“Haven’t been in the house for year and floors had gaps and sliding apart. They come out to fix the floors the first time , they used two different types so I had two different shades of flooring.then they came out a second time after arguing with us bout it being over the one year warranty and now the floor is the same shade but I can move the flooring with my foot.”
“Pipe burst bc cold weather after not shutting off OUTSIDE spickett after 5 month and homeowner has to pay for repairs. Didn’t know where outside turn off was so ruined apartment. Have H06 in place before moving in and don’t believe anything they say even though had meeting week before on how much insurance to get.”
“Pulte and Centex are bad bad people. They use cheap materials and they don’t back their work. These two are always in court. Ie. Roofs should last 20 years. Their roofs last 12 and with replacement of plywood. Their stucco is a legal nightmare. I just replaced my roof after 12 years w 49% replacement of the plywood. What a ripe off and LOUSEY work.”
“Workmanship is awful. List pages long when we moved in of issues that needed to be addressed. Oven draw doesn’t close, missing/ripped screens. Basement never cleaned. Completely filthy - needed deep cleaning. Customer service does not even respond. They take your money and run away”
“We’ve lived in Heron Preserve in Port St Lucie, FL for about 9 months now. In that short time we’ve had to replace the dishwasher, refrigerator, few shelves and will need replace more appliances soon. This builder uses cheap materials and bottom of the barrel appliances. For what we paid for this house we expected much better stuff. The air conditioner has failed several times too. I will never recommend this builder nor will I ever buy a Pulte home again. STAY AWAY!”
“Our experience with Pulte has been Terrible!
We were Indirectly FORCED to sign a Contract on Lot that was not IDEAL to us, as they couldn’t make any other LOT Open/Available.
Anyway, fast forward, we recently signed the contract and our home is now beginning to construct. Now Pulte has a promotion for new customers which includes a 50% discount on lot premiums, which means you can GET bigger Lot, with cheaper Price, better location/privacy. So they literally DEVALUED our Property which is 6months away from CLOSING DATE (JUNE 2023).
We contacted the regional VP who declined our request to give us the same promotion (50% OFF the Lot), or any other discount, as we already SIGNED the contract. Imagine losing 5% of your HOME VALUE before it’s even closed (6months OUT).
I was told we are having "Buyer Remorse". Yes, off course after losing $20k and built has barely started.
I know other BUILDERS that has provided incentives for previous customers due to promotions like this, however Pulte is NOT one of these builders.
FYI this community DOESN’T have FENCE/BARRIER separating the LOT from the CORN Fields which was a Safety risk as some WILD Animal (Hiding in the CORN FIELD) could Barage into your LOT. Imagine your kids playing in the backyard.
If we could go back in time, we would have never signed a contract with Pulte, however for you I have the FREE ADVISE below:
• FIRST thing DO NOT BUY FROM PULTE
• SECOND, if you do. Please JOIN the FACEBOOK Pulte Group which is not OWNED by Pulte. It has over 5K Users that are Building with Pulte, people from this community and others across U.S to learn about what you're getting yourself into.
• Before WALKING in for estimate/pricing make sure to bring a Realtor, it DOESN’T cost you anything extra as the Seller pays for the cost. They DON’T WANT you to know that and they will NOT allow to ADD the Realtor after your FIRST appointment. At least you will have someone (FREE) to guide you with options & Lot, going through contract, and someone who has experience with Pulte tricks.
• They will INDIRECTLY pressure you to SIGN ASAP by saying “This is LIMITED time DEAL” or “LOTS are getting SOLD” or “PRICES are going UP”, so you don’t get enough time to THINK and look around. They will raise the home MSRP price monthly however, the promotions i mentioned above will still be a 10X better deal.
• Always Remember you’re dealing with the “SALES PERSON” who wants your Signature to get COMMISSION.
• Read the CONTRACT, it’s just ONE SIDED (Pulte). Not a SINGLE Line to accommodate the BUYER, just so you know.
• DO NOT SIGN THE CONTRACT until you’re 100% sure that you agree to the terms & conditions.
• Watch them **DEVALUE** your HOME (after you sign), by running Much Better DEALS like FREE LOT, 50% on Lot or Options etc.
• Ask about the BAD QUALITY/Experience reviews. Pulte will tell you it’s OLD Contractors or Fake, those are real PEOPLE who bought homes with Pulte. They are living in this community. DO YOUR RESEARCH.”
“Absolutely horrible, arrogant, incompetent company. Entire development ticked off. They do not meet even minimum standards of customer service. I predict someday this company will be investigated for how bad they are. Where there is smoke, there is fire.”
“GS
12/22/2022
Received a few email requests regarding my Pulte 1 year home experience. The given rating scale selecting a "1" this homeowner felt would have been generous, so decided not to select a response.
Waiting for a return phone call from "Sherry" at Pulte regarding my verbal response.
This is my response-
Pulte philosophy: We strongly believe in the philosophy of “continuous improvement”. Your feedback is the best source of information.
I believe Pulte Builders has not mastered the art of homeowner satisfaction after purchasing one of their new homes. It appears they require the homeowner assistance with making Pulte Builders successful for potential sales. My Pulte experience has been a nightmare since purchasing an almost half million-dollar Pulte home.
I have been told by the Pulte “supervisors” that Pulte is a billion-dollar builder throughout the United States. Apparently, this statement was to reassures me. If anything, it has infuriated me.
This home was purchased as a new “Spec” home
My Issues:
01. Interior walls: walls not even and tape lines visible – Result: Dry wall imperfections and visible tape lines corrected, and all walls repainted at homeowner expense.
02. Window blinds falling off sills: only one screw installed to each blind – Result: Replacement of blinds and installation done correctly at homeowner expense.
03. One bedroom had windows with grids and rest of window in the house have no grids: discovered by homeowner when defective window blinds fell – Never informed of this issue with purchase of house. Informed by "supervisor" this is not unusual for Pulte – must wait for non-grid windows – this took months after reminders to Pulte supervisor and emails to customer service. Result: Months to receive matching window/installation and homeowner did cleanup of window mess installation.
04. Cement issues: Garage - Cement of foundation jagged and garage cracks, the jagged cement of foundation (from drywall to garage floor)-needs sanded, significant garage floor crack in left corner of foundation; informed may not meet crack standards. Front entry step and walkway - Had significant dangerous forward pitch; informed there was no pitch as this is how Pulte does the steps. After many complaints someone came out and did measurements – step removed with an additional step added and slopping walkway corrected. Homeowner added railings on each side of steps for extra safety.
05. Garage floor deep scratches appeared after purchase of house from builder dumpster removal. Result: Another homeowner expense to have fixed.
Garage door flimsy - Result: Door not insulated – Pictures (sent to customer service and supervisor) taken of significant snow mounds accumulating into garage from snowfall during winter of 2021-2022 – No response from Pulte (supervisor informed homeowner this could be a "one time" occurrence) – That mind set is Not acceptable.
06. No water spicket in garage -to clean garage floor you need to go outside to side of house to access water – Result: Hot and cold water spicket installed at homeowner expense.
Garage does not have a drain - told by supervisor garage floor is pitched for water to drain toward driveway. Result: Puddles on garage floor need to be squeegeed to remove existing puddles-floor is very slippery.
07. Exterior doors not painted - Result: Painting done at homeowner expense.
Front door dead bolt out of aliment when closed – Result: Adjustment done at homeowner expense.
08. Basement window damaged: unable to open window – Result: Replacement done months after request – Drywall bowing, and windowsill fixed when basement room completed.
09. Ceilings stipple lumps: unsightly – Result: Repaired by homeowner.
10. Woodwork trim corners: not painted – Result: Homeowner to attend to painting due to Pulte painters lacking of detail.
11. Front door outside entry electrical socket falling out of stone wall - Result: Repaired at homeowner expense.
12. Master bathroom tile flooring when walking a noticeable dip of subfloor and tile making cracking noise throughout bathroom floor – Result: Pulte aware and waiting for removal and replacement.
Master bathroom door to toilet has approximate 3” bubble – Damaged during installation.
13. Lawn installation: received threatening letters from the HOA that the yard landscaping was PAST completion date – for months theses letters were copied, and forwarded to Pulte supervisor and customer service, as received by homeowner. Result:
Callani Landscaping: After accessing most of the neighborhood lawns and lack of grass I was informed by Mr. Callani that Pulte provides one bag of seed and grading with purchase of home.
This homeowner opted for sod at homeowner cost of $6,000.00. Lawn grade awful, there are many dips throughout yard/construction surfacing stones and cement lumps - Result: Foreseeable accident(s) - Will Pulte be paying those bills?
This homeowner had many conversations with the city of Strongsville and Pulte for removal of the unsightly leaning utility pedestals in the front yard, once landscaping was completed.
The Pulte experience became worse:
Result: MAJOR PROBLEM: Due to homeowner requesting removal of utility pedestals – homeowner informed there was NO final grade occupancy permit on file with the city of Strongsville. These conversations and letter notices (copied and forwarded to Pulte) were discussed with the Pulte supervisor for months and on numerous occasions homeowner was informed by the city of Strongsville that this issue was on Pulte and Pulte insisted it fell on the city.
Finally, utility service arrived on three occasions - the areas of new lawn were dug up in attempts to locate covered water utilities (covered during lawn installation by Callani landscaping).
Last noticed was on December 9, 2022 when homeowner was notified per certified letter from the city of Strongsville:
Notice of Violation Case No. 22-000522
Violations must be corrected by December 23, 2022
Failure to make necessary repairs within time allotted will result in prosecution in accordance with the Enforcing Code SCO 1418.07 PERMITS – EXPIRED
Signed per Building Commissioner
After months of homeowner trying to rectify this issue, I now have days to have someone help me.
On December 15, 2022, homeowner proceeded to Strongsville Mayors Office/Building Commissioners Office with said letter in hand. No one could help and Certificate of Occupancy was not available.
Unfortunately, I had to contact an attorney by phone - I finally received my Certificate of Occupancy.
This is the 5th home I have purchased; 4 of the homes were newly built.
I find it totally unrealistic and unacceptable for a builder (Pulte) to leave outstanding permit issues hanging during the purchase of a home and having the homeowner left to fend for themselves to rectify such an issue.
This (5th home) experience for me has been very very disappointing, costly, frustrating, mentally and emotionally exhausting. Someone needs to hold Pulte Builders accountable.
Family, friends, and acquaintances thought Pulte was a reputable and forthright builder until they visually saw my Pulte home.
I learned from this dreadful experience that quality customer service, workmanship and work ethic is NOT what a homeowner receives when building a Pulte home.
Pulte was quick to take my check of almost half million-dollars, however quite lacking with resolving this homeowner issues/problems.
I have "De-Pulted" my home this past year and have spent allot of money doing so!
I purchased my home in good faith and expected the same from Pulte.”
“Briarwood Estates in Richfield Ohio is a fraud. They advertise wooded lots and a nature preserve and after we bought our lot and put our down payment down, they took almost all of the trees down so that now all you can see are two highways and you can hear the trucks humming up and down. Absolutely horrible. Our sales person Miss let us and told us there would be no utility box on our lot and the result was a full utility box on our lot. When we tried to get our deposit back the manager bullied us and we only ended up with a minor amount and they kept all the rest after our salesperson promised us we would get the full deposit back because she was appalled at what they had done with all of the trees. A horrible experience do not buy with Pulte in Briarwood estates.”
“- Forgot security system entirely
- Botched entire electric plan and wasn’t caught until I said something right before drywall (delayed the project weeks)
- Had to regrade about 60% of lawn due to sitting water and lack in grading
- Chipped tile
- Bathroom tile had permanent marker all over them with serial number for the tile #28314
- Grout seal was left to stain floor tile in master bath and laundry
- Concrete runoff left and never removed before sod was laid in backyard
- Sod died due to concrete and was never replaced to the point where the dead sod was over run with weeds and grass (still isn’t fixed)
- Masonry grout had holes and they used white caulk instead of grout in front entryway
- Countless texture and paint issues inside and out
- Items left under the carpet (nails, plastic and extra padding) but they laid carpet anyway
- Found nails, glass, brick, wire, wood, stone, beer cans, sharp rusted blades all in my grass while weeding
- Appliance Touchscreens don’t work for Whirlpool oven and I need to go outside and reset the breaker each time this happens
- They installed an old HVAC control and fought me until I showed PowerPoint documentation from my first day that I standard is the touchscreen
- Irrigation head broken, lost water for days, and not all my grass was getting wet and subsequently died
- 4 Windows upstairs were installed off the track and/or squeeked so bad it had to be replaced
- HVAC dampeners we’re backwards so upstairs controlled down and vice versus
- Media Room is significantly hotter than the rest of the house so they had to come out and install 6 more vents in my roof”
“I am seeing so many quality issues with pulte since they started building the house they use different materials for different houses and they say it is an upgrade but when you check online it is lower than the one they use regularly.. we paid lot of money to win the bid when compared to others afterwords still they don’t care and say we have warranty.. what warranty 5 years what happens afterwords please be cautious when you are purchasing pulte homes in Illinois”
“My experience with Pulte/ DiVosta has been on going since April 2022. My home wasn’t complete after a 3 plus month delay. My punch list has over 100 items still needing attention including the roof, plumbing, electrical, grading, tiling, and countless cosmetic issues. I have written to the President of customer service (Brent) and the CEO (Ryan) and still cannot get the items completed. I was left to be the contractor for my new build custom home. They have done nothing to compensate me. Many of the owners have had similar problems. The “quality” is subpar at best. If you purchase a Pulte/ DiVosta home be sure to have an attorney on standby.”
“Disappointing situation where Pulte sales people promised to refund my money since their Mortgage company has denied my loan and asked me to send an email and when I have sent an email they sent me termination of contract letter instead of my refund.”
“It seems as though when the warranty period was slightly past the time frame issues occurred. There’s no reason for the garage lights to come on whenever they chose. We were told $200 to come out and evaluate. Flood in the basement told to cut insulation. Cracks in the ceiling that were repairing but not to standard and resurfaced.”
“Please heed my best advice about Pulte -- NEVER close on your new Pulte home until the house is absolutely perfect. Don't let them say, "It will be taken care of in the warranty period", because that could take years of frustration, or never get done. Some people in our neighborhood have been waiting nearly 2 years for fixes (items missing that they paid for, or installed improperly or damaged). The warranty people will hold out until you get so frustrated you go and do the fixes yourself. In the warranty period, you have to beg and beg to get anything done, and then when fixes are scheduled, the workers never show, or they show up with the wrong materials, or they "fix" the problem worse than it was before.
My second advice is to be there at the construction site daily, and DO NOT believe your construction supervisor when you point out an issue and he says he will take care of it. You have to keep on them, and continually verify that it is done, or they will just try to cover up the issue -- literally! While it is hard to say to them, "Do not go on to the next phase until this is fixed," because you want your house to be done on time, but that is what you have to do. TAKE HUNDREDS OF PICTURES of every pipe, wire, wall, floor and ceiling from every angle, and at each stage of the process, so you have proof in case something breaks later.
Thirdly, do not assume that Pulte is looking out for your best interests by protecting any of the materials during construction. I could go on and on about this, but they will leave doors, molding, wall board and other materials out in the rain or in the humidity, with no protection. It will get damaged, warped, and moldy (here in the South), but they will install it anyway. You have to protect those materials yourself. Have rolls of plastic to cover up things, and take dated pictures of anything left out in the elements, even in the garage, to show proof that the item's storage was mishandled. Since workers pull off the protection, it often has to be put back on daily.
Finally, get a professional inspector. Don't let Pulte say "It isn't necessary." It absolutely is necessary! Pulte listens to inspectors (your own and from the county, who just checks safety basics). NEVER believe that Pulte's "inspectors" are looking out for your interests. They aren't.
Make sure your own inspector is there to check each major stage of construction. This is critical, since the inspector knows what problems to look for, and can document the problem. Our inspector found things like missing outlets, improperly wired switches, an unfinished open vent in the attic (which would have caused us to forever cool the attic space), missing insulation, poorly aligned lights and ceiling vents, warped walls, broken tiles, etc.
So, take care. I have built four homes, and it seems like the subcontractors are getting worse as time goes on, so keep an eye on things, because Pulte won't. It will be extremely frustrating, because most of the Pulte subcontractors don't speak English (or act like they don't), so you cannot communicate with them. They come in for a couple days to do everything on their list at once, and by the time your Pulte supervisor shows up to look at the problem you have found, that crew will be off to another community, so everything will come to a standstill (sometimes for weeks) until someone on that crew can come back to fix the problem. Surely, the Pulte people themselves will do nothing to fix it. So very frustrating!
One of my final pet peeves with Pulte is that they do not keep a clean construction site. They say they do, but don't believe it. Visit some homes under construction. You will see that it is a junkyard throughout the process, and I believe that leads to mistakes and construction being done poorly. But that's just me.”
“Customer service is the worse I have ever experienced. They do not stand behind their contract and promises. They ignore your concerns as they want you to stop pursuing them to fix what they should be fixing in the first year. Never buy from Pulte! Even calling their corporate office does not help. The first words out of their mouths when you call to have something fixed is No, we don’t fix that. And this is only when you have been in the house for 2 weeks. Horrible, horrible customer service! Do not buy from Pulte!”
“Very bad builder and wants to sell their property by making you buy in by asking too much earnest money. They are really bad builder who promises incentives to get earnest money and then does not give you incentives saying you don’t qualify for loan. They are always looking tricks to sell property and once you show interest they hike the price. It had been a nightmare working with them as they are really rude and ask earnest money as if they own it even though they drop the prices fifty grand for new buyers. None of his buyers are happy, all are sad because he just looks for tricks for new buyers and leaves the people who already paid earnest money neglected and threatened that they will loose equity ultimately if they back out. Very bad selling tactics and don’t buy from Pulte, he can’t keep anyone happy”
“This company is not buyer friendly. The first time we tried to use the clothes dryer, this is what we heard. This was a new construction and they told us that we had a 1 year warranty. I guess not because they told us to call Whirlpool. Management doesn’t respond.”
