Pulte Homes Reviews

From the initial walk-through we explained the handrail did not match what was in the showroom and just by looking at it, you could see it was poorly installed. We paid 17k for this “upgrade” and it has yet to be fixed. Each trade says doing this or doing that is someone else’s responsibility. It has been 2.5months and not been fixed and with the trades not taking responsibility and executing quality work, I don’t think it will ever be fixed properly. It is very disappointing for an “upgrade.” Also it takes over a month to schedule some of the other basic repairs like light switches not working etc. When the trades come out, they also do not have the photos of what I submitted that needs to be fixed so it is a mess. It is not communicated to me what each company is suppose to fix or work on so I have had very few repairs successfully completed since moving in in August(it is now November). ... More

Pulte will build you a better and more efficient home than most home builders. However, I am upset with Pulte’s quality control. There have been numerous imperfections with my build that required or require rework. It’s even worse when you feel like a pest when you have to contact the build manager to address the issues and they end up getting mad/annoyed like it’s my fault for catching the imperfections that they failed to fix. It takes less time to do the right thing first than it does to explain or fix the problem later on. It seems that speed is prioritized over accuracy these days when it comes to home building with Pulte. ... More

We have been disappointed with the workmanship - we have had a list of as many as 15 items that needed repaired after we first moved in. Two months later, we are still waiting on most of them.

I love the location and the house. But I have had issues. At the walk-through, I fully expected to find many cosmetic issues but I found disappointing, larger issues. The carpeting was stained by some contractor that the whole thing had to be replaced, the pavers by the pool company is is a substandard installation with cracked tiles and molded tiles, and the house was just dirty, although the so called cleaning crew had cleaned. The kitchen is damaged and they tried to do it make shift repair, and the whole island just looks shabby. For the money I paid, I was disappointing. Further, the attention and customer service I have received post closing is poor with unreturned emails and ticket responses. While I love the house and for the most part the house is in good shape the lack of customer service, slow response and presentation of the house at the walkthrough had left a bad taste. To the PM’s accolades, he knocked out all the important non-cosmetic items and some cosmetic items off the list. The major outstanding item is the pool lanai and the poor workmanship by the pool installer which we had to use through the builder since it was the only pool builder they contract with. That is still a major problem we are left to battle out on our own with no backing from Pulte. ... More

Still have a list of things that have not been taken care of that we’re supposed to be done by closing.

I chose Pulte because I knew I was going to use some upgrade materials. Bottom line the contractors are fair to mid. I would not recommend a Pulte home over any other reliable builder.

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

The quality of pulte has gone significantly since the covid . It's been 26 days since we moved and we are already seeing the commode water drain peeling of from the wall. Also the windows are of very low quality. They cut corners to save money and make profits with cheap quality materials. Tankless water is making loud noises.

The buying process was good, although some information requested that would have helped in our decision making process were not disclosed. Don't be fooled, it is sales. The building process was very good, Jared was excellent keeping us update to date and responding to our concerns and issues. After closing, the response of the 30 day warranty team leaves a lot to be desired. Attention to issues and timeliness was poor. If not for our persistence I don't know when issues would be addressed. This department needs to be improved.

As is typical with new home builders, particularly production builders, they will be more responsive when they don't have all your money yet (i.e., you haven't closed). Once you close you've got about 30 days to figure out what's not right (regardless of warranty), after that you might as well be invisible. We have bought new homes from a couple of different builders over the past few years. I would rate Pulte as slightly below average. Their after close responsiveness is about average (and average being not that good anyway), but their build quality, at least for our home, was below average. This is compared to other homes we've purchased/viewed by other builders, even those that have worse reputations than Pulte. For such a large production builder, their build process seemed disorganized and in some cases it appears the materials were literally used or 2nd hand materials and supplies. The construction manager we had was decent, but he had to work with what he was given, which is probably minimal. I have a feeling a lot of the issues come from the white collar part of the business, where squeezing out every penny of profit is the most important thing, regardless of quality and customer satisfaction. Of course this may vary by market. Being in Florida where demand is still relatively high, the builder has an edge. Whenever you point out quality issues along the way, they will just say "it passed inspection", as if that is the barometer for good quality, when it is really just the minimal baseline for safety. It's like if you purchase a brand new car, and before you drive it off the lot you notice it has dents and scratches, and the dealer says to you "well it has passed all the required safety tests, so you are good". Hmm. I really only give them 3 stars because I rounded up, but in reality they are closer to 2 stars. ... More

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Build quality is not good

Not sure where to begin so I will start from the time we decided to purchase the house. The front office seemed to be playing games with buyers. When we first started to look at this neighborhood they had the bidding process going on and we went on to bid so many times for specific lots even though there were plenty of open lots. Without a solid reason, we couldn't figure out why they wouldn't just open up lots. Seems they were a bit greedy and wanted people to pay more for the land than they actually were worth. Hence we gave up after multiple bids and losses due to outrageous amounts being bid for lots. We also requested to buy a lot at a price to what they might have quoted but never got a number so we gave up overall. We also gave up bidding because we wanted a 3 car garage but kept getting responses that there are none, yet we see few lots which have them now. A year later we circled back to this place because the house prices within the Mundelein area were coming up close to new construction costs. So we decided to pull the trigger and sign on the dotted line. The contract was obviously one-sided and couldn’t make any changes. Earnest money had doubled from the first time we had originally come to the time we signed the contract. Not a big deal but a huge amount considering what other builders were asking in comparison. 2 months after signing the contract, no word from the front office or anyone about the progress of the house. After calling a few times to get a progress update, we found out there was a hold on construction due to incorrect paperwork. Luckily the GM and front office sorted it out without changing our home delivery timeline. We were very appreciative of this but if we hadn’t called to find out the progress then this issue might not have been caught/resolved and construction of the house would not have begun and ended on the time they had given us. A few weeks into the process we had to visit the Pulte center to make our interior selection. This was not a bad experience except the items we wanted to see were not even on displace. The demo center didn’t really have much to see visually hence we had to make decisions from pictures and basically imagination of what it would look like. The generic handout they give you doesn’t really quantify the items we wanted to see. We had to google and visit many places to see them physically to better understand them. Also, the 3-hour time to select all the items for your entire house is not enough especially since this was our first home and we had no idea what would match with what. 5.5 months into construction we meet with the GM for the pre-drywall meeting. He was very informative and helpful in answering questions. One change I would recommend is to have a meeting with the client at some point before the pre-drywall so the client has options to change small items like adding in outlets or fixtures. New buyers will not know what should go where until they see them physically. 7 months or so after we were ready to close on the house and had to go through another ordeal. Since we had opted not to use Pulse Mortgage the closing/title department basically didn’t communicate any items with my lender or my lawyer of the documents until days before my closing. The day before our closing I was babysitting and coordinating touchpoints about paperwork progress between my lender and the title company. On the day of our closing, which is supposed to be a joyous occasion for us, I was dealing with last-minute changes and add-ons from the title company. Basically sucked the joy out of the who process. FINALLY, we moved into the house which is going great except for dealing with somewhat of a shotty craftsmanship. We have made roughly 7-9 service tickets and are still counting, nothing uncommon from what I have been told from other new construction owners outside of this community. The worst part is that these tickets are to be responded to within 24-48 and it has been 2 weeks now and not been a single call from the construction office as to when they might come to fix the issues. I understand they are short-staffed due to people leaving or let-go but all we are asking for is acknowledgement of the ticket and when they might be able to fix it. I am not asking for it to be done right now but give me some time frame at least. Overall the experience had its ups and downs and we are torn on how we would perceive this and if we would consider going through this in the future or recommend it to others. The people whom we engaged with were considerate and somewhat willing to work with us, more than what I say from other owners who have had worse experiences than us. ... More

To many issues for a brand new house

The start was fantastic with Robb. I wish there was a little more time for the overall selection process of the structure of the home as that was very "rushed". wouldnt be so bad if you were allowed to submit a change order. Once the construction started the Project Manager didn't do a dang thing!! Brought up many issues and they were brushed aside. Once Chuck, his boss, got involved things started to actually be corrected. PULTE mortgage is a TRAIN WRECK. If you have any possible other option do that!! Almost every review/complaint/BBB statement about how bad they are stands true. We are almost 2 month in the house and there is still one issue that hasn't been taken care of and there is no date in site. We will see. Overall it is a nice house... ... More

Pulte's finishes are weak at best. Their finishing work is suspect and truly they use low-grade products and market them as high-end finishes. If you love the neighborhood and location, just get a bottom-end house from them and have a contractor come in and do the upgrades. You'll pay less and actually get some qualified contractors to do solid work.

Pulte was a very desirable choice for us because we could customize a lot and the home choices had the space we need for our large family. Our experience started out absolutely wonderful, about 2 months into construction is where we started feeling skeptical about the quality of product we were buying. We went through the house a few times as we were allowed to and saw a million cosmetic issues that we just thought “ oh they will fix that before the walk through”… they never did. We made it to the walk through and ran out of blue tape to mark the issues we found, obvious ones. After that, it took 3 weeks for them to get the certificate of occupancy from the county for reasons they would not disclose. My wife had just had a baby and we were approaching the end of our current lease, if we had not been stuck in that position, we would have pushed much harder for some of the issues to be corrected. They use terrible contractors to do some of their work and the construction managers are spread way too thin to babysit. Our home that we paid almost $700k for is just sub par and that’s really upsetting to us. ... More

We have had a number of issues including water pooling in our side yard and this is still going on after multiple attempts to get it resolved. The landscaping service is not keeping up with mowing grass and removing dead grass except for the model. Look around this neighborhood and you will see.

Financed through Pulte. Lived on property approximately 2 months. Construction still going on in the rest of the development. Dealing with attitude and disrespect from construction workers who seem to forget that I paid A LOT of money to live in the home they built. Home quality- walls are paper thin. You can hear family members in the next room. You know EXACTLY where other members of the household are based on sound traveling through walls and floors. Property grading could have been better in regards to drainage, appearance, and livability. THE BIGGEST ISSUE. Based on home inspectors report and other HVAC professionals - the heat pumps are improperly sized for the square footage. It has come to my attention that the town does not have building codes that pertain to HVAC sizing, which allows this process to continue. Pulte service and warranty just shrugs their shoulders when presented with this issue. ... 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....

The home buying process was smooth with the exception of the "Profiling" we encountered with the Sales representative for the community we live in. While the Manager of the sales team tried to reassure me ...the facts of the situation outweighed her safe responses. Our house was a Inventory house that appeared to have been purchased and then the original owners backed out. They worked so fast to get us approval for occupancy that they really did a less than PULTE job on the house. Our driveway is crooked, Our Keypad does not work on the garage, carpet is coming up (we've only been in the house 5 months) less than responsive times on customer service. They just hired a new manager for the service request. Maybe it will get better. I hope so! ... More

Overall we are not happy with Pulte. They delayed the delivery of the property for 6 months, they changed the delivery date twice. They made us spend a lot of money waiting. We do not receive any incentive for delays and additional expenses. Low quality materials and finishes. I recommend Lennar without a doubt.

There was an issue with our date of closing and it had to be rescheduled because appliances were not installed before receiving a Certificate of Occupancy. Therefore, our hotel stay was extended, and the moving company charged us a storage fee and a re-delivery fee. This cost us an extra couple thousand dollars. We were not happy to say the least.

Craftsmanship could definitely use more pride, there have been multiple issues we have experienced finish wise on our new home that I wish builders would have taken more care and personal pride in. Getting issues resolved includes a lot of emails back and fourth and is time consuming, which is understandable since they have to fix everyone else’s issues. Overall happy with our new home and the space is perfect for us and our growing family.

Please text instead of talking to a person .Make sure you take more time to walk around your house.