Drees Custom Homes Reviews

This was our first and last purchase with Dree's. Our purchase experience upfront was pleasant and professional. We felt initially very pleased with our decision. However, from the moment we moved in it has been extremely disappointing & stressful experience. It has become a second job to keep on Dree's to be consistent about finishing the home & fixing/correcting mistakes. Here are some highlights. 1) A few days before our move in date, we paid a licensed seasoned home inspector in the area to review the build. Dozens of defects, poor craftsmanship & dangerous/out of code (some exposed wires for example), were documented. The home inspector report had pictures and detailed notes, all of which was shared with Dree's. We expressed our concerns on these findings and requested timelines for each fix within the coming weeks from Dree's. 6 months in, we still have never received a detailed response to each issue and are finding ourselves doing weekly reminders on all open items with the builder. That said, they are being completed slowly, however communication is spotty & disconnected from the contractors who do show up at random unannounced times, sometimes without even the correct materials to do the fix/repairs. 2) The day we moved in, we found the place dirty and unclean. We even found on one of our toilets, poop stains from one of the contractors. All of this was documented with pictures and shared with Dree's. The only comment on this observation was that they said they had cleaners already come twice before we moved in so it wasn't their problem. 3) We were delayed 3 months from the original move in date. There was no compensation for this and therefore it was at our own expense. We recently found out other builders in our same community paid $200+/month for every late month from the original completion date. Dree's explained to us that COVID has caused massive disruptions to their supply chain and contractor work. However several other builders in the same neighborhood who had similar sized homes, competitors to Drees, did not had such long delays. Therefore this conflicted with what Drees told us everyone was experiencing. Note, the home started just when COVID hit and the dozen or so other homes in our neighborhood started after our home (again similar size and costs etc), and finished before Drees. 4) Drees is still slowly making the fixes as we continue to keep on them. However, the quality, communication, attention to detail is not there. Especially for a $1.2M+ home. Unless Drees takes a serious look at its broken processes, low quality 3rd party contractors they are using, we highly recommend to avoid putting your hard earned money purchasing a Drees home. Did I also mention that we discovered when we moved in that they painted our whole 4,500+ sq foot home with the wrong color that is the outside grey trim vs the white paint originally selected? Overall what started out as an exciting time for my family has turned into a stressful experience. I hope that Drees will improve and listen to the concerns from the customers upfront. ... More

Marian was our sales person and she was awesome. Tom was our construction guy and he was also great. There were lots of delays due to COVID and Material Shortages but that is not the builder fault. We are moved in and can say our only complaint is with the Cabinet Trade. They are very slow to respond and have not fixed most the things they said they would.

Some of the tradesmen take no pride in their work and it shows. Brickwork is average at best. Not rodded properly and a lot of excess mortar. Driveway has patches along edges that are very obvious. Framing is not plumb or square in several locations. Waiting on response to our 90 day walkthru.

This was a very frustrating experience with many mistakes and issues along the way. I understand that you can only do do much with 3rd party workers/vendors, but there was seemingly a major issue/ setback with every step in this build process. Parker our CM and Cory our salesperson were as helpful and informative as they could be. The fact that we have so many unfinished issues with our home at this point is very frustrating. The workmanship and completeness of the tile is awful, many mistakes by the design center, as well as many other avoidable setbacks made this whole process very frustrating. ... More

Our experience with Drees homes was pretty good with a few challenges. The sales process was smooth but we were not 100% happy with the design center part and felt a bit rushed making some decisions. We also felt issues when adding windows in the kitchen. We were told about problem with our kitchen window positioning and cabinet needing to be redesigned after the windows were cut out. This should have been discussed sooner when we asked about adding the windows that was not in the design. Other than that the overall experience has been good. Preston is very responsive with every request. We do see some issues with the finishing of some areas in the house like carpet in some rooms and paintwork etc. ... More

Still waiting for a lot of small things to be finished. Rate in witch repairs are done is slow or the people sent are unable to do work Our cabinets have look like garbage since we have moved in the repairs made them look worse

I’m very grateful to have had this experience, given by Andrew. My overall experience with this company has been extremely favorable. Two people to be commended are Denise, and Ben. These 2 collaborate as hand and foot to achieve excellence. Thank you.

Quality for a custom build is par with other mid range builders. Company’s contractors in the area where we bought were horrible. They rushed things and didn’t do half of the things we mark during walk through. I would not recommend Drees. My experience wasn’t a good one, while I’m pretty sure others my had a different experience. Just sharing our review/feedback.

We chose Drees to build our home because we read reviews online and found them to be a reputable builder. We met with Steven at the model home and he advised us with a plan that would work for us. Unfortunately, throughout the build process, there were many issues that could have been prevented had there been proper oversight and good relationships with the trades. Steven was very dismissive throughout the process, unhelpful, and lacked the knowledge, skills, and abilities to navigate us through the building process. Kate at the design studio was wonderful and provided the only consistent, positive experience that we had with Drees. Victoria was also helpful when we communicated our grievances although I don't believe upper management at Drees are aware of the negative experiences that the buyers in our neighborhood have encountered and may need to query further in order to keep their reputation. Mike and Phillip appear to be knowledgeable builders but unfortunately we were paired with an unskilled builder and an even more unskilled sales representative who made our overall building experience stressful and unpleasant as evidenced by the fact that we are almost 90 days past closing and still dealing with trades in and out of our home with no defined schedule for completion. I am uncertain if any of the builders are any better but this has been our experience. Good luck to you all on your new construction journey. ... More

Beautiful home, top notch quality and awesome community. Welcomed us warmly and helped us with our needs.

Delay after delay, the quality of the materials and the quality of the work are poor, response time and communication is poor. The subcontractors they use don't care about the quality of their work or your house and it shows.

Poor labor!!!! The quality of the finish craftsmanship is poor. The sub contractors hired lack real finish skills, appear to lack any pride in quality of work performed and reliability. (Tile work was a 5 day task that took 13 weeks and is still needing to be redone in some areas). Paint teams have been here 3 times and will be back to redo most of the homes interior wood finishes! We are having to have all interior trim and custom add work redone for a third time, replace added ceiling beams, exterior for a third time, complete redo of paint and prep for porch, interior shower glass for a 4th time, master shower tile redone, redo all caulking (floor and crown trim). This is all post close! Our sales and builder reps are stellar! We love them (they are professional, honest and do all they can) BUT the teams used by Drees to build and finish lack a lot! It is unfortunate as we purchased based on the quality we see in the models her and in other Drees locations. We did our homework! We expect no less than the models. That is the face of Drees to the market. The homes built lack the same level of craftsmanship. Drees must find a way to resolve. Help us who have closed to find the teams needed to resolve issues faster! Hire the right teams. We spent close to 7 figures and should not have to be middle men to resolve. Our issues are being addressed, slowly, but now become a major inconvenience for us since we have moved in. Again, our sales and builder rep team is great but Drees corporate needs to take this seriously. ... More

When I decided to build with Drees, was because I wanted to build an upgraded house that will be our last house, as a family we did a tremendous financial effort to make this happen. Drees, did not meet the expectations, their quality does not meet what they advertise. The price tag is steep and yet the house was rushed and has multiple issues, everything from tile, sheetrock, stucco, paint, electrical issues, etc. -- I would NOT recommend Drees at all. If I had to do it again, I would choose a different upscale builder.

The worst on every level.

Builder helped in some cases. Construction delayed because of supply issues but also because of incompetency of the builder to keep material safe in the home. Communication provided every week but more than half of the communication from May 2021 is no work done or we don't know how long it will take. For us field work, coordination among workers is more important than calling us each week and saying no work done. We believe the builder may be overwhelmed with work and didn't meet our expectations in some areas even after reporting.

Drees staff are very experienced. They helped us get through the year long process with l no surprises. Took good care of us. We love our new Drees home. Workmanship is state of the art and beautiful.

It was a very difficult process that took over a year. As buyers we had to manage the project and were constantly catching mistakes. The craftsmanship was very poor though-out and many things had to be redone multiple times. Which delayed the timeline. We have been in the home for 2 months now and have a long list of items that still need to be fixed. Electrical, tile, flooring, cabinet (are horrible), missing shelf and rod in laundry room, pavement repair, etc. when providing feedback earlier on Drees never reached out to discuss our issues or concerns. We would not recommend Drees to anyone. ... More

Don D. Juan and Billy have done a great job for us. we understand getting help and supply chain issues but Billy and Juan are doing a great job working through these issues and getting our punch items corrected.

Some are good, some are not, My entrance door is not painted with the finishing coat. Some cabinet doors in the upper floor is missing

It took us 20 months for the construction to happen. Finally moved in end of October, responsiveness from the builder is almost null. We have to chase for everything. There was never an instant where things happened without us asking multiple times. Still living in a house without cabinet hardware. Things were build non standard. Eg few door height are non standard because of which we are not able to find compatible doors. Overall experience of building the house is terrible, except our sales manger. Everything else is a joke…….

3 months after closing and still waiting on punch list items despite me sending punch lists throughout the entire process.

We bought the house over phone calls and e-mails. Reagan was amazing and so was Preston. The financing part was a disaster through the lending company. And when we got the house, there were some basic things that were not thought of well for a 2022 home like electric outlet outside the house, outlets for security system, conduit for internet intake to make the house fiber optic ready and so on. It was very disheartening, and almost made us regret the purchase, but we’ll it’s too late and we are trying to make the best out if it.

There really isn't much to say besides the times that we were building our house through. Production delays, weather delays, "you name it" delays. I believe there were some delays that could have been avoided, as well as some production items such as having to re-pick items because of said delays. Outside of that, we felt the builder and salesperson were both attentive and helpful.

We were initially VERY excited to purchase our Drees custom home. We visited in Oct 2020 and in a matter of hours had selected the largest lot with the best view against a greenbelt. That is where the excitement ended!! We were moving from California and had been told that there was a very strong possibility that we would be moving in around Nov 2021 (given the delays in materials-COVID) we were understanding of that, but as November '21 approached we could clearly see that we were not going to be moving in. The date was shifted to Jan 2022....then March...then May worst case June!!! All the while, we were visiting the house almost daily...we would find weeks where NO work was being done on our house and the excuse...lets see...take you pick...we were told - You guys have so many customizations - They knew what it was when we signed the agreement....and we were well beyond any customizations - There are still material delays - Not true at all...they were having problems with the trades doing shotty work...having to rip and replace tile, wood work, stairs, stain on and on - Wrong design center items placed on the design sheet...which is partially our fault, but we dont know the codes for selected items...but caught them during the build and had a weeks worth of back and forth to resolve it...because the design professional that helped us had been fired! - We had 4 project managers during the build which was extremely painful ...each one has a different attention to detail and how they provide updates as well as how they communicate with the trades - We watched 3 homes start after us and complete ahead of us...the excuse...we had so many customizations...NOT TRUE!! We even watched 2 homes in the private part of the community start months after us and complete ahead of us - a lesser issue but one that annoyed me to no end, was I would periodically come by the build and find prospective buyers walking through our house...thats plain annoying - One of the last things I will mention as I could go on, but the workmanship was totally lacking for a house that sits at 7 figures...wrong grout, poor staining that is disappearing within 2mo of use, Due to the consistent delays we wound up losing the opportunity to lock in a rate that was beneficial to us...we actually had to pay to lock in a rate that was 2.3% higher than if they had delivered when expected...even if they were 3 months late we would have been better off....I really feel like Drees didn’t approach this build with a focus on quality and customer satisfaction....just check the boxes and close on the house....with a plethora of punchlist items left to resolve over the course of this next year ... More

We started our journey with Drees in May of 2020, and finally moved in September 2022. 3 months after moving in, we are still without basic items (like a microwave), parts are missing, and items do not function properly. We wanted to move into a fully functioning, completed home but agreed to move in early before interest rates rose again and our rate lock expired. Big mistake! The builder is too busy building new houses to address our issues and the “warranty” rep only wants to tell us why he won’t take care of it. My recommendation to anyone considering Drees: buy a completed house and be prepared to customize it. You won’t get what you want from Drees in a customized home build. ... More