Drees Homes Reviews

Sales reps were nice. Project manager was good. Quality workmanship was questionable. Many things are not correct. Gas fireplace doesn’t work. Microwave is giving error codes. Cracks in foundation with leaks. Scratches on front and back doors, so they needed to be replaced. Fusion wiring was faulty and needed to be replaced. Fusion sensor at back doo r does not work correctly now. Never had so many issues when buying a new home. Everyone is nice though and they come back to try to remedy the situation. Hopefully it will all be taken care of.

Drees advertise as Custom Home builder. But they only allow minor tweaks in plans. Their original plans lack modern layouts, fancy elevations and open plans. Lot of wasted attic spaces. Literally filled the useful area under extended living with dirt, instead of using that space. Lot of design choices, but it can make the life very cumbersome with design centers. Their basic selections are old style and dated. Ex; Old style switches, very traditional light fixtures, trims etc. We have to buy upto new styles and materials. I have to pay up a lot to bring it to Toll Brothers style. Elevations are dated too. Not much choices there. Essentially a good builder, but dated choices with Materials and Floor Plans. Also they dont spend on community signs nor fence the neighborhood etc. Outside your home lot, they are not even leveling or clearing ground or put up a tree line. Responsiveness to issues is very lagging. Some staff are good, some dont even respond to emails/phones. ... More

Sales process was not always transparent, design studio was very chaotic and disorganized, the contractor was great.

Your sales department was terrible, I never felt I could trust him or felt respected by him. There were more than one occasion when we were not spoken to with 100% integrity. The design center ladies were amazing. Albert was really good until we got close to closing. He was a little more hesitant to correct minor discrepancies at that time than I would have liked. His trustworthiness and communications is what kept me from walking away throughout the build process i felt i could trust him.

We love the floor plan and design of the home. The construction of the home was unsatisfactory.

Although I'm quite disappointed by the state of the exterior of my house and the current status of the yard work and landscaping, my interactions with Drees employees has been very good, especially with Peppe. Every time I have an issue I reach out to him and he responds back right away and has been relentless in trying to make sure my issues are resolved. My major issues with the process is defintiely with the exterior of the house. The yard has been left in disaray and the landscaping looks incomplete, messy, trees have been cut to the stump, sidewalk all dug up, with no answers on when it will be done. ... More

Overall the experience was decent. The Drees product is definitely a must have as far as design and function. As for overall workmanship I would say my home is an anomaly compared to the others I have seen, not to say Drees has not been extremely supportive (Saul) in resolving these issues. We have several minor flaws within our home but overall we are happy with our purchase. We will recommend Drees to our peers and community.

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

Get everything in writing. After you sign reality sets in. Market manger’s job is to sell regardless of integrity.

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

Love our new home. However, there were lots of maintenance items after we moved in. We have been here for four months and we are still waiting for some outside items to be completed. Also, during the last month, new problems have surfaced inside. The items that have been addressed so far are mediocre at best. This home doesn't compare to the quality of the home we sold.

Have had many issues during the build and also issues after. The order in which houses get different things doesnt make sense. Our yard has not been finished yet and we are living in our house, but someone who's house is just now being finished is getting a yard. For the price you pay for the house, there is lots of imperfections and below expectations on the quality. Even with upgraded paint, you cant clean it without causing discoloration. cabinets have nicks and dings all over them. Things you pay for upgrades dont get done and they are only corrected or refunded if you bring it to their attention. ... 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.

Problems after closing were never completed

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