Highland Homes Reviews in Austin, TX

Quality build. Construction manager does a poor job with following up with communication and misses details in every single email exchange. Construction manager is nice. He tells the buyer he is available for questions/concerns, but does not actually follow through with a quality level of responsiveness. Outright ignores some topics in emails. Issues/agreed upon repairs would persist for weeks and I had to keep asking up until the day before closing. Sales counselor was consistently excellent, responsive and proactive. I would give her five stars.

Definitely not up to the mark. Being premium builder the cost is definitely higher than other builders in same neighborhood but we don’t see that difference in quality or features or finishing. The main complaint is the amateurish finishing overall and clearly shows that care was not shown and was rushed. They are good in responding to service requests.

While ultimately, we believe that we made the right home purchase for us. the process needs some work. The salesman tells you that Highland Homes can't do certain things and then we find out that for other buyers they might/or will. They tend to blame things on the Developer to get out of doing things for the Buyer. The Builder tried very hard to accomodate us; but ultimately he's limited by what he's told he can or cannot do. The quality of work is lacking. They need to adopt a motto of 'doing it right the first time'. It's got to be costing them a lot of money to come back 3+ times on some issues (cleaning off the brick; having a poor choice of blinds on the back door; substandard work on the tile in the master shower; etc...). The grass they chose is a poor choice for a backyard that gets lots of shade; their landscaper told us so; yet the Salesman would not let us choose a better grass. The wood-look ceramic tile grout is not sealed; and if we seal it within the warranty period, the warranty is voided. The same thing applies to putting in dimmer switches; the warranty is voided. There was about a 3/4 to 1 inch gap between our front door and the door sill. It took nearly two months to get it fixed. We had to jam a small rug under the door to keep bugs and critters out. We were told that we had left over paint in our attic, but none was there. The list goes on. They are all friendly folks; but getting things done right the first time is not their strong suit. ... More

Don't move in until all issues are resolved!!

Keep ose eyes on the building phase, the attention to detail is lacking. For instance: we were assured that the drywall installers used screws instead of nails. I personally saw them pound all the screws inime nails.. No one is keeping track of the vendor work as far as I can tell.

We moved in December and already experiencing issues of poor workmanship. The houses in this neighborhood are so close to each other and the house which is getting built after we moved in has window directly facing our window. With houses being so close to each other, more thought should have been put to not have neighbors window face each other. Flooring is cheap wood and not perfect for a new home. Would love to provide more details when contacted.

Initially everyone was great. But as closing came, things were different. Brick color was different from what we chose. There were so many little things that was promised but didn’t happen. Frontyard was just not great looking. Trees look dead. I asked the builder multiple times… not much response. I had to ask to power wash the garage. Had to ask to clean the floor before moving in. I wish the handover would have been more official and smoother… and 100%. I had bought some houses from other builders.. had completely different experience. Builder was nice.. but didn’t meet the expectations. ... More

We had several issues that stemmed from a lack of communication from the design side, like door trim that has known issues with the doorknob hardware, a kitchen island that was both more expensive and not what we we told we were ordering, and options like pre-sealed grout that we only learned about after the fact. That coupled with some issues like, tile needing to be regrouted because it was done poorly, and flooring being stained by banister varnish, left us feeling frustrated by the process overall. We understand that our home was built during the covid pandemic, and we always tried to be patient and understanding, but a lot of the work felt rushed, poorly done, or needed to be redone. We really appreciated our second building manager, who really seemed to be focused on trying to get our house back on track. ... More

Quality of materials and work of subcontractors is atrocious.

The quality of the materials and workmanship in Highland homes is not what you would expect for houses of this price range, the wood they used in our house during pandemic supply chain issues was substandard, base boards and all interior trim were installed as fast as possible leaving behind A LOT of small little cosmetic issues, if there is a spot where is hard to see around the trim, chances are there is no paint on it. If we try to remove a small stain from a wall using a damp cloth, the paint dissolves and the paper that wraps the drywall gets exposed immediately, several crooked electrical outlets around the house and a long list of small issues. They claim to cover all under their warranty, but they of course don't come to install higher quality materials you claim warranty fixes, they just come to fix things using the same original materials and they will give you 4-5 hours windows that you have to stay home from Monday to Friday for every single detail you need to get fixed. They offer competitive prices for the BASE model of the houses, but things that you would expect to be standard are not, everything is an upgrade and once you are done "upgrading" your house you are at least 50K - 60K above the "base price". ... More

When punching out your house before move in make sure to take pictures of each item and put it in a spread sheet to ensure each item is taken care of

Issues are still not addressed.

This is my second Highland Home & the experience has been pretty bad. Since I met with one builder at pre-construction meeting& then another took over I don’t think there was any real ownership of my build. Things just did not get done as promised. Shallow stairs are not, lighting changes were not done as told, trades that did the paint, grout, fence, fixtures, flooring were just sloppy. Job site was the dirtiest I have ever seen & I have had 5 homes built.

Sales process was professional. Massive problems with issues reported before closing - still not taking care off. Too many times we had invest our time for issues and no results. Simple things (i.e. shoe mold in kitchen) is still not taken care off. No communication from Building Manager. Very frustrating. More and more smaller problems occur and NO action after reporting.

As a Vetran I feel I was robbed of my Earnest Money for chosen another Highland home in the same Neighborhood.I lost 12,500 which as a Vetran it does not come by easy.If Highland Homes treat Vetrans this bad everytime they will not get too many stars.

Highland homes has always been known for exceptional customer service. However, post pandemic I do feel that the bottom line, making money, has now trumped what highland homes has stood for for so long. The experience of buying a home with highland was supposed to be an amazing experience, so I thought. Little did I know that we would experience such horrible things in route to closing and honestly after closing. Highland waited until 2 days before our closing date in December to push our close date out 2 weeks. There was zero transparency in the decision making process on when or why our close would be pushed. What was more horrible about the situation was that my family and I had moved half way across the country and would now be stuck in a hotel. Once our close was push and I was physical close enough to check on the house, there was literally no work done on the home for the first 2 weeks that the home was pushed out, thus forcing another closing push by highland homes. To make matters worse, my home family contracted Covid while staying in the hotel and no place to separate or quarantine. Highland homes offered no compensation at that time for any of our hotel stay. Finally after 3 and half weeks in a hotel we finally closed in mid to late January. However, there were and still are so many poorly crafted aspects of the home that need to be fixed. All in all these are my thoughts: I feel like highland home was ok with allowing customers to spend top dollar on their homes but were not concerned at all with the customer experience during the process. That is a direct contradiction of what highland homes’ values have always been. I also felt that highland homes struggled with having labor to actually build our home. If there was a lack of labor, customers deserve to know that so that way they can have realistic expectations. Also, the labor that they did have to build our homes was poor as so many things that they installed had to be fixed and still need to be fixed post close. My wife and I never heard from any of the project managers involved in building our home, given the fact that there were so many project delays. If your bottom line is customer service, then you start with transparency and communication. Communication is a foundational pillar of any relationship of any kind and if you don’t have that then the relationship suffers tremendously. We are two years removed from Covid and materiel availability has remained an issue. Staying ahead of the supply chain and offering customers knowledge of who the vendors are and any vendor issues in real time would also help customers have realistic expectations. Highland should know that you can’t just hide behind your product and your words. It has to be your actions. Given the last year of building our home with highland and all that we have experienced, highland homes a great deal of work to do to restore the faith that we initially had in them being one of the nations best builders. ... More

Level of work poorly done. Contractor would reply in timely manner when contacted. Sales person and contractor both lied that the home will not have a driveway with an incline. Being disabled makes it difficult to climb on slope from sidewalk to the home. I am very unhappy with the work done and selling as soon as I have some equity accrued.

Today is a good example ( almost 7 weeks after we closed) the doorknobs we paid for were not installed. Instead, we received the "standard" doorknobs. We were told that they'd be here today around 8:30 am and it is now 12:15 pm and no one has yet come. This has happened too many times to count! Love our salesman and the head of the building department but they are not keeping after some of their workers or vendors!

Overall, the quality of the home we purchased from Highland is good. Being able to see work that was put in behind the walls was encouraging. Unfortunately, it is clear that the builder was pushing to close before the end of the year to lower their tax burden on a developed lot vs the raw land it was before the building process began. The finishing topics in several places were sloppy and it felt like the term "in compliance" was used many times during our walk through. We were only able to complete our first walkthrough 5 days prior to closing so almost all blue/green tape fixes occurred after closing. Since the home was "completed" so close to closing, there was almost no option to shop around for mortgage rates because of the 14 day window lenders suggest so the only option was to go with the highland home loans, who's rates are higher than what we were offered elsewhere. The list of items to complete post closing it quite long and we were pressured by the project manager to sign the open items list about a month after closing with none of the items completed. It is currently almost 2.5 months after closing and most of the items are still open. Another issue we had was a leak resulting from when the sidewalk was poured. both downstairs bathrooms and the master closet flooded. I wouldn't have expected this to be caught since the issue was underground but the repair has been very slow. It's been nearly 2 months since the event and most of the repairs are still outstanding. We are happy to be in a home but performance from the builder was as continues to be frustrating for us. ... More

Even though my home was far delayed due to supply chain issues, it should never have been closed when it did due to problems that should have been handled pre-closing. The front door doesn't seal and going on 4 months not fixed - allows insects and cold air into the house. One of the walls is 4 inches off spec per several post build contractors informed me about - causing the trim of kitchen cabinets to not be aligned correctly. Severe damage inside a cabinet that was not caught by the builder during their own pre-closing inspection. That, despite them discouraging me to get my own independent inspector within a week and a half of closing. Water holds in the back yard due to poor grading. Some wall sections are not straight. Framing was poorly done. Painting was sloppy and missed in some areas, painted over cabinets in others. Some window's aren't framed square and require custom fixes. Baseboard that had a seam in the middle of a room when it should be a single run. Ethernet drop wasn't put in and took a month to fix. Careless attention to detail and a rushed build on top of a price increase while I was ready to sign but management and thus communication disappeared for weeks before changing hands. Wouldn't honor original pricing. The list goes on. ... More

Due to the workmanship and materials for my new home, I will not recommend others to build house with HighlandHome.

Poor paint quality, poor trim work, poor wall texture, bad cabinets. Moved in after 15 month wait, and still incomplete. It's a beautiful plan and a very nice area. Just, quality, from a highly expensive builder. Expectations are low.

-Lack of updates/ inaccurate and incorrect updates throughout the entire home building experience. -Constant follow-ups to inform the builder of the inaccuracies provided. -Treated disrespectfully and blown off. -Pointed out several issues prior to move-in that I was assured would be taken care of. (They weren’t when I moved in and I received no communications. I had to escalate and inform the necessary individuals of what the issues were and escalations continue.) -Issues with the AC leaking and a Gas Leak happened during first few weeks of move in. -Continued issues outstanding to date and the amount of follow-up/time spent on issues that should have been done correctly is mind boggling. -Many individuals within the same neighborhood have the same exact experiences and concerns -Horrible workmanship with no one double checking that things were done correctly. -Issues included on inspection report prior to move -in weren’t taken care of before I moved in. These remain outstanding. -Continue to find items that have failed to be done correctly regularly. Face value, it is a beautiful home. However, when you do your due diligence you find that the workmanship and information you have been provided fails to be accurate. Be ready for a fight for what is right and many many hours of your personal time invested having to work through items that should have been done correctly the first time. ... More

Highland homes overall construction is better than many builders but the experience we had was not the best. Cannot trust - they did not allow same garage door color for us since 2 houses from us had same color but allowed exact same floor plan as us next door ! And not only that this next door and their next door has same garage color and same white painted brick ! We had to struggle to get things right during construction process. Post closing also noticing that last minute stuff was all done like patches.

From start to finish, there was nothing that could go right for our build. From permitting issues for the the Sri way to having to redesign the driveway. Our 3rd party inspector found several issues with the proper installation of all the anchor bolts throughout the entire frame. All the bathroom cabinets and kitchen cabinets were heavily damaged BUT were still installed. Our building construction manager was informed about the cabinets but was told by the cabinet company they they would not be replaced only repaired. At this point I went to highland homes social media page and expressed my disappointment with the cabinets and the refusal to have them replaced. At the point I got a phone call from highlands regional manager who wanted to meet in person at the home to see the damages. He then expressed his apologies and said that was not to “Highland standard “ he made a call and the very next day all the cabinets were replaced with new undamaged cabinets. By this time we had Laos faith and trust in our building manager and his crews so we decided to show up unannounced to do walk throughs and this is when we found that all the paint and finish work was not up to “Highland standard “. The texture on the walls didn’t match and had to be done 3 time before it finally matched. Master bathroom tiles are loosing grout and the shoulder leaks. The bathroom window leaked for almost 2 weeks before it was resealed. We have grout in kitchen backsplash that is now cracking and separating. And now we noticed that anytime the furnace or ac is on, all the lights in the home flicker constantly.. so here goes another work order and letting more people into my home .. never ending bad dream.... ... More