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We live in a Pulte home in Cary that we purchased about 18 months ago. Our experience was somewhat mixed. We love our home and love the community. They did an excellent job designing our neighborhood. Our experience with Pulte's customer service has been okay at best. We've gone through about 9 customer service representatives (mostly men in their early 20s with little experience). They finally brought in someone experienced and things have improved somewhat. Overall, it has been a headache and I've yet to decide whether it is worth it.
Pulte homes are OK if you are talking about the upper end 300-350k+ homes...anything less than that and you are looking at pretty shoddy construction. We lived in 2 Pulte homes in NC. One in N. Raleigh that was built in 1992, and one in Apex (a rental) that was built in 1997. The North Raleigh house was $150k when we bought it in Dec. 1994, and would probably sell for about $220-230k now. The house we rented in Apex for the last 2 years we lived in NC until this summer, would probably sell for about that same price. Both homes had creaky floors, an alarming degree of crookedness in some of the walls and the stairways, loose countertops, and the house in Apex had some serious plumbing issues (though that likesly stemmed from the fact that it was built on a slab, I'd avoid any house built on a slab).
My suggestion; look at other builders. St. Lawrence homes are local to NC and especially the Raleigh area and have much better quality construction IMO.
Pulte surprised me with the quality of the Del Webb homes (My Mom bought one). Surprisingly good fit and finish. Not the best materials, but perfectly acceptable in the price range.
Their after sale experience has been mostly positive as well. I'm sure there are wild swings in experience with Pulte, but the one I have been closest to is a positive one.
I still stand by my opinion that once you get above 300-350k there are many better choices unless you are focused on dollars per square foot.
after looking on that thread, I read that someone had a 400k home on a SLAB?!?!! What is the deal with that? I recant part of my earlier statement; Pulte is poor quality in ALL priceranges.
There are $600k houses on slab in my neighborhood. Slab is not a deal breaker for everyone. Pulte made some wise land purchases in Cary. I cannot tell you how many of my neighbors bought because they loved the neighborhood and lots (wooded) and dealt with a builder they didn't love, but delivered a decent product for the price.
Pulte made some wise land purchases in Cary. I cannot tell you how many of my neighbors bought because they loved the neighborhood and lots (wooded) and dealt with a builder they didn't love, but delivered a decent product for the price.
This is why I bought a Pulte home. It's not the best, but it's not the worst and it's been inspected. I love the wooded lot and location and I have a crawlspace.
IMOP - Pulte has come a long way in the past few years. I am a previous owner of a new construction 3 bed/2.5 bath/2 car garage Pulte townhome. I loved the floorplan, the layout and planning of the entire subdivision, and the included amenities. However, I was disappointed to learn that many corners were cut in the production of these homes. The HVAC was on the extremely low efficiency scale. I had so many nail pops that I thought my kitchen was coming detached from the house. Also, I had some dry wall tape work it's way loose after about a year. Given the state of new construction, I wasn't surprised at any of this. One item that did bother me was how the HOA established the townhomes in the community. There was no shared insurance (not the proper term) managed by the HOA. So, we each had to carry full, pricey policies (in comparison to other neighborhoods in the area.) We tried to have the HOA rules/laws/whatever changed but it was near impossible to gather the correct amount of signatures.
I'm not really sure about the slab comment. In Charlotte, we had so many problems with builders placeing crawlspaces over stumps and such that slabs were preferred.
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