Highland Homes Reviews in Austin, TX

This is my second Highland Home & the experience has been pretty bad. Since I met with one builder at pre-construction meeting& then another took over I don’t think there was any real ownership of my build. Things just did not get done as promised. Shallow stairs are not, lighting changes were not done as told, trades that did the paint, grout, fence, fixtures, flooring were just sloppy. Job site was the dirtiest I have ever seen & I have had 5 homes built.

Of the 4 primary homes I purchased in the last decade, this was one of the WORST home buying experience I have been through. The quality of work done for a model home is bad and after sale service is poor. I’m giving 2 stars rating since the Sales representative was exceptional

We had a great experience working with Highland Homes and the entire team at Santa Rita Ranch, including Amy, Jake, and Larry. They were kind, courteous, responsive, and made us feel heard throughout the process. There were some hiccups and long delays as a result of some construction team turnover, but we were able to work through those and are happy with the final product.

While ultimately, we believe that we made the right home purchase for us. the process needs some work. The salesman tells you that Highland Homes can't do certain things and then we find out that for other buyers they might/or will. They tend to blame things on the Developer to get out of doing things for the Buyer. The Builder tried very hard to accomodate us; but ultimately he's limited by what he's told he can or cannot do. The quality of work is lacking. They need to adopt a motto of 'doing it right the first time'. It's got to be costing them a lot of money to come back 3+ times on some issues (cleaning off the brick; having a poor choice of blinds on the back door; substandard work on the tile in the master shower; etc...). The grass they chose is a poor choice for a backyard that gets lots of shade; their landscaper told us so; yet the Salesman would not let us choose a better grass. The wood-look ceramic tile grout is not sealed; and if we seal it within the warranty period, the warranty is voided. The same thing applies to putting in dimmer switches; the warranty is voided. There was about a 3/4 to 1 inch gap between our front door and the door sill. It took nearly two months to get it fixed. We had to jam a small rug under the door to keep bugs and critters out. We were told that we had left over paint in our attic, but none was there. The list goes on. They are all friendly folks; but getting things done right the first time is not their strong suit. ... More

High quality home builder and a great floorplan. Our experience was amazing from start to finish. We love our home!

Today is a good example ( almost 7 weeks after we closed) the doorknobs we paid for were not installed. Instead, we received the "standard" doorknobs. We were told that they'd be here today around 8:30 am and it is now 12:15 pm and no one has yet come. This has happened too many times to count! Love our salesman and the head of the building department but they are not keeping after some of their workers or vendors!

We built our retirement home in La Cima and we are so pleased we went with Highland Homes! We love everything from the floor plan options to the interior selections we were able to make for our home. We had an excellent experience with our Highland salesperson and our construction manager who stayed in communication with us during the building process. They were attentive and responsive throughout the entire process and worked very well with us to make sure we ended up with our dream retirement home!

During the building process, we had no issue. We knew the build timeline would take longer due to the industry's current environment. However, not everything was completed prior to our close date and the warranty experience has not been very enjoyable. I wish there was more communication/responsiveness.

Highland homes has always been known for exceptional customer service. However, post pandemic I do feel that the bottom line, making money, has now trumped what highland homes has stood for for so long. The experience of buying a home with highland was supposed to be an amazing experience, so I thought. Little did I know that we would experience such horrible things in route to closing and honestly after closing. Highland waited until 2 days before our closing date in December to push our close date out 2 weeks. There was zero transparency in the decision making process on when or why our close would be pushed. What was more horrible about the situation was that my family and I had moved half way across the country and would now be stuck in a hotel. Once our close was push and I was physical close enough to check on the house, there was literally no work done on the home for the first 2 weeks that the home was pushed out, thus forcing another closing push by highland homes. To make matters worse, my home family contracted Covid while staying in the hotel and no place to separate or quarantine. Highland homes offered no compensation at that time for any of our hotel stay. Finally after 3 and half weeks in a hotel we finally closed in mid to late January. However, there were and still are so many poorly crafted aspects of the home that need to be fixed. All in all these are my thoughts: I feel like highland home was ok with allowing customers to spend top dollar on their homes but were not concerned at all with the customer experience during the process. That is a direct contradiction of what highland homes’ values have always been. I also felt that highland homes struggled with having labor to actually build our home. If there was a lack of labor, customers deserve to know that so that way they can have realistic expectations. Also, the labor that they did have to build our homes was poor as so many things that they installed had to be fixed and still need to be fixed post close. My wife and I never heard from any of the project managers involved in building our home, given the fact that there were so many project delays. If your bottom line is customer service, then you start with transparency and communication. Communication is a foundational pillar of any relationship of any kind and if you don’t have that then the relationship suffers tremendously. We are two years removed from Covid and materiel availability has remained an issue. Staying ahead of the supply chain and offering customers knowledge of who the vendors are and any vendor issues in real time would also help customers have realistic expectations. Highland should know that you can’t just hide behind your product and your words. It has to be your actions. Given the last year of building our home with highland and all that we have experienced, highland homes a great deal of work to do to restore the faith that we initially had in them being one of the nations best builders. ... More

Brooke and Jeremy were fantastic. They were always available when I needed them and did everything they said they would. I highly recommend Highland!

Great work during tough times. Some things were delayed but that’s completely understandable.co-operative on certain ask and satisfied on overall completion.

I am happy as a highland home buyer. Sales team helped me from beginning and later builder team took care of all our requirements and helped me at every stage of construction. They continuously gave updates through my construction phase and delivered as per the promise. I am happy to recommend for anyone

Overall, the quality of the home we purchased from Highland is good. Being able to see work that was put in behind the walls was encouraging. Unfortunately, it is clear that the builder was pushing to close before the end of the year to lower their tax burden on a developed lot vs the raw land it was before the building process began. The finishing topics in several places were sloppy and it felt like the term "in compliance" was used many times during our walk through. We were only able to complete our first walkthrough 5 days prior to closing so almost all blue/green tape fixes occurred after closing. Since the home was "completed" so close to closing, there was almost no option to shop around for mortgage rates because of the 14 day window lenders suggest so the only option was to go with the highland home loans, who's rates are higher than what we were offered elsewhere. The list of items to complete post closing it quite long and we were pressured by the project manager to sign the open items list about a month after closing with none of the items completed. It is currently almost 2.5 months after closing and most of the items are still open. Another issue we had was a leak resulting from when the sidewalk was poured. both downstairs bathrooms and the master closet flooded. I wouldn't have expected this to be caught since the issue was underground but the repair has been very slow. It's been nearly 2 months since the event and most of the repairs are still outstanding. We are happy to be in a home but performance from the builder was as continues to be frustrating for us. ... More

Work was very rushed. Very disappointed with the purchase. I'm still dealing with issues on repairs to be completed that should have been done before forcing me to close just to make a year end number. Worst experience I've had ever buying a new home.

very quick respond from the Builder

Great sales consultant. Poor workmanship throughout the entire house from the carpet, to the cabinets, to the floor, to the shoe moldings, to the paint, to the plumbing, to the windows. All of these items had issues and has negatively impacted my home buying experience with highland homes. We chose Highland homes because of the high quality that was promised and expected. Unfortunately, we will not be recommending a highland home to family and friends.

Even though my home was far delayed due to supply chain issues, it should never have been closed when it did due to problems that should have been handled pre-closing. The front door doesn't seal and going on 4 months not fixed - allows insects and cold air into the house. One of the walls is 4 inches off spec per several post build contractors informed me about - causing the trim of kitchen cabinets to not be aligned correctly. Severe damage inside a cabinet that was not caught by the builder during their own pre-closing inspection. That, despite them discouraging me to get my own independent inspector within a week and a half of closing. Water holds in the back yard due to poor grading. Some wall sections are not straight. Framing was poorly done. Painting was sloppy and missed in some areas, painted over cabinets in others. Some window's aren't framed square and require custom fixes. Baseboard that had a seam in the middle of a room when it should be a single run. Ethernet drop wasn't put in and took a month to fix. Careless attention to detail and a rushed build on top of a price increase while I was ready to sign but management and thus communication disappeared for weeks before changing hands. Wouldn't honor original pricing. The list goes on. ... More

Even though the build of our home took longer than expected (due to factors outside of Highland Homes' control), we stayed informed at every step of the way, which is something very important to me. My construction manager did a phenomenal job at checking his own work and now that I've been in my home for several months, I've yet to come across any quirks that usually result from some degree of carelessness. I fully trust Highland Homes at Santa Rita Ranch and would very likely be looking at Highland Homes if I were to do a new build again.

There were some issues but overall they turned out a great product and was very responsive

Good builder. Good quality home. Had a great experience with the sales rep and construction manager. Highly recommended.

kiara honest builder delivers on time and fixes issues

Highland Homes has a great sales team. We never had any questions unanswered. Though we liked our building manager, highland homes outsources all the work and lacks a quality team and building manager hardly does quality check, We ended up following on many things after closing ( from a minor thing such as front door weather strip to a leaked window replacement ) which is frustrating at times.

Overall happy with our new home. Some punch list issues still exist that have been difficult to get much traction on.

The quality of the materials and workmanship in Highland homes is not what you would expect for houses of this price range, the wood they used in our house during pandemic supply chain issues was substandard, base boards and all interior trim were installed as fast as possible leaving behind A LOT of small little cosmetic issues, if there is a spot where is hard to see around the trim, chances are there is no paint on it. If we try to remove a small stain from a wall using a damp cloth, the paint dissolves and the paper that wraps the drywall gets exposed immediately, several crooked electrical outlets around the house and a long list of small issues. They claim to cover all under their warranty, but they of course don't come to install higher quality materials you claim warranty fixes, they just come to fix things using the same original materials and they will give you 4-5 hours windows that you have to stay home from Monday to Friday for every single detail you need to get fixed. They offer competitive prices for the BASE model of the houses, but things that you would expect to be standard are not, everything is an upgrade and once you are done "upgrading" your house you are at least 50K - 60K above the "base price". ... More

Due to the workmanship and materials for my new home, I will not recommend others to build house with HighlandHome.