Highland Homes Reviews in San Antonio, TX

So many things still need repair as we closed before all work was completed properly due to rising interest rates. Plumbing failed within 4 weeks of moving in and backed up into the bathrooms. Shane is on top of these things and I will be happier when all of the work is completed, but for the price point on this home, I expected things to be much better.

Very difficult process working with Highland. Both closing and builder repairs have been a bad experience - based largely on promises from Highland that they inevitably break (sometimes almost immediately). Setting up closing went well, but the morning of closing I was told the home wasn’t actually finished. I should have seen this big red flag. I went back and forth for a few hours trying to get them to delay the closing for their failure to complete the home on time - but I was promised that everything would be completed within 48 hours of closing. Based on the relatively short list of remaining items they were willing to admit to, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and closed. Mistake on my part - do NOT close with Highland until you are fully satisfied with the condition of your home! Getting them to finish everything else after they have your money is like pulling teeth. Once we finally arrived at the home, we were immediately shocked to see the walls were not painted with the color and quality of paint that was listed in our spec sheet. When we pointed this out to the builder representative, he just didn’t believe us and promised us that the paint was the right color and quality. Clearly, to anyone experienced with interior paint, you can tell from the feel that the paint is not correct. And it should be obvious to anyone that the color is wrong. He promised he would look into it anyway, and he has failed to follow-up after 2+ months. There has been a similar trend with many other items in the home (faulty dishwasher, grout repair n the master bath, replacing a piece of damaged ceiling where a can light was drilled in the wrong location, installing missing pieces of trim, repairing damage to the marble countertops, adjustments to cabinets and drawers, and much more!). After promising us they could easily and quickly fix these items in a matter of weeks, it took more than 2 weeks to even get them to repair one item. If I was to leave my representative alone to figure out everything that needs to be completed, nothing would be done! And often the only response I get from him is “we’ll get right on that, I’ll have someone come out tomorrow,” and three weeks later we’re still waiting for someone to come out. If you do go with Highland, you will HAVE to contact your builder rep multiple times a day for the first month or two, otherwise nothing will get done! And talking to his supervisor wasn’t much different. I was told by the supervisor that he wasn’t aware there were any issues and that we’ll just have to “hit reset” on everything, start fresh, and everything will get back on track. No surprise here - that was also a clever way to shut me up for a week or so and get me off their back. NOT good customer service. And that doesn’t even go into the poor build quality. It’s obviously one of those houses/communities that must be put up as quickly as possible without regard to quality (but you still pay a premium for it). In addition to a terrible paint job, the interior trim (baseboards, door and window casings) is absolutely terrible. For example - very rough joinery that is held together with caulk. It’s bad work and it’s in obvious locations throughout the home. The landscaping was clearly just thrown together in about an hour or two. It doesn’t seem they even prepared or leveled the land underneath the sod - it remains extremely lumpy and difficult to mow. There were even large gaps between sections of sod that were too large for the grass to fill-in naturally. I think we will one day be somewhat satisfied with our home, but it will take a lot of work and out-of-pocket expense on our end to get it there. If you choose Highland, be prepared for that, and stay on top of the builder daily to ensure things are completed correctly and on time. Without constant pressure, they will do it as cheaply as possible, probably still wrong, whenever they can get around to it. Good luck! ... More

Overall have been very satisfied with the quality and service from Highland.

Tough time to build and buy a new home. High prices with limited supplies and limited laborers. Our General Contractor, Dave, did a great job working through issues and working directly with us. Hard to believe we paid such a high price for the home and that’s no one’s fault it’s just the way it is in this current market.

We should be compensated for having to manage the completion of our home, post closing. This is our third new home in four years and this is by far the worst experience. The build process, the attention to detail, the finished product upon delivery at closing was despicable. Had interest rate‘s not been rising we would have made them complete it but my gut is they’re impotent when it comes to fine detail and quality as they were known a few years ago. Three months in our kitchen is still unfinished, we are still pressing the construction team to complete items every day. We have been managing a spreadsheet of simple things. I understand that the tradesmen are a major issue but Highland should add more staff or employed directly to obtain the level of completion and detail that we expect on an $800,000 house. It is so bad in our new neighborhood that a group of Highland owners gathered in the street and talked about a class action lawsuit because of the quality, workmanship, and issues that we are finding in the property. Add to the mix all the homes under construction, the beer cans the trash, the trash, the trash and it’s obvious why our homes are not finished. When you walk a property in there are alcohol containers inside or on the outside such as our house and our neighbors house that is a clue. We feel like educated, experienced, reasonable buyers since we’ve done this with two companies over three new homes across for years. This process that is still unfinished three months after closing Has been the worst nine months in our marriage because we have argued in battles over should we stay or should we go and that continues on a daily basis and that is all due to Highland lack of attention to detail or respect for customers. We will never buy from them again and every person that I talk to I tell our experience and advise them to avoid Highland homes. I feel for their local sales reps and construction lead, the main organization should do more to help the employees serve the customer. I likened our experience to their previous manager when I said have you ever stood on the assembly line of your new dodge pick up and made sure that the corporation was putting every piece where it needed to go, every fit and finish with perfect? Do you get frustrated when you have to take your vehicle back for a recall? We have purchased something that is 14 times the value of your truck and yet on a daily basis we are having to manage the construction and completion of this home and you would never go for that for your new pick up. Overall a horrible experience, and I don’t get angry as I look at my kitchen countertop that is still incomplete, missing molding, while I make coffee Everywhere in this house to include barn doors that are 2 inches too small for the opening is a reminder that unless we argue, push, fight for what we paid for Island homes will do their best to take advantage of us. ... More

For the most part the home is very nice. Quite a few of the finishes are cheap for the price we paid for the home and we've needed lots of things fixed, straightened, touched up, or replaced already. Somethings are fixed quickly and others have taken a very long time. Double check the listing you buy from as well. Ours said the house would come with gutters...it didn't, a double oven, it didn't, and other things like this.

I am reasonably disappointed with our home. I DO NOT think we got what we paid for. I have owned a number of homes over the years, several of them were new construction homes like this one. While this one was the most expensive by double, it was the least well constructed. Too many cost-cutting measures. As an example, for a home that cost over $750,000, EVERY home on our block has the exact same outdoor fixtures (excluding doors which are an option). The master bedroom closet is well appointed but the poles that hold hangers are extremely cheap and skinny 3/4 inch diameter instead of 1-1/2 inch wood poles as would be expected in a home of this price. It appears that subcontractors are either required or encouraged to slap their parts of the house together as quickly and cheaply as they can, and then they ARE PAID to come back and fix mistakes later. Tell me how this doesn't always end in the subcontractor being financially encouraged to screw up. We had to have nearly the entire roof replaced prior to closing due to just this kind of effort. The home is turned over to you in a manner described by the supervisor as "Contractor Clean" (His words and this was related to me by my neighbors as well). I would not want to live in a home with a contractor if this is the case. Just cleaning my floors required 4-5 hours with a Swifter and an entire box of Swifter pads. It was filthy. One of the guest bathroom tubs had a dent with rust in it prior to mounting COMPLETELY installed with tile around it so of course when shown prior to closing, all of the tile had to be removed in order to replace it. Two months after closing, we are still having to get things repaired not because they have failed, but simply because they were allowed to be left uncorrected. Outdoor fence was installed with only one nail on each support, randomly placed and disrepair a guaranteed occurrence with the first wind. I have never, ever had a home this poorly constructed. EVER. To their credit, the sales rep and the construction supervisor have a positive attitude and do make the effort to assist us but the people who make decisions over this process are clearly overpaid and underqualified. ... More

Sales team in Ventana is fabulous. However the shortages and manpower caused us numerous headaches. We had a list of over 50 uncompleted items when we moved in. After 3 months it is still not completed. Bette attention paid to this would be helpful. I do still think Highland builds a great home.

First off I want to say that through all the delays and issues the construction manager Mark has been wonderful. I have not been made to feel like Highland homes won’t make an effort to fix issues as they are brought up. Another positive is that Highland Homes has a policy that makes sure that once you place a deposit you lock in the current “price” so your insulated from price hikes… idk how useful that will be as the housing market is priming for a cool down… so maybe that’s a moot point. With that being said, if I could sum up the construction of our home in one word, it would be “sloppy”. It’s truly embarrassing and I would like to think that if a C-level representative from Highland Homes cared to tour a finished product, that they would be dumbfounded at the lack of craftsmanship and attention to detail that went into our home. You’ll walk through the model and think your buying a near custom level quality home but make no mistake — the same worker that is building 100k-200k homes are the same building 800k-1M homes and it shows. Bottom line if you don’t have to buy a house right now- don’t. And if you do, strap in because once you have keys in hand it doesn’t mean your house is actually done. Until Highland either changes contracted service providers or holds the people doing the work to a higher standard with more QA/QC nothing will be “fixed”. ... More

I closed and moved in before all items on the punch out list were completed and responsiveness to my issues took a very long time to coordinate and finish.

Highland Homes is an exceptional builder. The team effort from the true professional selling and selection experience to every aspect of the construction of your dream home. Highland is truly committed to making the home you want not just the home other builders wants to build. We shopped every builder in Davis Ranch and Highland stood out far above the others. We trust them so much we are building our second home for another family member with them. Highland Homes is your only stop if you are looking to build or buy in Davis Ranch...

Enjoyed the experience with the sales rep.

Great value for the price. Materials were great, but combination of colors was not. Designers are recommended to combine colors better.

From beginning to end we were told honest answers to our questions. There are a few different builders in our neighborhood and we have seen many homes go untouched for weeks and months, but Kel set the expectations every week and followed through!

1st and foremost customer service Anthony my superintendent was Amazing, his responsiveness to small issues that came about after move in was in a timely manner, and was always communicating with me when issues would be resolved. I would highly recommend Highland Home for their attention to detail and 5 stat customer service.

Overall we are happy with the home. We have wanted to build this floor plan for several years. The architectural styling is very aesthetically pleasing. The high ceilings make the house feel very comfortable. Unfortunately, building the house was a painful process. Seems like current housing demands and supply of crews significantly impacted the process. Current supply shortages required brick, rock and granite re-selection. Most of the sub-contractors seem to rush through their work, leading to many items requiring revision. The quality of work seemed to not be of importance, unless addressed by the consumer. It did feel that only a few crews took pride in their work (mason, cabinetry, landscape). Some steps of the build seemed to be out of order (carpet installed prior to paint/trim work completion) leading to stained carpet. The original estimation of the home completion was five months. The build ended up taking 13 months from date of signing. A home that had the foundation poured two days before ours, was completed two months ahead of ours. Closing day was chaos. Normally one would not close until all pending repairs were completed. However, we had been stuck in an apartment for longer than anticipated. Fortunately the warranty claim submission process is streamlined and the construction manager stays on top of pending items. ... More

This is our 3rd Highland home. We had a great experience working with the Highland team leading up to the purchase. Completing the punch list after the purchase has been challenging.

We contracted on our home in October 2020 and did not close until February 2022. There were many delays from our foundation being poured incorrectly that halted the progress on our home. We paid a premium up charge for painted brick only to have crooked unlevel bricks installed throughout the exterior. We had upgraded carpet that was installed prior to the finish out of the home that was not protected and allowed workers to walk throughout home leaving muddy boot prints. Our closing date changed 11 times from September 2021. We had 5 closing date changes in January 2022 alone. The day we closed on the home there was trash all throughout the yard and had to ask multiple times to have it cleaned up. We are still finding nails and razors in our yard. We closed with about 20 items incomplete on our affidavit and are still waiting to have the last remaining items remedied almost 3 months later. Our warranty list of items after move in is quite long from improperly installed frameless shower to damaged doors. The builder seems to be dragging their feet with most of these items and we have not received the quality and service you would expect from a builder when you purchase a 600k plus home with what is supposed to be a premium builder that prides themselves over customer service. ... More

We closed on our house with an affidavit for needed repairs/home finishings. We assumed it'd be done withing 14 days. We're over 2 months in and all of the repairs are still not complete. We've had to take multiple days off work to accommodate contractors, etc.! We had a third party contractor show up at our house to serve us a hand written "notice" that they haven't been paid by Highland and plan to take action. I met the guy while he was building the deck before we purchased the home. It's not my first pick of people to have showing up in the evening angry with my 15 month old in the house. We bought in a gated community with one of the "top home builders" and paid over market value. I really feel like Highland is a joke and focused on selling "projected builds" while the housing bubble is still high to yield profit. They're getting ahead of themselves and selling more than they can build/supply to take advantage of the market. If I could do it again, I'd go with Perry. ... More

Highlands was highly recommended to us. But the workmanship was not close to what we saw in model home or website.

I like the floor plan.

We specifically told the Highland Home Representatives, unlike others we were in no rush for the home but rather wanted quality work and material used in the process verses speed in trying to move into the home. What we got was very poor quality work that required us to bring in a third party inspector and maintain a detailed list of issues that required no less than four internal inspections by us and continueing to maintain and demand the list be addressed in order to get through the buying process. You have zero quality control in your process and only look to push the home out in hopes of the naive buyer just taking the home. A perfect example was that we were told to come do a final orientation/inspection only to find that insulation was missing throughout the ceiling and so many other deficiencies that I had to call the Highland representative to ask her to come to the home so I could show her the pages of quality issues with home that they were pushing us to close on. It was also very clear that steps were performed out of place, which caused additional delays and costs to your companies. Blame it on the sub's is a common statement, yet these subs were hired by your company and no-one validated or inspected their work. Only because our insistence, did these issues get addressed. This required me to assign one of my employees to site in the home and ensure that the issues were validated as completed, given the lack of confidence at this point in the building process. Keep in mind, I made it clear we wanted a quality product and was willing to except delays (given we were in the middle of the Pandemic), yet we were pushed to accept a sub-par home for half a million dollars. We finally got things done correctly but it required way to much effort on our part in the building process, and surely would not lead us to recommend your company to any others. Your company lacks defined processes and a real quality control system. I own a company that does work for the Government, and use a detailed quality control system on the services we provide. Your company desperately needs a formal Quality Control Process, that is outside that of the superintendent, who appears to be overwhelmed. My hope is that you gain some insight into your process with real feedback, but I believe you will just continue your existing ways, which can only survive in times when competition does not really exist. You need a real Quality Control System that tracks and reports on all work performed. Good Luck ... More

I was very surprised at the rudeness of building construction mgr. Shane H. The house slab not level, roof has studs pushing shingles in a lot of roof areas, kitchen cabinets color miss match and drawers get stuck, windows not square floor molding not level and open in lots of areas, washing machine room has missing tile, front entry slab not level (during rain entry flooded)all this after only one month in house. I love bigger house but not poor workmanship. High priced but over all poor workmanship and management of build. I now feel like a number not personal person homeowner. A lot of these items were on closing construction mgr. followup list . I closed on house and now I do not exist but a low number on priority. I felt disrespected by Shane G. at closing. ... More

Boy, they are excellent and trusrworthy

Our home was rushed to close. The day of closing it was not complete and we were promised it would be that day. Shame on us for trusting. We expected outstanding quality with highland homes, we did not get that quality. Everywhere I look I see a rushed home build. So disappointing.