This happened to a family member, looked great, expensive looking house and high price, but shoddy work, all sorts of basic problems with the house in the first year.

I wonder if this couldn't be mitigated somewhat by a clause that makes the developer liable for all problems in the first year. (I know one potential loophole would be that the developer could use a proxy to "buy" from themselves and hold for a year, but it seems like that could be appropriately handled through existing or minimally altered fraud laws.) It's hard to see how we could get from our present situation to something like that, but it might improve craftsmanship, but would also make new houses even more expensive.