Pulte Homes Reviews in Chicago, IL

If I could go back amd purchase my home from Pulte I wouldn't. They are very hard to get ahold of near the end of the building process. They are not very good at communicating and wouldn't respond to emails. They made us miss out closing date and then blamed us for missing it.

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.

Code minimum builder. Need to improve customer experience

The overall construction and build quality was decent. The responsiveness during closing period has been great. Just after the closing the customer support experience has been one of the worse. Even for issues as urgent as gas leak they customer experience manager continued to ignore emails snd and any form of communication for weeks. I wouldn’t spend the money to buy a Pulte home again given how bad the move in experience was.

There’s zero accountability all around.

Building a home with Pulte was one of the worst experiences of our life. We had previously built two homes with smaller builders and had a positive experience with both. The other builders made every effort to meet our needs, with Pulte it was take it or leave it. We met with the Design Center and after making our selections were later told our wood flooring, wall tile and countertops were not available no effort would be made to provide them. Later while we were in Florida we learned the applince package was no longer available. Our predrywall meeting was another issue. It was scheduled on a date when I was out of town on a trip that had been planned for a year. When we asked to move it back a day we were told that was impossible. My wife went by herself and was left with the impression we would get a key and have access to the house during construction as we did with the previous two houses we built. We found out this wasn't true and we had to make arrangement with our sales rep to go in and see the progress on the house. We had no input into the closing date even within the two week window which was all we heard throughout the construction progress. Finally, the landscaping was down in a very hapharzd manner. We had no input and the landscapers gave no consideration to which plants did well in shade versus sunshine. It seemed like they grabbed whatever was available when they left the nursery and planted them. ... More

We really like the design of the house. There is a lot of storage space. You do, however, pay extra for every little things. The things that come standard are so basic that everyone - from the sales person to the consultant at the design meeting highly encourages you to upgrade, which then, of course, drives up the cost for the house. Most frustrating has been our closing experience. We had a pre-closing walk-through date set. At 5 PM the night before, we got a call that the walk-through and our move-in date (scheduled for that weekend) had to be moved back. I understand issues around supply, but those should have been known earlier on. We already had everything set up to make the move happen - and trying to manage a move during COVID with a 1-year old baby is challenging enough without the company changing dates on you last minute! Many of the issues from our pre-closing walk-through had not been addressed. We have since added additional items to the list that we noticed (e.g., we paid extra for a mirror in our master bathroom since don't come standard - the mirror they installed was chipped. We didn't notice it during the walk-through as a lot of furniture had paint splatters on it - so I assumed it was the same with the mirror. But when I looked at it, it was chipped). Now, two months later, nothing has been taken care of. Last Friday, we were told that contractors would stop by to address all items on the list. The e-mail confirmation, however, only listed two of about 10 items. We called and were told all items would be addressed. I then rearranged my work schedule to make sure I was available during the time the contractors would come by. And nobody came. We called to let them know and now, almost a week later, nothing has been done yet. I have responded to several surveys sharing the challenges we've had with getting our closing items completed - we then get a phone call from someone higher up in the company promising that things will be taken care of. That sometimes results in an e-mail or phone call promising that work will get done - but then there is no follow-through. I would not buy from Pulte ever again. ... More

The only positive from building this house was Dave, the construction manager. He helped always and was very kind and caring. We have many areas where paint is there. We have many dents in our drywall that were just painted over and never filled in. We have paint drips all over the house on our floors. The three external doors all close wrong and weather striping is coming off. We have huge ditches in our yard that the city said had to be made or we'd have flooding. No one compensated us for no yard now but charged us additional money for a corner lot. At least they could have taken away the extra charge for the lot to compensate us for having no yard. We may have 15 x 20 piece of yard to have outside fun in. Our side yard on the garage side is so slanted that you can not even walk down that side of the house. We paid extra for a side garage door to go in and out of and we can not even use. They forgot the door and had to cut the concrete on the garage footings to put the door in. They also do not have the concrete slab outside the door attached to the foundation. Plus it is so high you a difficult time steppng onto it. It also has the under gravel showing and no dirt covering it. We have a dog and can not even put a fence up because of the deep ditches. Now for Morgan at the mortgage company. She made our life miserable with her uneducated knowledge of the closing process. We knew more than she did and had to tell her numerous times what she needed or needed to do for us. She even stepped in for someone off on our day of closing and caused us a huge delay in our delivery of our furniture etc. from our movers because she said she didn't have the correct paperwork even though the person doing the closing had received it from them and had it on the closing paperwork. She did nothing to help but did more to make us crazy. We would tell people at Plute at different levels and they would ask who we were speaking of and we'd say Morgan and they'd go Oh. Like they had heard this many times before about her. I also used your insurance company for our house and haven't received anything regarding it or paid for anything. I keep having to ask for information and help to get our house covered. I will have to do this again today to see if we do have house coverage. So I'd say we have NOT had much good come from buying a house from Pulte from many of the Pulte owned companies. Sad to see the workmanship on something you pay hard earned money for. ... More

Overall experience was terrible. It starts with Sales doing a poor job helping you through the many options. Then it continues with promises from both Sales and the Construction making promises that are never kept. The contracts are written to steer you to use Pulte Mortgage, who is non-responsive unless they want something. Communication is very poor throughout the process. Then to top it off, when you finally get to the ‘Celebration’ phase of the process, the quality of the house they built is not very good. In true Pulte fashion, the final walk through is setup 90 minutes before closing, so you get rushed and miss many of the shoddy items until later. They got our money, but do yourself a favor and avoid any Pulte built homes. ... More

The home was not ready to turn over way to many quality issues that should have been corrected if Pulte expected higher quality work. Very disappointing

Stay away from Pulte Homes if you can - everything is so expensive, poor quality, bad handing of issues, no peace of mind !!!

So glad you asked. Where do I start? Home was in a FEMA flood zone. This was not disclosed at time of sale. Amy, salesperson, could not show me samples or pictures of the exterior siding or brick when asked. Closing credit was to be applied for flood insurance but this was not done. Flood insurance was not purchased by Pulte as indicated on closing documents. Issues with basic functions like heat and water. Issues with home are not being properly addressed. I feel if Pulte can make a nickel more profit as opposed to customer satisfaction they would choose the nickel. I am happy with the layout of the home and the community. Overall very disappointed At this point I would tell people to avoid a Pulte home ... More

Absolutely not a great experience buying home with Pulte, they do not maintain the community after the closing. They do not respond on time, for warranty issues, have been trying to reach construction manager, their responsiveness is absolutely disastrous.

This was not a great experience. My first review was very in depth but it ‘drew business away’ but new home source wouldn’t post it because they are paid by the builders to host their information - just to be transparent. This was bad from start to finish it has been months since closing and many items are still not completed on our punch list. We do not have final occupancy from the village. It has been a struggle every moment of the way. Good Luck!

They gave me an unfinished house. After multiple follow-ups they send someone to finish up some paint work, and he leaves it half finished. The quality of such expensive houses is very questionable with mesh door not getting locked, and flimsy pull out drawers in the kitchen.

We understand we are living in unique times with unprecedented challenges. That being said Pulte has failed in their production and delivery. For the most part the employees are well intended. There were minor problems with the sales department and mortgage department. These were normal and generally handled in a professional manner. Unfortunately, Pulte constructions has not adjusted to the current economic conditions and challenges they present. Instead of giving us better quality finishings, as we expected, corners were cut on material purchases and sloppy work was done. Needless mistakes. Our bathroom doors banged together. We were told that the door stoppers they used met specifications so that was normal. Really… it is normal for the doors to hit each other after the stoppers have been adjusted as far as they can? Very frustrating on a simple item. We had to go out and buy doorstops that cost a few cents more, take the doors off, install the new doorstops which resolved our problem. All at our expense. This is just one of many examples. We have had to fix numerous items ourselves. The process has not been a pleasant experience. What is shown in sales literature is not what has been delivered. Most of what we read negatively online turned out to be true. Based on the terms of our contract we had to close on a Home that was not finished in a professional workman like manner. Some of the work in the home is of good quality. Most of the work in the home lacks expertise and care. Sloppy finishing work. Needless mistakes. Many of these mistakes could’ve easily been fixed during the production process. Everything was rushed in an effort to close prior to the end of the year. Warranties and repairs are only as good as the people doing the work. They tried 6 times to replace and install our kitchen cabinet doors. We have decided to do it ourselves and hire our own contractor. This nonsense is mind numbing. Pulte has thrown out thousands of dollars of perfectly good cabinet door because of mistakes being made. Needless mistakes. We understand that this is a production home but that doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable to do substandard work. It has cost us a significant amount of money to fix many of their mistakes and make our home look nice. We have no reason to think that there are any significant issues with the home build. We are hopeful the structure will hold up. In conclusion: the issue is sloppy work, substandard contractors, poor craftsmanship, lack of attention to detail and workman unable to fix these issues. In most cases we had to repair finishing items ourselves at our own expense. We would not recommend Pulte to others. ... More

I was not happy with the experience. I feel that they do not go above and beyond and once you sign they don't even call you back. They don't finish the end product.

We had really bad experience with one of our stair selection. We opted for stairs on the upstairs and when the home was done built Pulte put in a drywall there instead. This was so heartbreaking and Pulte was never ready to get it fixed or provide compensation for us to hire some one outside to fix it

Sales rep was not forthcoming and not up to date with information. It was obvious he was being cautious with what he communicated. Customer Care seemed more about ensuring that issues were addressed and closed as quickly as possible rather than focusing on customer satisfaction. Rep was not helpful and challenging to work with/communicate with.

Had so many issues with our home in Creekside Crossing Plainfield Illinois. Our sales experience was pretty lacking and it really relied on us to make the right decisions here which of course led to some gaps at the end (seemed like she never though we would buy, even after we put down our deposit). There were also quite a few options that were available but not on our options sheet which we missed out on (additional windows is an example). Designer was pretty helpful though we didn't run through all the options so we had to keep asking for things we were seeing on the wall and what could be done. Not sure if she didn't want to upsell us or if she was in a rush but in either case we had to be our own advocates here as well (also wasn't perfectly knowledgeable, told us we couldn't have 3 glass shower shelves in the bathroom because the height would be too high but we could have easily had one at 1', 3' and 5' since we have one at 3' and 5' and the tile is 2' long). Construction manager never sent us meeting notes from our pre-construction meeting so that led to a series of miscommunications making it all the way to the end of the build (which were refused to be corrected; ethernet located on the exterior instead of attic). Communication was pretty substandard and for every 4 emails we sent we would get back maybe 1 which wouldn't answer everything either (no regular updates either on progress until much later in the process). Found quite a few errors at our pre-drywall meeting and even more at our celebration which were options we selected and were never installed (humidifier, outlets outside/inside, ethernet port, conduit from attic to basement, etc.). There are also sooo many quality issues we have tickets for corrections for and they are still not completed 2 months after closing (we are even missing some sod in our backyard). Their contractors they recommend who worked on the home (who you have to use to maintain your warranty by the way) either won't respond, refused to do the work or come in double to triple other comparable vendors. Great example was the plumber, refused to work with us and provide an estimate for a water softener, their second recommendation (who would void our warranty) came in 2.5 times more than what a local water softening company came in to do the work for (and they provided me a life time warranty even instead of the 1 year with the plumber they said). Had to fix a siding issue (due to the mistake with the exterior ethernet) and their contractor told me he wouldn't work with me because I didn't speak Spanish. I told the construction managers and they said they would get me someone else but never did (who also would void my warranty...). Very disappointed with the whole process. Also, despite me ranking their surveys poorly and even listing my name/number in them I haven't heard anything from their corporate office. Just an awful experience. ... More

Beyond terrible experience. Pulte just wants to close as many houses as they can as fast as possible. Very poor quality of workmanship. Multiple serious issues including all windows being defective and leaking water that damaged the interior of the house, multiple cracks in the foundation walls leaking into the basement, leaking water from porch to the garage and basement were all discovered in the first week and we are still dealing with repairs after 2 months. The person responsible for warranty claims is a good person and tries to be helpful, but the process of warranty claims and repairs is terrible. There is 150+ houses in the community and only one person to handle all claims which is impossible for one person to keep up. So they become unresponsive and actual repairs take months to even begin. Multiple repairs weren’t addressed the first time and repairmen had to come again as the root cause weren’t addressed. There is no way to track your submitted claims and no way of communicating other than email which again, is very unresponsive. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend Pulte to anyone ever in my life and I would strongly suggest anyone considering them to look elsewhere. ... More

We have waited for the kitchen doors to be installed we have been waiting since 2 months now still waiting for the doors to be replaced money has been taken service has not been done. We are paying HOA for the property no swimming pool no club house is ready yet but monthly payments are taken by pulte what an ugly situation

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 .

PLEASE READ MY REVIEW,after the closing we discovered that the actually house quality is a trash,all the walls and ceiling are unbelievable uneven,you can’t even install a shelf or any pictures,after one week from closing we saw the roof fell off on the half of the garage, the backyard door isn’t intact,when is raining all the water flows in the house,stove installed in only 2 screws,4 inside doors are not closing properly…and more more other things.