Pulte Homes Reviews in Chicago, IL

Since this was our first "new build," my wife and I were extremely excited from the beginning of the buying process. We have two little kids and wanted a house we could make a home to make memories in. We were fortunate to be able to afford a house in Sheldon Woods and add all the upgrades we wanted. However, since moving into the house, we learned that some of the materials used were cheap and some of the craftsmanship of the work could have been and should have been better. We began having electrical issues within a few days of moving in, followed by a loose pipe in the walls connected to the washer machine. Actually, we had electrical problems since before closing that were found by our private inspector. These were allegedly minor issues and were fixed by our closing day. We submitted a service request, and they came out to fix the electrical issue (outlets tripping the breaker, preventing us from using them for daily household appliances) and secured the pipe after having to cut the wall. However, since November 9th, I've submitted seven service requests for electrical problems. Problems that should not be occurring. For example, outlets are constantly tripping from simply trying to use a washing machine, a coffee machine, a toaster oven, a hair dryer, a hair straightener, and a vacuum. All of these are new, reliable brands and made for the standard 120v residential outlets. For several days at a time, I have not been able to wash my clothes and, in fact, have had to leave work clothes soaked in the washer because it would not stay on for the water to drain and the door to unlock. All the outlets I had issues with would not be able to hold power once they tripped until several hours later or until the electrician came out and replaced the breakers. Since then, the customer service manager for the area would come with the electrician and try to diagnose the issue of what was causing these power trips along with flickering lights I've told them about and caught on camera. They eventually determined that one of the ports in the "bus" had a poor connection to the breaker and moved the breaker to another spot. However, the problems continued, and I was told the breakers used were Arc Fault breakers connected to GFI's, making them too sensitive. This, to me, made sense to an extent, but not completely, as it was various locations of these trips and it did not explain the light issues. Furthermore, the neighbors have not had the same electrical issues, and I am pretty certain they use all of the above-mentioned household items. I am now on my 7th service request because after the breakers were replaced this morning in my master bath and washer, I plugged in my vacuum upstairs, and it tripped instantly again. This would then turn off the lights in my master bath. This breaker was allegedly replaced again this morning. For the amount of money we are paying for these homes (significantly overpriced), my family and I should not be having this kind of issues. I will say that they come out and try to fix the issues each time I submit a service request. However, it seems as though they are just doing a "workaround" correction and not trying to figure out the true problem of what is causing these headaches. This has become a daily problem and such a nuisance that I have reached out to my attorney and briefed him on the problems. My next step will be trying to get an electrical engineer not connected to Pulte. As much as I love the house, I can not say that I am happy with the end result, nor that I would recommend Pulte to any of my closest friends or relatives. As I mentioned before, other than the electrical issues I've been struggling with, we have noticed a lot of poor-quality craftsmanship throughout the house. ... More

My husband and I were so excited to build our perfect house with Pulte. At the beginning, we were sold a beautiful elevation with stone up the garage and house. AFTER we signed and put down our deposit our sales rep told us that this is actually not what we would be receiving and there was actually significantly less stone. Pulte shows the correct elevation for other communities, so why sell us the elevation and SWITCH it on us last minute? Communication throughout the building process was not the best. Throughout construction, there were many errors that we caught, such as wrong cabinets installed and crooked walls, however the sales rep told us to trust Pulte's work. At the time of our celebration walk through, we were shocked to see the number of errors Pulte did not catch: cracked window framing, CROOKED fireplace, cracked trim, incorrect shower tile in the math bath, chipped doors, cuts in floor, gashes in the wall and trim, kitchen island pendant lights installed in the WRONG location, duplicate and loose railing balusters, multiple cabinets needed to be replaced. These are just a few of the issues and we blue taped them. Three days after our celebration walk through we closed (which, per the contract the celebration is supposed to be at least 1 week prior to closing). We were shocked at our final walk through to see how many of these errors were completely ignored! People had just taken the blue tape off and called it a day. We also were only allowed to walk through the house during the final walk through for 30 minutes because the construction manager had to go to Michigan for a wedding.... I had a family member with me at the final walk through and it was embarrassing for him to see the state of the house that we paid so much for. Not to mention, the house was absolutely filthy when we purchased it. There was drywall dust caking the baseboards, workers urine in AND AROUND the toilet, personal trash inside of cabinets and the window sill, basement had not been cleaned since construction concluded. I was shocked, and when I expressed my concerns I was told that I should just hire my own processional cleaner if I’m a “neat-freak”. If I purchase a brand new house from Pulte, I don't expect to clean up after Pulte's contractors. Since closing, it has been a nightmare to get these issues fixed. It has been over a month since closing, and we still do not have a resolution to most of these issues. I also feel like Pulte does not care about us or our home after we closed. The electrician that was sent over to correct our pendant lights left our house absolutely trashed - drywall dust EVERYWHERE since he did NOT cover up anything in the house before he cut into the ceiling. In addition, he then used our brand new personal vacuum to attempt to clean up after him, which destroyed the vacuum due to the dry wall dust.... Thanks Pulte!!! The issue is that it seems Pulte finds as many cheap alternatives as possible. ALL of the "upgraded" trim, baseboards, and even our fireplace is MDF. This was not disclosed to us, instead our sales rep told us how great everything would be since we were paying so much to UPGRADE. In addition, the paint that is used is not of any quality - it chips and smudges so easily to the point where the Pulte workers couldn't put their work bag up against the wall without smudging it. It is also confusing how Pulte does not recommend for homeowners to paint for at least 1 year, however does not provide quality paint to withstand normal ware and tare in a home. Like I said, it has been over a month that we have closed on our home and these issues are still not addressed. It is so disappointing that this is what we are experiencing and it seems like there is no support from Pulte. My husband and I also have to take time off of work to be at the house to wait for a Pulte worker to come over, and many times they are late or do not show up at all. This is causing my husband and I to miss work and lose money. ... More

Builder charges >2500.00 USD to pain your home 1 wall color and 1 white ceiling paint. They use Sherwin Williams CHB paint on the walls including bathrooms. This paint does not wear well and is NOT recommended by Sherwin Williams as a durable wall paint. CHB was also used on the bathroom walls with no anti-microbial protection. If it gets wet it stains. Garage is not finished and assumed the buyer will spend another ~2K out of pocket to finish drywall and paint. A deadbolt lock is not included for the front door. Hardwood floor and stair railings are considerably marked up Carpets is low quality and has 5 year warranty Having insulation in a garage is an upgrade / additional charge. ~950.00 USD The stair rails are glued in place If you want lights above the shower and in some closets ... it is an upgrade. The design center is a gimmick to make up margin on home -- products are marked up >62% - 81% The builder doesn't leave the homeowner any additional tile/flooring/paint or touch up paint for cabinets. It is up to the homeowner to research contact each company to order. The standard sidewalk is 3' width The cement stoop off the basement is 3x3 Downspouts are not buried Serial numbers are not left for the homeowner to register their appliances ... More

Is anyone actually reading this review? Never hear anything back after submitting reviews. Sales personnel, design center personnel, and title closing personnel were all good to work with. Lack of caring about quality by contractors and project managers is evident. 1. Paint all over vinyl flooring (still there) 2. Installation of aluminum around outside of house is terrible and has major issues still 3. Door installation issues. 4. Siding was installed all dirty, with handprints and mud all over it, which is still there. 5. Concrete sidewalk and front stoop issues. 6. Backsplash tile issues 7. House was not in "new" condition for move in. Basement floors all dirty. Garage floor was filthy. Sidewalk and front stoop weren't cleaned at all. Had to clean myself so we could get in without walking through dirt. 8. We could go on and on.... ... More

Be careful, if you are expecting Pulte to build you a "Custom Home" you're going to be disappointed. Craftmanship is poor, we are not planning to live in our new home long so we are not worried about what happens in 5-10 years. But, if you are looking for this house to be your "Forever Home", you will run into a lot of issues. All the trades that are working on the home are being forced to rush to get things done due to Pulte expecting X amount of homes built by a certain timeframe. In our home, the tile was installed poorly and crooked, the carpet in our upstairs doesn't reach the tack strip, and the walls are not plum they bow out which makes the baseboards and casings look terrible. Do not get carpet in your home. It is a low-grade carpet that will not last more than 5 years. Don't waste your money paying for upgrades, it will be wasted money. The design center appointment do not get pressured into going with levels 5-7. It just doesn't make sense, it is not any better than levels 3-4. The smart home feature is nice but you have to understand how to use the technology. Overall I wouldn't build again with Pulte and I would not build in this market (June 2022), with inflation at an all-time high and the interest rates getting higher and higher. We were lucky to get into our home in the Spring. ... More

Not even a month in the new home and there is a lot of signs of poor workmanship. Cabinets touched up with permanent marker. Slanted drawers, floors and walls/baseboards.

Pulte builds okay homes. The floor plans are nice; but they take too many shortcuts and very minimal accountability. If you have a great field manager; that is a great thing. However, keep in mind that the field manager is incentivized to close on-time, regardless of quality. We had issues and still have issues. The same goes for a customer care manager; if you have a great customer care manager; rest back he/she will take care of it. If you have a customer care manager that is laxxed or has to many homes to take care of; you will be frustrated. Also, they swap people out constantly so you almost feel as your starting over again. We had issues with loose ballusters, air coming in from the outside thru baseboards, water coming in from door, wavy floors, you name it. They will take care of your issues but be careful on the floors... even if they're wavy they may not fix and you have to go back and forth with your own equipment to prove its out of spec. All in all, be prepared to become your own quality control and have the equipment to show why its out of spec. ... More

Buyer beware with these guys.

Been in the home almost 2 months and I have reported several items that need fixed like shower doors with no bottom tract , dented bathroom door, cracked cabinet, cracked window, grout seems showing in kitchen granite etc . to name a few. No one has showed up to fix anything.

The final paint on the overall house interiors is very bad and requires so much maintenance. The appliances that are provided are not good and they take no responsibility to replace it within the warranty period. The price that we have paid for the upgrades are way too high than they are worth for. Even the lawn was not set properly by them.

Entire home appears to have been finished as quickly as possible, with countless interior areas overlooked. Required tons of manual cleanup and touchup afterwards, as Pulte is essentially impossible to get ahold of after closing. Even if you get in touch with them (after several repeated emails), they become unresponsive again and do not address any issues. The other many negative reviews on this site are true. Drywall work was far from perfect, with plenty of visible seams and poorly covered-up mistakes. Windows were scratched and cracked. Cabinets had countless dents and holes. Doors were dinged, dented, and cracked. Buyer beware! ... More

Response from warranty representative is very poor

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 !!!

This bad experience started with a bidding war on lots. Then the high prices for features, then not disclosing that home wouldn’t be ready at our forced, rushed closing date. They stated that our landscaping and driveway wasn’t done due to their bust schedule even though other homes not even sold had theirs completed before winter hit. Then their mortgage people’s refusal to us for withholding funds since the home wasn’t completed at closing and Bradyn, the manager, had no estimate when it would be completed since they had 30 more homes to work on. Poor response from him and poor craftsmanship on exterior trim work, etc. I will never buy from them again, nor recommend them. ... More

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