Drees Homes Reviews

Makes sure all is complete prior to closing. Even though I did a walk through the week before I was assured that all maintenance that showed would be completed prior to closing. When I walked through the day before closing the work had not been done yet. I was given a lot of assurances that they would get on it immediately but it took 2 months before any of the work was completed. I am still waiting on a ceiling light to be replaced and it has been 3 months now. "The only way I was able to get anything done was to go to the sales manager and she called people and got it done. Otherwise, I think I would still be waiting. ... More

We’ve worked with Lisa, buying our previous Drees Home & she’s phenomenal! Our building contractor that we started with, Andy, was great too! We’ve had some new construction issues with this house & that hasn’t been pleasant.

Make sure you walk through and nitpick the house. Contractors try and cut corners especially the finishing crew. If you have animals do not get the real hardwood or engineered hardwood. Make sure you double check the appliances you get are correct. Plan on doing a lot more landscaping.

The sales experience was really really bad. If you can make it past that, and work with the delivery team-- you will be okay. We actually started to consider ending our build because the team was so non responsive and rude. I actually had to email the lady and ask her to please be kind in working with us. Now, once we got to delivery... it was better... Tom was amazing to work with. He did a wonderful job and was EXTREMELY responsive. We do love our home and Tom ensured the quality of the home was the best. That's why I gave it a 5 star. Unfortunately the sales team broke our trust upfront and was overall not responsive to emails, or concerns. They didn't know the product well enough to be helpful and caused a lot of confusion and mis-information. ... More

The lack of urgency to fix the items found at the week before closing walk through has been disappointing… we highlighted ~15 items and we are approaching 99 days and we still have items open. The lack of respect by some of the subcontractors has been shocking as they fix one item and damage another item that requires someone else to come fix it.

Management was responsive once they understood my dissatisfaction with first issue.

It’s a very expensive duplex. I know home prices have increased but I literally paid the same price in 2016 for a freestanding home in Zionsville. I have enormous cracks in the ceiling and the mason completely messed up the FP.

I believe the builder tries to meet the needs of the homeowners, but they just have a hard time getting individual subcontractors and workers to come at scheduled times to complete the needed work on the home. We have been in the home about two and a half months and still have lots of items that need repairing or completion, but we are still waiting on individuals to show up. The quality would be better if the subcontractors work was supervised more closely by the project managers.

There is disturbing knocking noise coming from the ceiling in my study room and unfortunately it does not look like it will be resolved any time soon

1)Lawn seeding and sod was not good that just put seeding and without losses soil 2)garage concrete was good that had a long line crack 3)screen door qua wasn’t good 4) patio concrete was not good 5) Steel was exposed out of concrete 6) close door doesn’t align with block area 7)front door lock spent two months to fixed due to ins wrong spec

Stay on top of everything or you don’t know what you will get. I felt like I was the project manager.

I love my new home but the schedule was months after promised with no sense of urgency. I have also been in 4 months and still daily trying to get items finished.

We are happy with our lot location, floor plan, neighbors and community. We are not so happy with Drees. These positives may have clouded our decision to go with Drees. Knowing what we know now we should have spent more time looking at other builders. * Construction Experience We did receive regular build updates from the construction supervisor but updates about how on-going construction problems would be dealt with were lacking. The builder needed to be more focused on the quality of the subcontractor’s work and willing to act on it. Drees quality is only as good as the quality of the subcontractors, and some were poor. * Quality of Workmanship We got to a point where we were afraid to add an item to the punch list because some subcontractors were so poor they made the problem worse. Some problems we identified should have been identified by the builder and corrected without our involvement. This creates concern about possible problems we cannot see. There are construction tasks that don’t seem to be a part of any subcontractor’s scope. Our job site was noticeably messier than other job sites. Drees should require subcontractors to clean up after themselves. * Design Selection Experience We felt rushed with the Drees Design Center experience. The software they used to help choose was buggy and not ready for production. Things like simple electrical upgrades were not listed in the “system”, so multiple existing items were cobbled together to make up the “upgrade”. This made the simple upgrade cost prohibitive and not good value. After moving in, the actual quality of some flooring was not what we expected from Drees * Home Readiness and Closing We delayed our closing three times. The additional delays cost us storage fees otherwise we would have delayed again. Also, it required rescheduling movers. We were told outstanding punch list items would be incorporated into the closing as a formal document/process. At closing no one knew what we were talking about when we asked. There was no one from Drees at the closing. Almost three months after closing we still have unresolved items. We would recommend to those building with Drees that you do not close until all unresolved items are complete. ... More

Definitely get a private inspection done!. The sub contractor(Atlantic Building) that fixed my doors don't care about the work they did. Front door has been having locking issues. Drees put in an order for them to fix and i have had to technicians here but still need a replacement jamb. The first Atlantic worker had the attitude like I was bothering them with my report for the front door to be fixed. All the screws on the interior door locks installed were not tightened. A month and half after move in, the owner's bedroom door lock fell off. The door lock on the second bedroom got very lose almost coming off. I had to go around and tighten the screws on all the interior doors as they were all lose and shaking. HVAC unit cover over the filter insert won't close so I'm holding it in place with a tape. Horrible! Some of the tape on the HVAC system in the mechanical room has come off and I'm just wondering what is next. Basement bath needs re-caulking and Joe the builder has put in a work order to get it done but 2 months after move in, contractor hasn't done anything about it. I'm waiting on the 3 months work with Drees to bring up other issues I have to give them a fair chance to redeem themselves. It's a beautiful home from Drees but the sub contracting companies have let them down in my opinion. Overall, the sub contracting companies work is a reflection of Drees work and leaves me with a below average rating for Drees at this time. Hopefully Drees can redeem themselves at the 3 months walkthrough/follow up. ... More

We decided to build with Drees, because we believed they built superior homes. We do like our home and think aesthetically it looks nice. Unfortunately several issues have clouded our experience. Several of the subs who worked on our house did a sloppy, careless job and would also often leave food, drink, and trash onsite after they left for the day. Days before closing I noticed and killed a large cockroach in the house and was hoping it was just a one-off. Unfortunately, that was not the case and we are now experiencing a cockroach infestation that we are trying to mitigate ourselves and with exterminators. We believe that a dirty construction site and a lack of sealing the house properly have likely led to this issue. A brand new house should not have cockroaches.There were also times when a sub would be sent to fix something and it would not be done correctly, so another sub would be sent out. We would suggest looking into hiring a new pool of subs for these reasons. Our house has been under construction in one way or another since we moved in (2.5 months ago) due to items on our punch list during our walkthrough along with a few additional items we noticed after moving in. We have truly appreciated our contractor, Josh’s responsiveness and willingness to fix the issues, but our problem is that there have been ALOT of issues. Three of our windows have been leaking and have caused water damage and have caused a mold smell in the house. We appreciate the responsiveness of Jimmy to have them fixed, but unfortunately the window replacements may take a while to come in and other broken windows that happened during construction have not yet been fixed. To put it simply, we do not believe this should be the experience when buying a new home. We have had one issue after another and are getting tired of new problems popping up and have concerns over what future problems may arise. If we could do it again, we would likely go with a different builder and hope for better results. ... More

Issues were not addressed properly.

The process can alternatively be described as either a straightjacket or as well organized. There were supply disruptions...which is understandable. But, instead of pausing and waiting, the schedule was maintained, with the result that necessary preconditions for installation of later phases were shortchanged or not met at all. This resulted in mistakes that were difficult to rectify or required compromises.

Our Drees home was built while we live out of state. Pictures were not uploaded to portal as promised to assist us in monitoring the progress. Punch list items were not (and still are not) done as promised. We informed Drees we did not need to close until February of 2025. We were forced to close two months ago with promises that all of the remaining issues would be complete by Thanksgiving. As of the writing of this review, the house is still not complete. This means we are not only paying a mortgage for an incomplete home, but we are also paying utilities, maintenance, monthly minimums at the community center, etc. More importantly, the warranty period on the home runs from closing, not completion without any budging from Drees in this regard. In addition, we have allowed access to our home to finish the work. Drees' workers are treating our home like a jobsite, not a home. The are leaving work partially complete with no information on when it will be complete. They are leaving raw materials with exposed nails on my porch and inside the foyer of my home. They are leaving it filthy. Complaints are ignored. Finally, DO NOT get any custom work. We paid over $23,000 for a wine bar area that looks like it is from IKEA. The working pantry that cost $16,000 had to be done twice because the first time was not pursuant to the drawings. We paid over 1.3 million dollars for an “estate” house, yet, feel, at times, more like we are being treated like a customer buying a low level builder’s grade track home. ... More

We received an absolutely filthy house that took me hours to clean when I should’ve been able to unload and unpack boxes. We’ve had issues come up since closing Which have not been handled in a timely manner at all. It was such a great Experience up until the closing and now I feel like Drees has completely dropped the ball.

This home by Dreese was my 11th new home from various builders in Ohio, Georgia, South Caralina and Florida. I had only one builder build me 2 homes because I was satisfied with the quality of the finished product and that was Ryan Homes that rated as #1 of the 10 builders, Dreese #10

Not the best home buying experience and I could do it over, I would have chosen a different builder.

For several months after we moved in the adjacent house was under construction by Drees. Scaffolding and materials were placed on our property and in our driveway without asking our permission. On at least a half dozen occasions I picked up a number of nails from our driveway as well as stones and other debris. Drees literature states that lots are properly graded to deal with runoff… NOT true! Our neighboring lot slopes into ours and there is a flat area where water collects and does not drain as the underlying soil is clay. I spoke with several Drees managers with zero success in having this corrected. Finally, a work order to have some “clean-up” done on our side yard remains open… I have contacted the construction manager several times with no response. ... More

Hindsight is always 20/20, but the more removed I get from moving into my new home the more dissatisfied I become and the more I look back and realize how untrustworthy the process with Drees has been. From the very start we were lied to repeatedly about not being able to get under contract for various reasons, which ended up being confirmed as lies when we asked other builders we were considering if we had the same restrictions getting under contract with them. The build process was good and probably when Drees performed their best; however, they rush to get you moved in so they can collect the rest of their money, even when they have significant work left to complete (e.g., grading of lot, driveway). Once they have their money, they are not nearly as accommodating to make things right and they half *ss the work that is left to do. Since we've moved in, we have had significant issues with the grading of the lot, our $7K upgraded floors sound like your walking on rice krispy treats, and the mantel on our outdoor fireplace is over six feet high on a less than ten foot high wall. The response to these issues has been slow at best and there has been no indication that they will be fixed. We selected Drees over another builder because we liked the floor plan better, even though we felt more comfortable and trusting of the other builder from day one. Looking back, we wish we would have went with the other builder. ... More

i a letting you know that our air cond. is bad , need replace another new a/c thanks

Be careful what your salesperson tells you. Ours was greatly misinformed.