Highland Homes Reviews in Austin, TX

Lots of workmanship issues found at the home. We bought online so we didn't have a chance to see the house before moving in. Had to escalate issues to senior leadership in order to get things moving. One contractor came do an incorrect job and I am still waiting to hear back and get a date to get a replacement cabinet door. Too many defects for new construction. Not willing to recommend Highland.

Overall we're very happy with this home.. It's beautiful. The construction seems very well done. The neighborhood is great. Highland has been very responsive with any questions or concerns during both the build process and post-closing. However, the value of the upgrades is somewhat questionable when considered against what you pay for them. This is mainly due to what is very evidently rushed install and finish work by the subcontractors they use. Poorly run caulking beads. Chipped/scratched glass. Improperly cut trim. Unfinished cabinetry that was simply overlooked. Wiring that trips a breaker when you plug a single phone charger in. In a word - sloppy. Small things, to be sure, but many of them. If you have the time to be at the site consistently inspecting the work as it happens then I'm sure a lot of this would have been caught during the process. Not the case for us. Regardless this seems like quality control the builder may wish to own as a matter of course. Again, Highland is great about making it right. It's just frustrating that an expensive master bath upgrade has caulking that looks like I did it myself. ... More

Since moving into our home, our experience has been wonderful. Zach is very responsive to any issues that have come up. However, we almost did not go through with our purchase due to major issues/miscommunication with the loan officers. I honestly don't have the energy to type everything out here. It was way more stressful than it had to be due to errors and lack of communication/explanation.

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.

Lots of small issues that should have been addressed prior to closing. Typical new construction home thought these guys would be different at a higher level since they charge more.

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

Highland Homes has a great sales team. We never had any questions unanswered. Though we liked our building manager, highland homes outsources all the work and lacks a quality team and building manager hardly does quality check, We ended up following on many things after closing ( from a minor thing such as front door weather strip to a leaked window replacement ) which is frustrating at times.

New house took 15 months to finish. you could say it's normal due to supply chain issue, but then some houses on same street/same builder got finished under 10 months, so not sure what to say. Issues started out from foundation phase, you need watch like a hawk on every step and ask to be corrected, if you dont live nearby, good luck! Not a single time you were contacted and updated about progress, you always had to ask. Lots of quality issues, but so far they were all medium to minor ones, so something you can live by. But no way it was pleasant experience.

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 closed on our home in October 2020. We love the design of our home and the location. Highland has great floor plans to choose from. We have had numerous issues during the construction phase and after we moved in. Specifically, we have had several plumbing related issues. Mustang Plumbing is the subcontractor for Highland Homes and almost everything Mustang Plumbing has touched has been done incorrectly. The largest and most egregious issue was that Mustang Plumbing did not connect our grinder pump to the city sewer line in front of the house. On the day we moved into our new home we had sewage running all over our front yard and driveway. The next day Mustang did connect the grinder pump to the city sewer line; however, they failed to connect the grinder pump back up to the electrical system. A few days later we had sewer gas in our new home. Another Mustang plumber came out and resolved the issue. Another Mustang issue is that they incorrectly installed our disposal in the kitchen sink. A few days after moving in to our new home we had lots of water leaking under our sink. Yet another Mustang plumber had to come out and correct the issue. We have also had issues with our "Smart Home Package" offered by Highland Homes. Essentially, during the construction phase of the house, IES (another subcontractor) neglected to install several access ports needed for the Eero wifi extenders. IES offered to retrofit the extenders but doing so would have required rather extensive drywall work. We declined because we do not want patwork drywall in our new home. Another IES issue focused on our video doorbell. In order to install our video doorbell IES had to remove several bricks from the front of the house and then a brick mason had to come out and patch up the front of the house. It looks fine, but why not install the video doorbell from the very beginning. All of the IES issues stem from poor planning. Advice to future buyers - insist that your wifi extenders and video doorbell be installed before you move in. It is a huge inconvenience having people in and out of your house installing items that can easily be installed before you move in. I write this review on January 6, 2021. Since we moved in we have had to submit at least 6-7 warranty issues to Highland Homes. All but one have been addressed. But I find it sad that we have had to submit so many warranty requests on a brand new home. Our project manager, Matt, has been very responsive to each of the issues we have faced. I do not blame Matt for anything. However, I strongly encourage Highland Homes to source better plumbing and low voltage subcontractors. If you are looking to buy a Highland Home, you will love your design choices and the floor plan options. Highland Homes look great. However, be very thorough in your inspections because I do have my doubts about the quality of the workmanship (especially the areas that are hidden behind walls such as plumbing. Ask questions. Visit the home site frequently during the construction phase. Take pictures to document the building process. ... More

The product and floorplans are great, but the contractors repeatedly made mistakes and many did not put much care into their workmanship. Management failed to communicate effectively and oversee the quality of the project, leaving a long list of repairs and fixes that had to be completed post-closing. We had contractors in and out of our house for two months after we moved in, and although everything was made right in the end, it was a very frustrating and inconvenient process. If you build with Highland, visit the site often, and triple check all of the specs. We visited nearly every week and still, items were missed. Take detailed notes about brick and grout colors, and pay attention to tile spacing... and when it comes to baseboards and trim, make sure they don't use MDF. It was the only no cost option we were given, even though they admit there's no good way to install it (nail holes swell preventing you from ever having a smooth surface). ... More

I feel like the build was rushed in order to meet the closing date. This allowed for things to be missed and unfinished. I love the Floorplan and the house in general.

We were very excited to build with Highland for the 2nd time. We were impressed with the standard features and incentives offered this time around. Once we moved in we started experiencing one problem after another:the a/c drip line wasn’t connected to the drain causing the washing machine to dump an entire load of waste water into the walls. The issue was addressed immediately by the emergency plumber and Sean sent a restoration company to pull baseboards and set fans to dry the walls out. It was an oversight that should have been caught during several different inspections. It was very inconvenient but it was handled as well as it could have been. Then the dryer didn’t work. It turns out the plug was wired 110 instead of 220, which meant holes had to be cut in the walls in the laundry room and bedroom. The garage door opener and plugs suddenly didn’t work, turns out they moved a plug in the garage and didn’t connect all the wires. The garage door doorknob fell off in my hand. We still haven’t gotten the USB plugs, which are a standard feature, installed. One of the bedroom door frame boards has all sorts of chunks and notches taken out and the painters decided to remove the blue tape without fixing it. There was a lot of that from our final walkthrough. There are a many imperfections that weren’t fixed/touched up. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t much pride in workmanship anymore. Things that should have been done right the first time are now going to have to be addressed by the warranty department. I’m making a list. ... More

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.