someone reports you to Weights and Measures and the price you promised with the pictures you listed isn't the same, you get fined. Now, what is eerily familiar is that the pictures you see on Zillow and the model homes you tour will likely not represent the house you live in at the price quoted to you.

If I am incorrect, when supplied with photos of price v product depicting better accuracy than what I experienced, I will attempt to list/add/update them to this review pursuant to my own timeline of personal importance.

Tricia Ebert on Victoria at Plum Canyon

Lovely new construction homes. Very well built and great quality. These new homes have been selling like hotcakes, so if you're interested, let me know and I can help you to buy one! :-)

Byron Phung on Victoria at Plum Canyon

It's widely known that Toll Brothers builds absolutely beautiful homes, and the Sierra & Victoria communities are no exception. However, despite this, the sales experience has been by far the worst we have experienced so far.

We wish we could go into full detail, but because of Google's character limit, here's as much of a summary we could provide:
* Coordination between TBI and Toll Brothers was terrible. Prior to the Sierra & Victoria communities, we filed a pre-application for the Porter Ranch communities and still never heard back to this day. When we decided to pursue Sierra & Victoria a month later instead, we still had to physically visit the office to escalate after yet another week and a half of silence.
* Nearly impossible to get a hold of the sales team. Our agent only managed to reach the sales office over the phone twice (1 of which was only because they said they'd call after finally responding to 1 of the e-mail threads that finally got a response). The rest he had to physically visit. While all of this was happening, all of the other communities we visited were keeping us updated bi-weekly and sometimes even weekly, but we only got 2 phone calls over 4 months with Toll Brothers.
* The crux of this entire negative experience: the buyers list is a joke and shady sales communications. We could never even get an answer about our status/position on the list and was always told "we're still making our way down the list and we will call when it's your turn", which would've been fine had they actually followed their ordered list process. However, when they finally did call, they didn't disclose that it was an "interest-only call" and explicitly said "it's your turn!", noted down our preferences telling us we were second in line for some lots or even first for others, and then told us we would get a call when the actual release happens within the next 2 weeks. Fast forward a month to now, Toll Brothers still never ended up calling. We've been tracking the online site status like hawks every single day and eventually saw the lots taken in those 2 weeks even though we were noted as first on one of them. Our agent had to physically visit the office to ask what happened, and they ended up saying "sorry, that call was never for the actual reservation but only to gather interest" and - you guessed it - "we are still making our way down the list and will call you when it's your turn". Since they've been keeping us in the dark for months at a time now, we could only imagine this is a shady practice to gauge demand and screw other folks with higher prices since the prices went up another $13k online from the number we were given over the phone despite having a "list" process.

Keep in mind that while all of this was happening, all of the other communities were completely transparent with us, even sometimes sharing full price spreadsheets or site plans of upcoming phases despite them selling out just as rapidly as Toll Brothers at every new phase release. The only thing that kept us going for the past 4 months was because how beautiful the homes were, but if the "list" process continues the way it is, we'd like to warn you that the community is already halfway sold and we haven't even had our turn yet since August. Also, the price has gone up about 50k in those 3 months, so the value that they had before will most likely not be there by the time it gets to your turn.

With all of that in mind, we highly recommend others to stay away from Toll Brothers (as we already are with our friends who are also in the market) if you want to spare yourself the trouble and focus on the positive relationships that'll make your homebuying experience more enjoyable. We ended up going into contract with Landsea Homes who treated us well from day 1 despite us waiting a month longer than Toll Brothers since July and us also offering more to secure the lot. If you want to still take the chance, then best of luck, heed all of the similar warnings from everyone else on BBB, ConsumerAffairs, etc., and be prepared to be frustrated for months.

Mike Leporati on Victoria at Plum Canyon

Beautiful layouts.... REALLY gorgeous neighborhood... met some of the neighbors already, and they are really nice! I like how it's quiet out here, and at night time you can see the stars in the sky... All this..and the homes are still affordable? This could be it..We really like this one...

Wes I on Victoria at Plum Canyon

Toll brother definitely one of the few quality builders that still around. Their models are alot similar to what the housing market trending now days. Small backyard more house space. Master bedroom are not large but I like the balcony size over the patio and the glass doors. Everything seems to be modern style with nice finishing