Pulte Homes Reviews

What would you most like potential home buyers to know about this builder?

Build quality was low. Had 2-3 dozen issues found between pre drywall and final walk through that needed to be addressed, including some that still need addressed. Poor communication from sales, construction manager, and warranty team. Schedule delays due to apparent mismanagement of trades. Typically quality and speed are inversely proportionate, so speed has to be sacrificed to increase quality, but the build process was the worst of both worlds.

"While the location of The Elms in Saratoga, CA, is excellent and the physical construction quality is strong, the business practices of Pulte Sales and Pulte Mortgage are predatory. Prospective buyers—especially those buying $2M+ homes with complex tech compensation (RSUs)—need to hire a real estate ***** before signing Pulte's contract. Here is the exact trap we experienced during our transaction: The "Conditional Approval" Deposit Trap: Pulte's sales contract contains a dangerous clause: if ***** issues a 'conditional approval' and the loan later falls through, Pulte claims the right to seize your earnest money deposit (~$60,000). Pulte Mortgage gives conditional approval easily—essentially to anyone with a W-2. Failure to Underwrite & Deposit *****: After issuing conditional approval, ***** failed to underwrite our first ***** grant, incorrectly misclassifying it as a bonus and refusing to fund the loan under their own criteria. Despite the financing failure originating on their side, Pulte threatened to keep our $60,000 deposit. Note: Pulte requires deposits to go directly into their corporate general fund, not a neutral third-party escrow account, making retrieval extremely difficult. Escrow Delays & $11,000 in Per Diem Penalties: Fighting their refusal to fund ate through two weeks and caused us to miss the initial close date. To save our $60,000 deposit, we were forced to switch to an expensive alternative lender. Pulte delayed two full days just providing contact details for the lender. Despite the sales consultant verbally promising we would not be charged delay fees, Pulte enforced a $300/day per diem penalty, costing us $11,000 in total delay fees caused entirely by *****'s underwriting failure. Refusal of ***** Communication: Throughout this ordeal, the sales consultant at The Elms repeatedly blocked us from speaking with corporate leadership. When we requested to speak to the local sales manager prior to signing closing documents, we were explicitly told 'managers do not talk to customers'—an appalling ***** of disrespect on a $2M purchase. Predatory Tactics Confirmed by Outside Lenders: Outside financial institutions—including Wells Fargo—were shocked by *****'s 'conditional approval' mechanism, with multiple lenders pointing out that forcing buyers into compromised positions under ***** of deposit forfeiture resembles predatory lending. We made the mistake of ignoring prior negative feedback regarding this specific sales consultant at The Elms, assuming our transaction would be different. Do not make the same mistake. The builder incentives look attractive initially, but ***** and Pulte Mortgage will use contractual loopholes and communication stonewalling to extract thousands in extra fees or take your deposit. Do not sign without an ***** reviewing every line." ... More

The brick trim on the front and the back of the house had to be redone after I moved in and they left a big mess in and around the house after the repair work was done.

Roy ***** made a great home, and Kurt ***** made the process easy. Love my new Pulte home in Eden Prairie.

We absolutely love our new home and could not be happier with the quality of the finished product. Building a new home can certainly be stressful at times, but having someone like Donato overseeing everything made the experience so much better. We feel very fortunate that Donato was our foreman, and we sincerely appreciate everything he did to make our new home something we are so proud of. The communication from him as well as Pulte's updating emails with pictures was greatly appreciated. Thank you Pulte & Donato for making our new home such a wonderful & easy experience.

Ray Whorley was a pleasure to work with, he was very responsive to my questions and ensured any issues I had were resolved quickly. His knowledge of the property is excellent. He made my home buying experience a wonderful experience

Typical quality for production builder. Unit not 100% ready when asked to close. Dealing with a lot of post close fixes

Pulte should never even offer this gawd awful exterior paint color. I ordered what I thought was a light gray but its actually light blue! When I picked the color I was shown colors blocks with the scheme...not what it actually looked like on the home. Its incredibly disappointing and I will need to have it painted. This was supposed to be my dreamhome but the color literally makes me nauseous

The pre build process was great and even the building process. We were given timely updates and pictures were provided. It was move in time that was problematic. There were many issues with the house before we moved in and the house wasn't ready for us. Lack of communication and false promises.

Warrant connect has been ok, and I'd rather not comment further

Sales experience was determining factor behind my review process and my impression of Pulte. Vivian ***** was salesperson and has ruined Pulte's name for me! I would never work with her and Pulte again!

, but for most of it we were told it's in tolerance. I can go to the model home and it doesn't feel like that. From the pictures we took during the build its obvious no one filled in the chunks missing out of the foundation. The garage floor was epoxied by the builder contractor, but its clear they didn't grind it down first as there are many many dips in the floor which the epoxy shows even more where they are.

Some of the process has been great yet some has been dismal. The inside finish work and the paint has not been good at all. Poor craftsmanship and it appears there is a lack of pride in doing a good job by some of the subcontractors, or trades, as the construction managers called them. The finish work appears to have been rushed to completion to meet a build deadline established at the beginning of the process. Once we took the keys our construction managers have been difficult if not almost impossible to get a response to texts or calls. Our sales representative was, and is, fantastic. The warranty center has been great to work with. Very responsive to our needs. The design team was very knowledgeable and extremely helpful during the entire design process. ... More

I would not recommend to buy a pulte home in ***** as they have ***** cases against them.

Sliding doors have the water leaking, bugs intrusion, airflow due to the holes/open spaces. Windows have the water leak. Doors have open spaces so bugs came in the house. Air condition duct leaks, etc

We had an amazing experience all the way long. And even after, we do had some issues, but everything was solved asap.

Overall satisfied, however, we were not happy with no towel bars in the master, no linen closets in the entire house, and lack of an extra window in the downstairs bedrooms - both are very dark because of the outside cinder block divider between homes. Also upstairs living room could use an extra window across from the kitchen to bring in more light. Floor plan is awesome -works great for us.

Everything went smoothly and Matthew has been very responsive to fixing small issues we had.

Our construction Manager, Art was very communicative, helpful and knowledgable about the entire building process. He answered quesitons immedicately. We were from out of state, and he made sure that we got weekly updates and photos of our house progress.

Our sales rep Ron made the process very easy and was a huge help in the buying process.

Mason was really great to work with. He was always very responsive and knowledgeable.

Everyone on the team was professional and the process was seamless. I am in love with my new home.

Overall, my experience with Pulte Builder for the Verdana subdivision was excellent made possible by the Construction Manager and sales consultant. Home was finished early and closing moved up one week. Unfortunately, my experience with Pulte Mortgage was totally unacceptable. Justin

I would put the rating of my experience much better and I've had with previous home buying experience.