Pulte Homes Reviews in Chicago, IL

The buying experience was very nice. However, the closing was a nightmare. The closing date was pushed by the Pulte title closing company because they would not allow our mortgage company to do an escrow account because of the outside landscaping and the driveway and the sidewalk were not completed. We had to pay an extra $600 which was an hour or our mortgage company fault the manager at the pool day office did not when I agreed to that escrow and then all of a sudden she did. I feel like she just wanted to charge us $600 because we did not go with Pulte Mortgage from the beginning so she didn’t profit on us. Then several issues inside the home has not been completed after the closing as promised. One of them is an outlet in the garage for the garage door opener. Outlet is in the wrong location and the opener cable does not reach it. Instead of moving the outlet into a correct location the construction manager told me to get an extension cord. Needless to say, I am not able to use my garage and I don’t know who else to contact so that correction can be made. This was wrong from the get-go by the electrician and it should been corrected without any ideas of using an extension cord. I would very much like somebody from Pulte Homes to contact me and make these corrections possible. This is not the quality I was expecting from this big company. ... More

I was impressed with how organized all the departments were at Pulte; from sales, mortgage, builders, designers and closers. Whenever I had a question, I knew who to reach out and they were able to assist right away. Everyone met their deadlines and provided updates throughout the entire process. I overall enjoyed our experience with Pulte and look forward to living in our forever home for a long time.

Have been in my new home about 5 weeks now and feel I made an excellent decision to buy a Pulte home in Trillium Farm. While we still have some minor issues to iron out all seems to be going quite well.

Bad architecture overall, bad location choices hvac and heater in base ment, fridge location in kitchen etc., just to save their construction money, they realize limited lots to create artifical demand and increase price, very limted designer choice and its a lot if every chnage. Make scene every time you request for small changes, after closing, if we find any issues they mention it either too small or does not seems to be issue, we will fix when we have 9 months walk through. Substandard grass which require too much maintenance and bad garden plant choices. Overall not satisfied

Build quality was sub par , paid excessive money and response on issues much worse . Driveway and pathway and lawn is taking more than 3 months or even for some neighbors 6 months to compete . While new home buyers now are getting everything on time .

closing was done prematurely, drive way and Sod was not ready. Buyer should be advised what to expect after closing. Causing inconvenience. Our closing was on April 5th and as of today JUNE 3rd., we do have Sod on the Ground.

Communication was nonexistent. A clear lack of communication within Pulte, from a sales staff who did not care about the truth, and a site manager who had no idea what was going on. Texts left unanswered for days. 6 months delayed delivery, but no heads up until the last second. Closing walk through the house was still dirty and a contractor took a poop in our toilet. No follow up on unfinished painted areas. Sloppy work on tye bsckyard removal of trees. They left a mess, rotten wood pieces with nails sticking out.

Currently all good, not find any issue

Had a good customer experience overall. Very disappointed with the quality of my home. You can tell things were done rushed with no care how it would turn out. Painting throughout the house was horrible. Hard to believe that was done professionally. There were a lot of scratches on everything (appliances, countertops, floors, tubs, walls, baseboards, cabinets).

Home is in good shape so far with only a few issues identified. Service Manager responds to service requests quickly. Construction manager was able to answer all questions during building process. Sales manager was not responding to emails and phone calls sent during home construction and was not very helpful. Overall we love the home plan we have selected and plan to utilize most of the space.

We moved in 2 months ago and still do not have a sidewalk, back stoop, driveway, final grading or sod. Pulte was in a hurray to get us closed in March but not to complete their outside work except where required to get an occupancy permit for later closings. The Pulte personnel we deal with are helpful but I think their hands are tied by the ridged policies of Pulte. As to quality of workmanship, I don't think they do a better job than any other builder. A buyer has to pay a lot for extras just to get good, but not great, quality finishes. $1,313 for a basic laundry tub. $1,330 for a couple cabinets in the laundry room. $183 for a single ceiling light and another $120 for the switch to turn it on! Bathroom faucets spill water on the back of the sink. The upgraded paint they use rubs off easily. Drywall imperfections are obvious. Garage is dry walled and taped but not mudded or painted. Front stoop roughly finished and loaded with stains. Trim around front door roughly finished. Perhaps this is to be expected for any new construction, but it doesn't make a buyer of a half million dollar house feel special. We have a generally well built home but I would not say it is exceptionally good quality. If possible for a buyer, he or she would be better off using an outside contractor for painting and closet cabinetry. Finally, Pulte continues its nickel and diming at closing by requiring the buyer to reimburse it for transfer taxes that are by law customarily a seller's obligation. ... More

To be honest, I exected more issuses to come up with our new home. I'm happy to say only minor things have happended so far. All of which, were handled swiftly. Nothing man made is perfect, but should be repaired without issue and we have found that with our new Pulte Home.

The two weeks leading up to closing and now the weeks following closing have not been good. Communication has lacked, follow through has been non existent. Punch list items from final walk through are still not done and we’ve been in the new how over a month now.

First of all we owned a Pulte home in Florida when we began our search to downsize in Illinois. Our first trip to the model had us meeting Gina who was so warm and welcoming and knowledgeable and was as excited as we were to begin this new adventure. The next Pulte person we met was Bradyn who always returned our call or email or text and always in a friendly informative manner. At our pre drywall meeting he was extremely knowledgeable. Actually he just stopped by for a visit to say hi and check on us. :). At times through out the process it would be frustrating waiting for various phases to occur in our home but Bradyn always responded to those frustrations in a calm manner. Finally we are working with Zach. He too is so very knowledgeable and prompt with follow up and so very friendly. We enjoy his visits and all that he does to be the best he can be for us. Being a Pulte home owner for 2 homes I'm very pleased to know Pulte has people like Gina and Bradyn and Zach representing them. They all contributed to assuring we have a lovely home. ... More

Job Foremans and Sales staff are very friendly and knowledgeable.

Our experience with sales was horrible after the contract was signed. Sales person is unorganized & needs retraining. Construction side was good. However the quality of paint is horrible. You cannot clean walls without the paint coming off. Pulte mortgage has too much turnover & we were shuffled around multiple times with loan professionals. When timing is key for locking in a rate, the communication is not fast enough. Ended up costing us a higher rate. If a deposit was not on the line, we would have walked away early on.

Construction Manager was great. The workmanship is ok. In a year I’ll know more.

Lack of trades work being checked for quality. It seems the area lacks the labor force to meet deadlines. I would reconsider if I could. Get sod in back because the other option is all weeds. The area was strewn with garbage and nails and old wood throughout process. They try but to much going on.

From sales to closing, we have had a positive experience

The overall experience was easy and painless.

I did not like the bidding process to buying a home.

We are so very blessed to have a new beautiful home in Chasewood. The craftsmanship of the home is amazing. The entire experience from the beginning to the completion with Pulte was personable, genuine, and caring. Diane was truly enthusiastic with helping us pick our lot, explain our exterior choices, and beginning our home owning experience. We meet our on site construction managers, Jake and Mike, they always went above and beyond explaining every detail of our build. They provided a step by step explanation on the construction process in great detail. A timeline was provided to us and they did an incredible job keeping every part of this process moving along effortlessly. The communication with us was perfect. When the interior house was built, the design team was great helping us stream line our vision of our new house to come to life. There were so many beautiful choices to choose to put our own touch on our house. When our house was complete and we did our final walk through with Mike, we were speechless. He explained every inch of our house to us, provided us with comfort and confidence that Pulte built us a beautiful new home with quality craftsmanship, and cared about our future in our new home. He explained our warranty in great detail and even though our house was completed, Pulte is still there to provide us help with any issues that may arise in a new house construction. It was true….when we called Mike for a question….he was so responsive with a genuine nature to help us out. We made himself readily available at any time. Mike did an amazing job with our house, but the best part was his personality of true genuine happiness for us. He went above and beyond to make our first home construction build to honestly be perfect. Pulte provided us not only with a beautiful new home, but made us feel we were party of the Pulte family now. Thank you all so much! ... More

Home construction completed within time frame. Not sure where it is a smart home as advertised. For the price we expected the interior doors to be solid rather than hollow core doors. Also response time for a continued problem has been slow and no return calls.

First time home builder, fell in love with a neighborhood where Pulte had the remaining lots. The build process itself was pretty painless - there was a decent rough schedule of when to expect things (and when not to, with some of the supply chain issues causing delays), and progress was pretty consistent. On the whole, I do like my house, and I think it looks nice - we've had a couple service issues (shrunken joist causing a dip in the floor), but Pulte Customer Service has been responsive thus far. The design center experience was actually pretty fun, though I remain a little bummed that Pulte stays (intentionally) limited on customization options - I love my standup shower, but to not even have the option of adding a wall niche for shampoo seems really behind normal trends (they offered a glass shelf instead). The frustrations started later in the process during the finish work - I didn't appreciate the letter "forbidding" me from visiting the house, and while I can understand that they don't want buyers distracting workers and that they're trying to actively avoid changes, it doesn't do much for your confidence in the process when you're told you can't see the work going on. There is a very short "celebration of craftsmanship" walkthrough ahead of the close where you can go through and point out issues with paint/finish, but I think it's unreasonable to assume everything will get caught in one hour. Additionally, more time would have allowed me the opportunity to actually think about some of the things I was seeing (the mantle I selected at the design center is a good match to the floor, but I don't love it against the rest of the room, so I would have at least liked the chance to do a change order even at extra cost). The other major frustration has been with the handling of the weather-affected items on the exterior. I built over the winter, so I knew that I would likely close with the driveway/landscaping still pending, but getting those final items completed was a genuine irritation. There was no communication of a schedule (the "official" response from the project manager was "the subcontractors don't follow the schedule I give them, so anything I give you would be wrong", which is an unacceptable non-answer that actually makes me more concerned that my house has quality issues if Pulte has such little authority/control over its subs), so crews would just appear with equipment at random. I work from home, so this was a massive inconvenience, as I'd be on important calls and unexpectedly would have a tractor 10' behind me in the backyard grading the lot, or I'd run an errand and come back to discover my driveway had been blocked off for asphalt while I was gone (was super lucky that I had my car out already, because the crew "was surprised" that it wasn't a vacant house, so they hadn't even rung the doorbell to warn me). I would HIGHLY advise anyone building over the winter to try to push the closing to after ALL work is completed, because Pulte is ineffective (or just not interested) at minimizing the inconvenience to you once you're in the house. ... More

Knowledgeable, responsible, trusted, respectable team and persons. I love the house and community.