“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.”
“The quality of home is average not in line with the cost. 10 months after closing I have my front porch entrance not painted yet. I have been bounced around different people in customer service and nobody was able to provide a solution.
My yard grading was just finished after 9 months from closing… ridiculous..”
“Don’t care after you have closed on a million $$ home. Letting us live with out a working garage for a week. Many neighbors in my development suing Pulte for terrible workmanship and service! Just don’t!”
“I have more than 6 months waiting Pulte fix my tiles to be repair, this is a new house, in the first 5 months 18 tiles were broken. A large crack crosses the living room to the corridor of the bedroms. 6 months waiting , my first 1 year garanty almost finish. They no make me happy, the house is expensive but the garanty no the best.”
“If I could give less than one star trust me I would. I love my neighborhood but would I ever buy a pulte home again…NO! Let’s just start off with the craftsmanship is not that great. We have had problems with getting things fixed since before we moved in. A lot of the trades people just don’t show up to fix stuff. Lane was our main guy and I have to say at first he was great and on top of things. But people don’t show up and you have to play with emails back and fourth and eventually he just stopped responding to me. Called the customer care line and that apparently gets you no where too. I asked numerous times to talk to lanes boss and they flat out told me no. So my year walk through comes around and Ana contacts and I’m like finally maybe I can get these things fixed. Well boy was I wrong, they didn’t even want to touch my grout issues because “it had been to long”. The only reason why it had been too long was because lane dropped the ball and stopped responding to me and I couldn’t get anywhere on the customer care line. So I’m like here we go again more run around from pulte. Ana even said to me at one point “I was the only customer with issues” with a snooty voice. Like really I’ve seen our Facebook group and I know that I’m not the only one and how rude and unprofessional for her to say that to me. So I decide I’m filing an roc complaint because I’m not playing anymore. I’ve had to chase these people for a year and a half to not fix stuff and I’m just sick of it. The reason why I wanted to leave this review was because today was my roc inspection and 2 pulte representatives came too and just gave me the worst feelings. Ana was one and some other head guy, I’m not even sure what his name was. I didn’t get a hey so sorry this is happening, let’s try to make this right so we can all be happy, nothing. They wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. The roc guy was nice and said goodbye when he left but these two were obviously too good to even say anything to me, because I’m a customer with issues. Like I’m spending hundreds of thousands of dollars here and this is how you treat customers. Oh heck no. Never again. I don’t care if the home of my dreams in the future is a pulte home I would never ever buy from them again and I highly recommend the same to anyone looking.”
“If Pulte can’t control or buy the reviews, you will see consistent poor reviews that reflect my experience with them. If nothing goes wrong, everything is wonderful but the real test is how a company handles problems. It appears there is a slush fund for each house and once that’s up, they will do nothing more, even if it is their responsibility. They lied to me and tricked me into quietly waiting for them to make the repairs. When the warranty ran out, they weren’t aware of the repair as there was no ‘record’. When your lists and communication are with the warranty rep and they lose the paperwork , little can be done especially when the warranty rep ‘forgets’ or left the company. They market themselves through BAGI but they don’t follow the standards and BAGI won’t enforce them. They told me to work with one of their vendors on a thermal problem and when the vendor eventually determined it’s Pulte, it’s out of warranty and Pulte has no record of the problem. Pulte sells defective upgrades and will not stand behind it. The repairs may look terrible because they have no obligation to return it to the way it looked when you paid dearly for the upgrade. Pulte Refused to add a roof vent and insulation because the thermal test done by their vendor shows a 10 degree difference. This could explain why our “energy efficient” home has a 400 electric bill with a thermostat set at 74. Oddly, my friend has a bigger home, older home, larger family, keeps her thermostat at 69 and 70, leaves all her lights on all day ….and never has had a 400 bill. Because I had their vendor ‘correcting ‘ the temp problems for two years as instructed….pulte has no obligation to fix because the warranty is out. Pulte is responsible for the problem but won’t fix it. There are many other similar problems like this. I’ve even heard they told a customer she had too many problems with her house and it would cost them too much money to fix! Not surprised. I’m having the same experience. This is so sleazy and yet Pulte continues to cheat their customers out of their warranties. Buyer beware.”
“I have had so many issues I could write a book. They lied to me during the sale of the property about many things just to sell the house. They put in a 15amp breaker in the garage to run my Power tools , water heater water softener and golf cart. Only a IDIOT Would think it would work. My breaker is kicking almost daily and they will not do anything about it ! A/C worked on 12 times in five months! Pulte has VERY POOR QUALITY !!!!”
“I have built 3 homes before this one and this is the worst experience EVER! I have spent the last 4 months being a “Project Manager” and hundreds of hours overseeing everything SO FAR that has been done wrong, or has broken down! This is worse than buying a “ fixer upper”… and so much costlier in terms of time and money! I am retired and never dreamed I would be going thru this experience… it has become a CAREER staying on top of these people about serious issues!!! I would NEVER advise to buy from Pulte after the horrific experience I continue to have… Just in trying to get right what was never done right in the first place! It is a waste of time and money… Save yourself from the aggravation, please!!!”
“We moved into our new home in June 2021. We have had nothing but problems with this company. It has been a nightmare experience. Many things only completed partially (good enough to pass inspection) but not very good quality. I feel like our house was thrown together without much skill or care. Our carpets were put down on top of mounds of putty from the wall. Our upstairs floor is weak and sinks in many places because it rained on the plywood (not covered) before they laid it down. The driveway is full of cracks - 18 - big and small. Entryway concrete had mounds of some hard substance that was never cleaned off. The interior paint looks like a base coat - not smooth and it picks up dirt from anything. Tile grout is cracked in 13 different places mostly upstairs. The roof leaked during the first big rain that came (on Christmas eve with friends and family here during dinner). Exterior doors not properly sealed. You can easily see the outside light from inside the house. Carpets were not properly tacked down at the edges downstairs...upstairs was ok. Big sliding glass door was warped and hit the door frame pretty hard everytime you close it. When they came to fix it they heated it up and bent it out in a few places and it looks pretty bad now. So bad in fact they said they are going to have to replace it but not until I said I was going after thier ROC license. Before I said that they thought it looked ok. The driveway still has many scuff marks from the big trash bins they slid around on the driveway while building the house. I have still not received a call from thier customer service department to follow up on all the work that needed to be redone ( there were 16 different contractors the 1st time). And now the 1 year warranty work just got done (...almost..2 contractors never showed up). I've had circuit breakers popping multiple times over the last year and the electrician I hired to fix it (out of my own pocket) said the box is too small for the size of the house. There's only room to add 2 more circuits and it sits directly in the evening sun so it gets too hot. I can go on and on but the other 11 things are just more of the same. I bought a brand new house 20 years ago from KB homes and hardly had any problems. I thought Pulte was a better builder when we bought the new house but it looks like I was wrong. To anyone looking to buy...poor quality and worse customer service....run away as fast as you can! Thank you for reading this (book), sorry it's so long. :)”
