Drees Homes Reviews

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.

My house has too many water leak issues in the basement within the first month of the move. These things should have been taken care properly before handing over the house. Its almost 2 months now and my basement is a mess with broken drywalls and the tarps are torn for fixing. Most of the windows were not properly caulked due to last month thunderstorm may windows had too much water leak due to poor caulking. These caulking and water proofing are the basic things that needs to be done for water prevention into the house. I have called drees more than 5 times in last 2 months for multiple water issues. ... More

If you get a good project supervisor/manager everything should go smooth. We did!

We moved to Drees 2months back. We are not satisfied with quality and workmanship. Some portion of the wood is not stable. It is going down or is soft. Paint finish is not good. Countertop is slanted.

The overall final product was decent without too many issues - some of which were encountered with COVID-19 issues, but the communication throughout the entire process was terrible. Issues arise and we understand that, but all we asked for was to stay informed and updated but that was never the case and we had to follow up numerous times to get answers.

Overpriced lots and options. Did not meet my expectations

My experience is mostly positive: sales representative is very knowledgeable and accommodating, design center experience was good also. My disappointment is in the quality of workmanship and materials on a few items. Interior doors are especially poor quality and almost all in need of touch up/ repair from rough defects from manufacturing. Poor workmanship of caulking around windows and exterior lights.

Can't say my experience with Drees was any good, honestly, aside from my Superintendent Saul. The entire process outside of that was hot garbage. The quality of material and workmanship on the home is absolutely horrendous. Plumbing work is bad, paint is bad, drywall is bad, flooring is bad, electrical is bad, HVAC is bad. Literally everything about the home is bad. The only difference with Drees compared to other builders is that they try to make the house look fancier. That's it. We will not be building our next home with Drees.

Design Samples needs improvement. Construction quality isn’t up to the mark. No response for the emails after move-in. I wouldn’t recommend going with DYOL team.

Did a building your own kit instead of using a custom builder and we should have gone custom. We moved in June 10 after months of delays and no work being completed. Our punch list from our walk thru June 2 still isn’t done. Took our construction manager off our house and sent him to a neighborhood 3 weeks before we were supposed to move in. Communication as to delays was horrible. Communication as to completing this punch list has been nonexistent unless I reach out and follow up. If you’re building in an established Drees neighborhood, they’ll be great. But I would not recommend it for an alternative to a custom route. A single home in a single lot is not the priority…despite it being $$$ ... More

my biggest disappointment is the trashy lot i have to look at every day. I think it is the Drees dumping zone.

We were constantly advised that issues would be taken care of, however, they were not. Too many issues for a home that you are paying a half million dollars for. Items that were supposed to be handled within two weeks of closing have still not been taken care of almost three months later. Just too many headaches and issues.

Everything was good until we closed. Once we closed, outstanding issues have been pushed to the back burner. We’ve had to repeated ask for follow up. We have major drainage issues in our yard which have yet to be resolved. Concrete subs were terrible. Porch step has yet to be redone and repoured because it was done incorrectly. All of the extenuating issues have outweigh the good at this point.

Chedk out items you would not expect to find a problem with

When picking out your paint no ve dries as the cheapest crappyest paint company in Tennessee and will only choose to paint flat paint