Pulte Homes Reviews in Chicago, IL

It was overall OK experience in purchasing new home. Handing over home before exterior completion especially driveway and sidewalk is unexpected. But, I love the quality of work inside and their handover process. Quality of things used for smart home is questionable as some of them didn't work and not sure how it passed quality check

There is a room for workmanship. We haven't raised any question or issues, so can not comment on Responsiveness yet.

During the home buying process, as an attorney who handles real estate transactions, the process was a bit unconventional as there were no attorneys handling the deal, but the process went smoothly overall. However, our window is cracked and we are missing a screen and there has been no response from Pulte. We have a baby on the way and we have not received any communication on when this window will be fixed or even acknowledgement of our window issue.

Follow each step with a close attention for details

We love our new home. Plan on spending a couple hundred thousand more than the base price. The lot is not included. And everything is an upgrade. Everything!! If I was younger, I would have taken the included kitchen and tore it out to remodel after purchase. I’m just not up to living through a major remodel at this point. I do feel it is mostly a quality build, especially ventilation and structure. Service after close has been prompt but they were unable to resolve a faulty low quality kitchen pull out. The convenience kitchen package was not worth it. The only other thing that looks lower quality is the baseboard and the lack of shoe molding. We were notified that our selected backsplash was discontinued and they wouldn’t allow us to go to the showroom to pick another one. They wanted us to pick it from their online link. We decided to get our own after the build. For the same price, we got a much higher quality beautiful backsplash on our own. Overall, we are very happy with our new home. It was mostly a good experience. 90% positive. We have not had any major problems after 7 weeks living here. ... More

After moving, I realized that inside walls don’t have insulation at all. Voices and TV sounds are the echoing in entire home. Even water sound in bathroom is echoing in home. It’s very disturbing.

Some of the service are over priced and no service for even small customization.

Buying experience was ok good communication initially. Once the build process started only two opportunities to see the build process pre drywall and final walkthrough. On final walkthrough about a dozen minor issues. Home inspector said the AC wasn’t working, sump pump was the cheapest quality you can purchase. Most issues were fixed prior to closing found on the final walkthrough. Closing process with Pulte was horrible they delayed closing by 5 days everything is on their timeline.

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.

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.

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

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

Purchase of the property was made relatively easy by people involved. Lack of communication was a bit frustrating during the process. Construction and materials used is subpar in certain areas. Most materials appear to be builder’s grade. Once moved in noticing many issues. Most screens on windows are bent, large dried concrete spills on basement floor, exhaust fans that are defective and need replacing, windows that don’t remain open, tiles and sinks damaged during install, scratches in windows. Not satisfied with materials and construction for price paid.

I think Pulte is like most large builders. You get a solid home that is built on the principles of mass production. A lot of your experience is going to be based on the local subcontractors and their quality of work and attention to detail. I have not had any major issues or problems with my home, but some custom build homes I have had in the past were far superior.

There are some lows, overall an average satisfaction experience

A lot of open issues during closing, which the construction team did address afterwards.

Design of heating, cooling and plumbing on a concrete slab needs improvement.

Now that we’ve lived in our new house for close to two months we are settling in and are happy with the finished product. Pulte completed some of the punch list items and a few are outstanding, however we are optimistic they will be completed. After a two year search of new and existing homes we found Trillium Farm. The home designs and proximity to Blackwell Forest Preserve were the main selling features for us, Going into the purchase we had read other reviews so we had a sense of what to expect and this was helpful information. As others mentioned, Pulte rushes you through the various phases but is slow in other phases. Our contract signing day was close to the end of the day near the end of August 2021. On that day we had to select all the options and the exterior color scheme or our place in line would go to someone else. It felt incredibly rushed considering the size of the purchase we were about to commit to. Pulte has pre-set color packages. It would have been helpful if they had generic exterior color renderings to see what the combination of finishes look like if they expected us to make such a quick decision. The design studio experience could also be improved. Pulte emails out an electronic design book with small images of the available selections a month in advance of the appointment. Pulte could provide some aids to prospective buyers narrow down selections in advance. Links to manufacturer websites could help. Also, an opportunity to visit the design center on a weekend in advance just to look around and not be pressured by a salesperson would have made the selection day (time constrained) 3-hour design experience so much easier. Once we were in the construction phase, we did not receive the regular communication promised by Pulte. Since we lived in the area, we started making weekly visits to check on the progress directly, and this gave us some peace of mind that work was progressing. The completion deadline shifted several times. We were trying to time the sale of our existing house with the completion of the new one. This is where things became very expensive because we trusted their “firm date”. Instead, we had to rent back our house for a month, then move to a hotel for three weeks, put all of our belongings in storage and compensate a moving company for two moves. ... More

The construction side for the most part went great however the contract/sales side was a total nightmare. We gave our sales rep our check for our earnest money for our lot in November 2021 and despite being told we would have our contract in a week we didn’t get it until March 2022. We asked weekly when we would get our contract and it wasn’t until my husband went to corporate directly we finally got one. They tried to play games and raise the overall price $20K during the process which thankfully didn’t happen. There was total lake of communication and sometimes no response at all to questions from our sales rep. The mortgage side was a total joke as well. We used our own mortgage company because no one at Pulte mortgage seemed to be able to communicate and share the same information. We got several conflicting answers to the same question if we got answers back at all. We are incredibly happy to be in our home but the process of getting there was incredibly frustrating. ... More

Saleswoman, Britta, is excellent. Helped us through the process. After that, dealing with the various subcontractors Pulte uses has been bad. Subcontractors next door leave garbage that blows onto our property. Mortgage company, cable tv company two examples. Numerous emails to staff not responded to. Pulte and cable company blamed each other for problems. Some strange design choices. One of our two outdoor water faucets is in the garage. No watering of seeded back yard or river birch trees since being installed. I am watering Pulte's property right now. The Pulte people onsite are working hard to help us, but I think they are shortstaffed. Nobody knows what is going to happen with landscaping on the south side of Josiah. Who is in charge here? ... More

Having a new home built can be exciting and stressful. Future home owners need to separate the supply chain and work force factors from the team who is on site building a new home. During construction we had changes in subcontractors, as well as, Pulte representatives. The ONE constant Pulte representative for us was Gina. She was there when we signed our papers and supported us when days were uncertain. She was always honest with us and painted a realistic picture of what to expect during the building process. Gina was also there after we closed to celebrate with us. Things go right and things go wrong during the construction of a new home. We had crews that were very professional and some crews that rushed their work. We had a site manager who promised more than he could deliver and then we had unbelievable Pulte representatives that cleaned up the mess that others created.. In the end we had a team that rallied behind us and got us in our home so we could start the next chapter of our lives. We are buying new things for our home and creating a new neighborhood with our new neighbors. I believe that Pulte wants to build a great home for every family that comes to them. When things went wrong eventually a top notch rep stepped in to get the standard of our Pulte home to where it is supposed to be. Those reps were always honest and hard working. And then there was one who was ALWAYS there, Gina. ... More

Pretty happy with our new Pulty home. Our superintendent resigned recently, but it appears thing will get better with our new guy. We were a little disturbed that all our neighbors have a punch list of minor thing as we do, even though they have been here for 10 months. Just little annoyances. Everyone is very nice and easy to work with once we make contact. They should finish up all the existing homes before they plunge ahead with the new ones. Glad we purchased when we did as the price keeps going up. I was aware of the quality going in, but keep reminding myself that this is not a custom home. ... More

Good experience overall. However, Pulte doesn't offer customization. It would be nice if 1% to 2% of the budget was for personal customizations especially for older people. In the noise of building there were too many lapses on their part of what we wanted. Their response usually was that "is was not in the contract", well yes, if Pulte didn't write it down and put it in the contract. But overall the workmanship is good, layout is good, and response from company is good.

Build is good. But long time to complete.