Pulte Homes Reviews in Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill, NC

Poor after sale service. Not a good experience of buying a house.

I recommend a new Pulte buyer gets their own financing. Pulte mortgage was less than satisfactory and made me feel like I couldn’t afford their homes. My sales person, Nick was great. Very responsive and helpful. My builder, Adam was also very good responsive and helpful.

During construction, I was notified that Pulte was changing cabinet vendors and the color of cabinet I initially chose would no longer be offered. I asked questions to the construction manager and salesperson to see if I could still get the color we picked from the original vendors at all, and if so, how long that delay would be. I didn't receive direct answers or updates on the situation for about two weeks. During that time, a new color was selected, installed in the home, then subsequently ripped out, then the original cabinets were ordered, but would cause a 3 week delay in closing. All of these decisions were made without my knowledge or approval. I finally demanded a zoom meeting with everyone where I was finally made aware of the situation. Had I known that the new vendor cabinets were already installed, and how much the estimated delay would have been, my decision to keep the initial cabinets installed may have been different. I think the salesperson and construction manager could have improved their communication throughout the construction process to allow me to make more informed decisions on my home. ... More

Pulte build house with bare minimum quality products.

Bad experience... Firstly, when I bid my home, I entered a price for $28xxx for the amount I will to pay additionally, and they increased this number by $4000, which ends up with $32000. Also got a first month electricity bill for near $600, and I even didn't completely move in to my home. I only stay during weekend and there is no way causing such amount. Also called inspection and warranty, no body ever give me a responsible advise and result. Called warranty to repair my window, nobody ever showed up. Never going to buy their home again...

average quality of workmanship & materials

While the initial process was fantastic- we were soon shifted to another sales agent and a CM who was very unresponsive to our requests and issues at the beginning. I had to go above their heads multiple times to try and get things accomplished- This company will NOT share anyone above them with you- so you have to investigate yourself. While our home is beautiful, there are so many small things that really added up. We never really felt like anyone cared much for our concerns til I made a much bigger deal of them than I should have needed to. It is very disheartening to spend that kind of money on a home, only to be met with consistent "no's" unless I supremely pushed. The lack of attention to detail is glaring and can be seen in so many spots in our home. I get they arent custom, but that does not mean that you should take shortcuts to save a buck or a moment. Its obnoxious how many items we needed to clean up after them on, fix after market, and beg them not to do during the process. ... More

This home was built very quickly and the neighborhood is in a great location. Overall, I’m happy with it. There are some things that I’m not happy about: the painters were not great and did a sloppy job, most of the door frames were cut with a dull blade or not to the correct length, the house does not seem as efficient as we were told it would be, and the neighbors stereo bass rattles the dishes in the cabinets of my kitchen. We had been told that the firewall made it almost impossible to hear your neighbors, so our neighbors are either that loud, or the firewall is not as thick as advertised. ... More

I found a new construction Pulte home when the frame was already up, and was told that due to that, no design/customization could be made because Pulte had already made all decisions and purchased all materials. The sales associate just seemed very un-accomodating in that regard and I'm not sure if there was a window of opportunity to make some design changes to my liking, or not (I am a first time home buyer). Regardless, if changes were not feasible, I should have been provided with a full rendering of the interior/exterior of the home so I could know what to expect and make a better informed choice about purchasing the home. In the end, I was not totally satisfied with the appearance of the exterior and would have made selected some other interior options as well. Additionally, I was informed by the Sales Specialist that there was a Amtrak train track near my street/homesite but that she had seldom heard any trains come by and it was just Amtrak that passed quickly. However, both Amtrak and very noisy freight trains come through routinely throughout the day AND night. Had I known about the train aspect, I would not have purchased this particular home. This is also of paramount importance because due to COVID-19, I work from home and it is important to live in a community where there are little to no noise distractions. I feel that the information provided to me and my realtor (who was present with me at the time) was both misinformed and misleading. Of note, the temporary sales office in the community was not as close to the train track as my home, so the Sales Specialist would not actually know about train activity during the day or night unless she spent significant time near my street/at my home site. I, along with my realtor, would have appreciated a more honest answer regarding the trains so that I could have avoided purchasing a home that is not in a location to my satisfaction or tolerability. ... More

Lack of communication throughout the whole process. The right hand often doesn’t talk to the left.

The home building process was good. Had few minor issues before the closing which the field manager had taken into account and said he would get them fixed. But the field manager has only done a few and still lot more left to fix, but he does not respond to emails anymore.

We started our new build not knowing how everything works. We quickly learned there are many limitations with buying a “spec” house. There are many items, large and small, that you cannot change even if construction has not started. I wish Pulte took more time to inform us of these details.

It is really funny that they erected the dry wall in two days and then took 2.5 months to fix the errors made in dry wall. Though the errors were corrected after fight, I wasted lot of time in follwoing this up. There is no gaurantee that the higher up will listen to you. If you are new home owner, make sure that you inspect every day progress. If you don't, they will work on their own and dump on you. Overall, I got home, nice and clean; but I after LOTS of affords.

After closing the pending issues are not getting addressed quickly.

The sales agents in the community were very helpful. I feel as if the quality of the townhome and the value is well below the experience I had in 540 Townes (Apex) in 2018. I really like the location and floor plan. The overall experience was not the building manager's doing as I felt he tried his very best to do what he could do getting called in to complete the project right before my closing. The walls need significant repair and the noise level that can be heard from neighbors is very disappointing. It has much more of an apartment feel than a half million dollar townhome.

A lot of issues with new home, Pulte not handling warranty requests with urgency.

The materials and chosen vendors are sub standard. My inspection report came with a concrete issue which the build manager refused to fix and just got a letter from the vendor which is no good. The dry wall and sound proofing is so horrible.

Unhappy with the process and home price. The price of the last 5 available homes went down 20K in a week after we signed the contract for our home, which was totally unfair. I was negotiating with Sales Consultant and management to reduce the price of my home for almost a month and i don't understand why they did not consider my request if they have a plan to reduce the price. Also they say we go by contract but they wont follow the contract, only buyer need to follow the contract.

Our friends who visited our home found it good

Not worh for money. the quality of materials was very bad and the design was not great. There is no room to take fridge in the kitchen , we strgulled a lot. we need to remove the stove to put the fridge inside , poor design. The front door doesnt make sense both the powderroom door and front door hit each other. the door will damage in few months itself . All the door quality is poor. The door stoppers are not planned where to place also. The staircase rails are just placed it can fall off any time its not glued also. Stove and granite is not connected in the side and the back of the stove is also left open with a big gap poor design . ... More

Pulte really didnt care if I bought the house or had concerns I wanted addressed/changed. They threathened to cancel my sales agreements if I didnt like the way things were dictated. There attiutude was take it or leave it and they were not very accomodating and didnt seem willing to negotiate....

Easily identifiable workmanship issues all around. Low quality materials are used everywhere.

I understand it's common that new homes have issues. Although I think the builder should try to fix those issues in timely manner. We had problems with leaking gas that took 3 weeks to solve despite the gas being dangerous both for our health and may explode. The communication with the warranty team is terrible and they don't bother to respond to emails. I see a big problem with the warranty team. We bought a house with 3 bathrooms and 2 bathtubs, both tubs are leaking, one is completely unusable because of the holes in the tub. It's been 2 months and they still were not able to resolve the issue. ... More

Pulte Mortgage loan consultants are arrogant people. For every question you ask, the response starts with you signed this document. They would deduct appraisal fees on a lot that didn't even get a permit, no clear communication about when money will be deducted and for what purpose, basically customer service is non-existent, and their attitude is like you're stuck with us. I believe the home's basic structure is solid for which I'm happy about. But the interior finishing is subpar. Missed critical plumbing lines, Loose doors (the home's main door was installed incorrectly and it took 3 rounds of escalations to Pulte associates to make them identify it as a problem, and it's not yet fixed, yes, that's right!!), loose faucets, there are unusual number of issues that I'm still following up with the builder. My last sales consultant was good, and my construction manager was very responsive. However, the warranty team is unresponsive and for everything there will be a blanket reply, this has been fixed during closing, why would a customer submit a repair request for a non-existing issue? I closed the house and then I have to vacate it after a week of closing and live elsewhere for 3 days because of drainage block caused by construction debris. There is no sort of accountability whatsoever from Pulte, I was sold a poorly completed home in December rush. The things I like about this home are the community's location, solid basic structure and decent pricing, but unfortunately making me vacate a newly closed home and Pulte associate's response to it changed by whole perception about this builder. ... More

I like the way the neighborhood was developed, and the layout of the floorplan. The townhouses are spacious with 9’ ceilings and plenty of windows. The neighbors are great. The problem is the quality of workmanship: Fundamental issues like floors not level (and they creak), walls not straight, and several faucets plumbed backwards. The tile in the master bath has already started to come loose – most of it sounds hollow underneath. The warranty folks were very friendly, but fixed only the two broken tiles, and said to wait until the end of the 1-year warranty to make a claim (presumably to claim the remaining that will no doubt come-loose over the next 11 months). The trim work is really rough: The bannister is a mess and several spindles have already fallen-out. It looks like the trim carpenter used a dull blade that splintered crosscuts, and left gaps everywhere that were smeared with caulk in a poor attempt to hide the gaps. Then paint is slopped onto everything. Almost every door hinge, door knob, wall plate and light fixture has drywall mud and/or paint on it that we have been cleaning-off for the past month. Paint spatter is all over the floors. There are runs and drips in the paint on doors and trim, except on blind edges which were not painted at all. I don’t feel that this level of “quality and craftsmanship” is acceptable at ANY price-point, let alone the prices these townhomes are at. ... More