Del Webb Reviews in Austin, TX

Overall, our experience with the Pulte folks - from sales to our foreman - was great but the quality of the subcontractors they brought in left a lot to desire. Especially framing (90 degree angles and straight boards appear to be an alien concept) and trim and finish (even after repeated attempts they still struggled with getting paint right, texture applied, and paint actually on where they were trying to paint). But - our foreman, Carl, addressed issues and stayed on them like a chicken on a June bug and got issues sorted out.

We’ve lived in Sun City for 5 years. This is our third home, but it’s our first new one. We loved working with our salesperson. We found some of the option selection process frustrating because of the limitations. When paying this much for an estate model home, there should be more flexibility. Now that we’ve moved on, we love the lication and the model. There have been some quality of construction and finishing details that should not have happened. When paying this much for an estate model home, I expect both competence and craftsmanship. Sadly, Del Webb has fallen short on both. I hope it improves as we try to get the detail issues corrected. If so, I’ll post an update. ... More

A building superintendent JL was a pleasure to work with. After closing he still took responsibility four items that weren't perfect. The warranty person assigned to me, Johnny, appears to be very knowledgeable.

We had problems selling our previous home and Janet was patient and understanding of the situation and the emotional aspects of home buying. I think the most significant disappointment was some of the base choices were quite disappointing. (Oven /Microwave combination) In the end we love our new home and are very happy with most of the workmanship.

Overall performance is dragged down by the low quality of construction workers employed, which is unfortunately typical in Texas. This brings the build quality down and increases the number of issues that must be addressed after the closing on the home. The builder representatives I encountered were excellent and a pleasure to work with.

We love the neighborhood, and the buying process was great. The value for the price paid was not so good, for example, the windows are out of square by more than 1/8” (noticeable difference when hanging blinds); some of the walls are not square which causes the doors to look out of alignment, back door is not double panes, so you can feel the heat or cold radiating through the glass, electrical plugs put in weird places (right next to corners). I appreciate the response to some of the issues we have had.

If you want to build in Sun City you don't have a choice - it's Pulte. We found the design experience difficult as the design center online has a good number of selections, but "no image available" on most items. This makes it very difficult if you are building from out of state. Quality seen at the initial walkthrough with framing, plumbing, HVAC in place was concerning. Detail work at the finish was inconsistent and not good in most cases. Main issues that will be expensive and time consuming to repair - 1) flat paint on all walls, including bathrooms. The company has to paint all the walls so why not use a slightly more durable sheen like eggshell or satin; 2) and the worst kitchen cabinets I have owned in the last 30 years! The biggest problem is with the drawers and pull-outs. The edges of the drawers are unfinished and full of splinters! The drawers also fall off the tracks easily and require a repair request to get them back on track. Horrible! The cabinets in the models homes are very nice. The cabinets in the new builds are from a different company. I wish we would have been giving the same quality, especially given the cost of our highest upgraded kitchen and highest upgraded cabinets. I certainly feel that we have been downgraded. ... More

Need to more direct / forceful with construction managers

Sun City definitely is great place to stay and retire. Pulte as a builder is just an average builder compare with the rest of the builders in greater Austin and particularly in Georgetown. Pulte has great floorplan and option, but workmanship and materials are again just an average (nothing to boast about it). The price of the house itself is overvalued but again being located in Sun City it is a fair price

Our recent home build was mostly positive. Our building manager was fantastic as was our closing specialist. They went out of their way to help us as much as they could. The sales team did their job but offered no help when a problem arose regarding our funding of the new home. Overall however we are reasonably happy with the home and very happy to be a part of Sun City.

The entire experience was excellent until after I moved in and found a few items where the quality of the home was lacking. Several items were covered under warranty and I am not speaking about those. The warranty experience has been find. However, the walls in the house were not painted with semi-gloss paint which is quite disappointing. However, the closets were. It should have been the opposite. Also my irrigation system was not installed in accordance with all of my neighbors and I had to pay $1800.00 to have it corrected. I could not water my trees on a separate zone, although all of my neighbors and my neighborhood water ambassador can. These was my biggest issue. I was also somewhat disappointed in the landscaping which seemed minimal at best. Except for these issues I would have give 5 stars. ... More

Building time was slow; almost a year

Having built several custom homes during the past thirty years, this was not a wonderful experience for us. Mel was great with the initial lot selection and home buying experience. Shannon was almost a disaster as the design consultant, making unapproved changes based on what SHE thought looked better. Things were dragging until Craig took over as construction manager, and then the change was amazing. He paid attention to detail and continued to assist even after closing. In our first month we have filed warranty claims for electrical, irrigation installed outside the survey, plumbing, and countertops, and electrical has failed to complete their work. We have an issue with the drywall, but Austin asked us to wait 11 months before filing a warranty claim because we would probably experience more drywall issues in that time. ... More

Buying was great. Quality of workmanship was very bad and many repairs are needed. Despite these issues, I like the house and am glad I moved here.

And sadly the details have been disappointing. The garage is not “finished”, there are no gutters, the appliances are included-except the refrigerator, and the finishing of the interior was very, very poorly done. Particularly the paint, moldings, doors, and around interior and exterior doors. Yes, you can report issues through the warranty service. But, particularly at this price point, I expected much better workmanship.

First and foremost, we're very happy with our house. We love it. We would do it all over again. We think it's a well-built house and a very good price, and the Pulte folks were very pleasant to work with. The design of the house is perfect for us. Pulte has quite a remarkable system for cranking out these houses. Where things fell short was in the finish work. A lot of it is shoddy and appears to have been done by people who were in a hurry and/or weren't really skilled at what they were doing. So far, Pulte's customer service has been pretty good about fixing things, but there are still several things that need to be corrected, and things that can't practically be corrected. We also encountered issues with grading/drainage on the lot and are still working that out. So we're not blown away ecstatic, but we are generally pretty happy about the way it turned out. ... More

The build was very delayed and we understand that. During this time there was reasonable communication. Once we did the walk-through and closed it was hard to get stuff done. We still have a missing lintel, both toilets are leaking and there is a hole in the plasterwork which is very noticeable. After three or four emails, the plumber is coming today...his office staff is rude in the extreme. The home and site needed a good clean when we moved in. Do we love the home, yes, has the experience been terrific, not really. I am tired of hearing about staff shortages. the design process was seamless and professional. ... More

The house is, in general, well built. We signed our contract in May of 2021 and were given a timeline for completion of mid Dec 21- mid Feb 22. The house was not completed until late June 22 (13 months after signing and placing a down payment. The 2 glaring issues are: 1) no radiant barrier installed and 2) the premium dishwasher we paid for is not yet installed. The excuse on the radiant barrier was "supply chain issues". This was not true as radiant barrier was available at the time. It was just not available from Pulte's usual supplier for about a 2 week period. So we are now stuck with a less efficient home for the life of the house. The dishwasher also was not installed due to "supply chain issues". We closed on the house June 27, 2022 and it is still not installed. The plumbing, electrical and structural aspects were well done. There were a few cosmetic issues that were all taken care of prior to closing. ... More

I am not happy with how our whole build went. We were sold a lot that had to wait 4-1:2 months to get approval to build. We ended up completing months after people that signed contracts months after us. Was not contacted and informed as we had to call or got no updates.

We love Sun City, but the home quality is only so so. Also, virtually everyone we have worked with is professional and courteous. However, the subs Pulte uses are slow to respond to correct deficiencies.

Supply chain issues and lack of qualitied craftsmen, significantly impacted the Pulte quality home that was advertised. But overall, if a home buyer is proactive and ungauged, the home is sound.

I understand this is not a custom home so I expected to get a "corporate" response to many questions about the home. We still have concerns about the high degree of waning on the studs used to build our home. It was built at the height of the pandemic and the studs looked like 'leftovers' ....the ones at the bottom of a stack after all the good wood had been used up.

Communication with project manager was poor. Promises were not met, pm was surly and I had to escalate issues to get issues resolved for closing, which had to be delayed.

Responsive in person not always great follow through

In general they communicated pretty well through the process. There are still a half dozen outstanding issues that have not been resolved after 2 months.