Pulte Home builders

[Curt Leatherbee]

I am currently building a house in Florida and dealing with Pulte Home builders. The division is actually called Divosta homes. They have been great to deal with relating to the accessability modifications I'm having them do. Going to have all roll under counters in the bathrooms and kitchen, no steps, enlarged water closet area, wider closet doors and a number of other mods. They only charged me a total of $3700.00 for all these modifications including the drawing changes and I felt that was very reasonable. I just flew to Florida over last weekend to check things out and was very impressed. They are going to start the inside walls this week. They even did little extras for me, things like lowering the alarm pad, etc. Great and accommadating company to deal with.

[dan_nc]

Curt, that sounds fantastic. good luck with your new home.

[ancientgimp]

That is very reasonable for those kinds of changes, please keep us updated.

[ChesBay]

Sounds like a nice get away from New England winters. Good luck with it.

[Big Tuna]

Thats awesome - gotta love a builder who is understanding and willing to help you out - without upcharging you too much!

[Curt Leatherbee]

I'm amazed how cooperative they have been. I guess Pulte is about the largest home builder in the USA. The whole experience has been a real worry free one. The house is called a Villa home which is attached to another house. I guess they can make them less expensive that way, only one roof and one structure for two houses. Each house is located on a man made fresh water canal, so technically every house is waterview. My only complaint is some of the options are rather expensive. For a screened in cage behind the Lanai they wanted 14 grand. I'm going to doing that at a later date for much less $$$. I'm thinking about adding a nice round cement hot tub under the screened enclosure with a nice rock garden waterfall.

[duramater]

Curt,

A number of years ago, my parents built a Villa home as well. My dad said the same thing about the additions, that they were high priced, but that contracting later with other builders in competition for work down in Florida makes all the difference with the dollars. I can remember that they chose to do the bare minimum with the builders, only the stuff they needed to complete the basic job. Of course, they rented this property for some years, but later came in themselves and sweetened it up quite a bit. Good luck, knowing you, this is a fun project for you. Well deserved.

Mary

[ginamarie]

Pulte has a great reputation. They are the builders who have created the Sun City (http://www.pulte.com/delwebb/find-a-home/Search.aspx?sb=1)over 55 communities. There are 10 of them around the country. They are wonderful places to live in retirement.

[Curt Leatherbee]

Curt,

A number of years ago, my parents built a Villa home as well. My dad said the same thing about the additions, that they were high priced, but that contracting later with other builders in competition for work down in Florida makes all the difference with the dollars. I can remember that they chose to do the bare minimum with the builders, only the stuff they needed to complete the basic job. Of course, they rented this property for some years, but later came in themselves and sweetened it up quite a bit. Good luck, knowing you, this is a fun project for you. Well deserved.

Mary

Yes, that was the route I decieded to take and glad I did. I decieded to forego the screened in area behind the Lanai, I'll do that later. Thinking about doing a round cement hot tub behind the lanai with a nice waterfall garden and nice plants under a large screened enclosure, I'll bet I can do all that for under the 14 grand the builder was talking just for the screen. These improvements will probabley add value equal to what I put into them to the property.

[darty]

I am currently building a house in Florida and dealing with Pulte Home builders. The division is actually called Divosta homes. They have been great to deal with relating to the accessability modifications I'm having them do. Going to have all roll under counters in the bathrooms and kitchen, no steps, enlarged water closet area, wider closet doors and a number of other mods. They only charged me a total of $3700.00 for all these modifications including the drawing changes and I felt that was very reasonable. I just flew to Florida over last weekend to check things out and was very impressed. They are going to start the inside walls this week. They even did little extras for me, things like lowering the alarm pad, etc. Great and accommadating company to deal with.


Pulte built our town home here in Las Vegas in 2003, it's energy efficent and well built. We purchased it late in the construction but they still widened some doorways for us, removed an under counter cabinet for me in the kitchen and set up the bathroom for me. We love our Pulte home and purchased tons of upgrades to make it our dream home. They stand by their product and anything we found not done correctly they fixed with one phone call for the first 5 years so far so good.

GO PULTE!!!

[Curt Leatherbee]

The only thing I'm not real happy about is they are completing the home a lot faster than was on schedule and want me to close soon. They originally told me in September, then August. Just got a message on friday they want me to close now and I'm really not ready to do so, have a lot of other stuff going on and it was not in my plans to close until later this summer. I dont need the place until after October anyhow, not sure whats gonna happen now. I guess I shoulda put in writing that the deal was not to close until after September. I dunno, maybe they can use it as a model or something until then?.

[Sue Pendleton]

ACK! Curt, have you seen the colors and wall papers they use in models? They look great because they are based on making the most of daytime light with shades open. Subconsciously they remind people of interiors on TV. You could wind up with Blanche's house from the Golden Girls. I experimented with a rather deep, bright color in the computer/office room and primer is not as cheap as paint salesman make it out to be when they tell you that painting is the cheapest way to redecorate. Just be prepared if you try that route.

There was no contracted finish date to get your mortgage? Any problems, I'd like to know because this is the last "used" house for us. :-)