Drees Homes Reviews

We are happy with our lot location, floor plan, neighbors and community. We are not so happy with Drees. These positives may have clouded our decision to go with Drees. Knowing what we know now we should have spent more time looking at other builders. * Construction Experience We did receive regular build updates from the construction supervisor but updates about how on-going construction problems would be dealt with were lacking. The builder needed to be more focused on the quality of the subcontractor’s work and willing to act on it. Drees quality is only as good as the quality of the subcontractors, and some were poor. * Quality of Workmanship We got to a point where we were afraid to add an item to the punch list because some subcontractors were so poor they made the problem worse. Some problems we identified should have been identified by the builder and corrected without our involvement. This creates concern about possible problems we cannot see. There are construction tasks that don’t seem to be a part of any subcontractor’s scope. Our job site was noticeably messier than other job sites. Drees should require subcontractors to clean up after themselves. * Design Selection Experience We felt rushed with the Drees Design Center experience. The software they used to help choose was buggy and not ready for production. Things like simple electrical upgrades were not listed in the “system”, so multiple existing items were cobbled together to make up the “upgrade”. This made the simple upgrade cost prohibitive and not good value. After moving in, the actual quality of some flooring was not what we expected from Drees * Home Readiness and Closing We delayed our closing three times. The additional delays cost us storage fees otherwise we would have delayed again. Also, it required rescheduling movers. We were told outstanding punch list items would be incorporated into the closing as a formal document/process. At closing no one knew what we were talking about when we asked. There was no one from Drees at the closing. Almost three months after closing we still have unresolved items. We would recommend to those building with Drees that you do not close until all unresolved items are complete. ... More

This home by Dreese was my 11th new home from various builders in Ohio, Georgia, South Caralina and Florida. I had only one builder build me 2 homes because I was satisfied with the quality of the finished product and that was Ryan Homes that rated as #1 of the 10 builders, Dreese #10

Not the best home buying experience and I could do it over, I would have chosen a different builder.

Chedk out items you would not expect to find a problem with

For several months after we moved in the adjacent house was under construction by Drees. Scaffolding and materials were placed on our property and in our driveway without asking our permission. On at least a half dozen occasions I picked up a number of nails from our driveway as well as stones and other debris. Drees literature states that lots are properly graded to deal with runoff… NOT true! Our neighboring lot slopes into ours and there is a flat area where water collects and does not drain as the underlying soil is clay. I spoke with several Drees managers with zero success in having this corrected. Finally, a work order to have some “clean-up” done on our side yard remains open… I have contacted the construction manager several times with no response. ... More

Hindsight is always 20/20, but the more removed I get from moving into my new home the more dissatisfied I become and the more I look back and realize how untrustworthy the process with Drees has been. From the very start we were lied to repeatedly about not being able to get under contract for various reasons, which ended up being confirmed as lies when we asked other builders we were considering if we had the same restrictions getting under contract with them. The build process was good and probably when Drees performed their best; however, they rush to get you moved in so they can collect the rest of their money, even when they have significant work left to complete (e.g., grading of lot, driveway). Once they have their money, they are not nearly as accommodating to make things right and they half *ss the work that is left to do. Since we've moved in, we have had significant issues with the grading of the lot, our $7K upgraded floors sound like your walking on rice krispy treats, and the mantel on our outdoor fireplace is over six feet high on a less than ten foot high wall. The response to these issues has been slow at best and there has been no indication that they will be fixed. We selected Drees over another builder because we liked the floor plan better, even though we felt more comfortable and trusting of the other builder from day one. Looking back, we wish we would have went with the other builder. ... More

i a letting you know that our air cond. is bad , need replace another new a/c thanks

Can't say my experience with Drees was any good, honestly, aside from my Superintendent Saul. The entire process outside of that was hot garbage. The quality of material and workmanship on the home is absolutely horrendous. Plumbing work is bad, paint is bad, drywall is bad, flooring is bad, electrical is bad, HVAC is bad. Literally everything about the home is bad. The only difference with Drees compared to other builders is that they try to make the house look fancier. That's it. We will not be building our next home with Drees.

When picking out your paint no ve dries as the cheapest crappyest paint company in Tennessee and will only choose to paint flat paint

Definitely get a private inspection done!. The sub contractor(Atlantic Building) that fixed my doors don't care about the work they did. Front door has been having locking issues. Drees put in an order for them to fix and i have had to technicians here but still need a replacement jamb. The first Atlantic worker had the attitude like I was bothering them with my report for the front door to be fixed. All the screws on the interior door locks installed were not tightened. A month and half after move in, the owner's bedroom door lock fell off. The door lock on the second bedroom got very lose almost coming off. I had to go around and tighten the screws on all the interior doors as they were all lose and shaking. HVAC unit cover over the filter insert won't close so I'm holding it in place with a tape. Horrible! Some of the tape on the HVAC system in the mechanical room has come off and I'm just wondering what is next. Basement bath needs re-caulking and Joe the builder has put in a work order to get it done but 2 months after move in, contractor hasn't done anything about it. I'm waiting on the 3 months work with Drees to bring up other issues I have to give them a fair chance to redeem themselves. It's a beautiful home from Drees but the sub contracting companies have let them down in my opinion. Overall, the sub contracting companies work is a reflection of Drees work and leaves me with a below average rating for Drees at this time. Hopefully Drees can redeem themselves at the 3 months walkthrough/follow up. ... More

Design Samples needs improvement. Construction quality isn’t up to the mark. No response for the emails after move-in. I wouldn’t recommend going with DYOL team.

Be careful what your salesperson tells you. Ours was greatly misinformed.

We decided to build with Drees, because we believed they built superior homes. We do like our home and think aesthetically it looks nice. Unfortunately several issues have clouded our experience. Several of the subs who worked on our house did a sloppy, careless job and would also often leave food, drink, and trash onsite after they left for the day. Days before closing I noticed and killed a large cockroach in the house and was hoping it was just a one-off. Unfortunately, that was not the case and we are now experiencing a cockroach infestation that we are trying to mitigate ourselves and with exterminators. We believe that a dirty construction site and a lack of sealing the house properly have likely led to this issue. A brand new house should not have cockroaches.There were also times when a sub would be sent to fix something and it would not be done correctly, so another sub would be sent out. We would suggest looking into hiring a new pool of subs for these reasons. Our house has been under construction in one way or another since we moved in (2.5 months ago) due to items on our punch list during our walkthrough along with a few additional items we noticed after moving in. We have truly appreciated our contractor, Josh’s responsiveness and willingness to fix the issues, but our problem is that there have been ALOT of issues. Three of our windows have been leaking and have caused water damage and have caused a mold smell in the house. We appreciate the responsiveness of Jimmy to have them fixed, but unfortunately the window replacements may take a while to come in and other broken windows that happened during construction have not yet been fixed. To put it simply, we do not believe this should be the experience when buying a new home. We have had one issue after another and are getting tired of new problems popping up and have concerns over what future problems may arise. If we could do it again, we would likely go with a different builder and hope for better results. ... More

Did a building your own kit instead of using a custom builder and we should have gone custom. We moved in June 10 after months of delays and no work being completed. Our punch list from our walk thru June 2 still isn’t done. Took our construction manager off our house and sent him to a neighborhood 3 weeks before we were supposed to move in. Communication as to delays was horrible. Communication as to completing this punch list has been nonexistent unless I reach out and follow up. If you’re building in an established Drees neighborhood, they’ll be great. But I would not recommend it for an alternative to a custom route. A single home in a single lot is not the priority…despite it being $$$ ... More

My house has too many water leak issues in the basement within the first month of the move. These things should have been taken care properly before handing over the house. Its almost 2 months now and my basement is a mess with broken drywalls and the tarps are torn for fixing. Most of the windows were not properly caulked due to last month thunderstorm may windows had too much water leak due to poor caulking. These caulking and water proofing are the basic things that needs to be done for water prevention into the house. I have called drees more than 5 times in last 2 months for multiple water issues. ... More

my biggest disappointment is the trashy lot i have to look at every day. I think it is the Drees dumping zone.

Issues were not addressed properly.

If you get a good project supervisor/manager everything should go smooth. We did!

With it currently being a sellers market it was clear that the Drees staff didn’t care about quality or timeliness, just closing the house and moving on to the next one.

We were constantly advised that issues would be taken care of, however, they were not. Too many issues for a home that you are paying a half million dollars for. Items that were supposed to be handled within two weeks of closing have still not been taken care of almost three months later. Just too many headaches and issues.

Overpriced. Made with the cheapest materials available.

We moved to Drees 2months back. We are not satisfied with quality and workmanship. Some portion of the wood is not stable. It is going down or is soft. Paint finish is not good. Countertop is slanted.

The process can alternatively be described as either a straightjacket or as well organized. There were supply disruptions...which is understandable. But, instead of pausing and waiting, the schedule was maintained, with the result that necessary preconditions for installation of later phases were shortchanged or not met at all. This resulted in mistakes that were difficult to rectify or required compromises.

The overall final product was decent without too many issues - some of which were encountered with COVID-19 issues, but the communication throughout the entire process was terrible. Issues arise and we understand that, but all we asked for was to stay informed and updated but that was never the case and we had to follow up numerous times to get answers.

Overpriced lots and options. Did not meet my expectations