M/I HOMES

My family has suffered enough with M/I Homes over the greater part of two years that I beg you not to build with them. They will try and convince you that your situation will be different but I promise you that it will NOT. I have never experienced a more immoral, unprofessional, and disrespectful company. The list of promises they have failed to deliver on (or have only completed after repeated phone calls, e-mail, etc.) is too long to mention but I will name a few: -We closed in December 2014...we did not get a yard until that July and this was after multiple phones calls and e-mails. -They failed to have internet/cable lines put in for the new section of the neighborhood that we built in so we had no choice but to use Dish to at least have internet for work. We were told that we should sign up for Dish and submit our receipt and M/I would reimburse us completely. After signing the contract and submitting the receipt we were told by M/I that we were misinformed and that they never intended to do that. Instead we were given a check for $500 which didn't even cover the cancellation fees. -We were originally told our home would begin being built in Spring of 2013 and it wasn't started until Fall and we didn't close until December...don't even get me started on the closing process...what a nightmare! -We have tile flooring in the entry, kitchen, bathrooms and laundry. The kitchen and master bathroom have been re-grouted once already (in November 2014) and are already cracking and discolored. The other bathroom and laundry room need to be repaired as well. We are now having trouble getting the flooring issue to be resolved. -The customer care department has repeatedly failed to communicate promptly and required us to send multiple e-mails, phone calls, and go to upper leadership in order to get a response. We had taken time off work to have our 1-year walk through done with the guarantee that the flooring company would be coming as well to discuss our concerns. The flooring company did not come and we found out later that the customer care department had failed to contact them. I really could go on and on about the poor quality of this "business." In my opinion, they are only concerned about making money and not about the quality of their homes or their customer service. Please do not waste your time or your sanity. It is NOT WORTH IT.

All went as planned and explained. Customer service during the build was outstanding.

I purchased an existing MI Home from the homeowner in Sept 2012. The house was built in Sept 2009. There are two major problems with the house, and I thought they should help with this. This past winter all the windows on the north side of the house had ice on the INSIDE of them. In addition the sliding door had the lock BREAK OFF. The metal must have been defective, because it just snapped in half. I was informed by Mr. Reedy that the windows were out of warranty. Who does not warrant there windows for at least 5 years! The house needs all the windows and doors replaced. This is very sad for a 5 year old home. They could not tell me what brand the windows were, but they did tell me where they purchased them. The other major issue is the cement fiber siding on the house. There was a recall on the siding, but we were never notified. The neighbor told us when they were taking pictures to try to show that there house needed the siding replaced. We filled out and filed all the proper forms. I informed the neighbor on the other side of the issue. Evidently they went and sat in the MI Homes office until they got someone to talk to them. The next week, they had there siding replaced completely on one wall by MI Homes. MI Homes will not discuss the issue. I think this is unfair treatment. If they take care of the situation for one homeowner, why not the house next door. FYI- Our siding is starting to crumble. When we bought the house, the inspector did not think it was installed properly. The prior home owner gave us a letter from MI Homes stating that the siding was good and was properly installed. It is not totally clear whether they knew about the recall when they wrote the letter. Regardless, they did not tell us about the issue later. Overall, the house is pretty well built. They definitely cut corners though, especially on the windows.

Run!! Do not buy from MI. They are the shadiest, most corner cutting people I've ever done business with. The only reason we built with MI over other local builders was because they owned 1 lot, the best available lot, in the neighborhood we wanted to be in, and they had a fairly nice floor plan that we felt was different and fun. Unfortunately, two years after first walking into their sales office, we truly regret the day. I literally could type a bible thick review of all the shady, cheap, low life moves they've done to me and my family. But, it still wouldn't do it justice. We bought a for well over $350,000 and literally have the quality of home you'd expect to see in the ghetto. Suffice it to say, anybody who does business with this guys after reading this review is a fool. M/I's sales pitch is "Get More with M/I"....and that couldn't be more accurate.....more stress, more headache, more regret, and more d*cked around. Let me summarize my experience with a few short examples of what we've dealt with..... 1) They were supposed to blow in over 13 inches of insulation into our attic.....our inspector (during our home inspection...yes, you should do this even with new build homes) found they only blew in 5 (FIVE) inches instead of the 13 plus, which is not only less than half of what they advertised, but it is less than half of code. But, the best part is, even after catching them in an inspection, they did not fix it. Instead, they blew just enough around the attic opening to make it look like they fixed it. But, when you went about 10 ft out, it got thin again. The reason we caught it is because we could not keep our bedrooms warm during the winter.....even with our heat setting at 76!!! We thought it was an HVAC issue, but when the HVAC company came out, they noticed the lack of insulation. Sure enough, they screwed us twice, even after we found it in the inspection report. Saddest part is this.....they did the same thing to another home just up the street!!! This wasn't a mistake....they were cheating people to save a buck. 2) Our house had been dried in for a month, already had drywall up, walls painted, and cabinets in the kitchen ready to be installed. One night, we had a bad rain. So, I went out there to check on the house (because there had been a leak in the roof earlier in the build process). Sure enough, the house had tons of standing water pooled in the 2nd floor, main floor kitchen, and basement. The cabinets in the kitchen were sitting in half an inch of water. Now, any honest builder would have not only NOT installed those cabinets, but they would have ripped out the drywall and made sure no risk of mold was there. Not MI....I went out the next morning at approx 10 am to find all cabinets installed and the subfloors sanded down so there was no evidence of a leak. They literally went out of their way to hide it and move on so they didn't have to redo any work. I made them (eventually, after a lot of threats and back and forth) pull most of it down and redo it, but still....not because they cared about doing it right or giving me a house with mold. 3) Because of some of the leaks mentioned above, I long suspected a wall had moisture in it. They fought me forever on it and made me feel like I was just a complicated and difficult customer. So, one night I stuck into the house and pull down the wall and insulation. Sure enough, there was so much water on the insulation and walls that my hand was soaked each time I touched it. I took dozens of pictures and you can see the water glistening......even drops hanging off nails, etc.. 4) Our most expensive upgrade was a very expensive hardwood floor (the priciest they sold). These floors were so poorly installed we have actually hired a lawyer to sue them and have them reinstalled. Over half of the boards were not tightly fit together, so we have HUGE gaps in between them. The gaps are SO big, we have to vaccume out certain gaps after we sweep because the dirt will just sweep into the cracks and pile up. What is the point of having hardwoods if you can't sweep them. We've measures some gaps up to 3/8 of an inch....our floors a gray, and you'll plainly see tan strips where the floors are so spaced that you see the tongue and goes between one board to the next. As if that wasn't bad enough, at just 14 months old, our floors sound like an 1800's house's floor....every other step creaks. New floors in a new home should be fairly quiet.....IF done right. However, if cheap labor rushes it and doesn't nail it down right, it sounds like ours. Our house is worth over $400,000 and our floors look like a sloppy DIY job. 5) We've lived in this house for 16 months now and we are literally still trying to get them to response/fix legitimate warranty issues that we pointed out in our 90 warranty walkthrough. If you give MI a list of 10 things, they'll fix 1 of those things and then blow you off long enough hoping you'll forget about the other 9 or simply give up. To make this worse, EVERY SINGLE TIME they've been in the house they have messed something up!!! Literally! They even damaged our hardwoods so much they had to rip sections up and replace them over 4 different times! Even when you get them to actually TRY to fix the issues, the ''fix'' is so half *ssed it has to be fixed a few times before it gets done right (i.e. every time painters have came in they'd not do some of the areas I pointed out, and they'd always do a sloppy job on some walls (aka leave bristles and roller marks on the walls), or they'd drip paint on trim and floors not clean it up. MI is literally the kings of cheap, sloppy, ''I don't care as long as I get paid" labor, and MI just does not care about treating the customer fair or doing a job right. Period. Case and point, with all the times I've had MI come out to fix things, they've stood me up probably 10% of the time....literally, there have been multiple situations where I took off work to meet somebody and they would cancel, no show, and reschedule. And after everything...guess what! Yep, we still have things they have not fixed, and won't even respond to our emails to set up a time to fix them. It is literally unbelievable. If it wasn't happening to me and my family, I'd probably laugh at how comical it is. 6) Horrible finishing touches....and I mean HORRIBLE. I've been in a lot of houses......from very nice and expensive homes to very modest ones. I also have dozens of friends who recently bought and built homes in my price point. I have NEVER, NEVER, seen a home that shows all the mud seems in the walls AND IN THE CEILING!!! like we have in our home. MI is the KINGS OF CHEAP LABOR. From seeing visible seems in our ceiling - even though the ceilings are textured! - to missing weather strips on outside doors...which allowed huge drafts in our home before we caught it.....you can just tell every corner that could be cut was, just like i explained above with the attic insulation. In fact, one of the issues we still have outstanding with them is there is a huge draft coming from our direct vent, gas fireplace. They have already done a lot of work to it, and it is better now....but it still isn't all the way good. Several month ago, however, they sent a crew out to take a look.....their own fireplace inspector wrote in his report "draft in living room feels like you're standing outside in a strong gust of wind". Turns out, the outside firebox was missing a whole trim piece and didn't have ANY insulation whatsoever in the gap. Sad thing is, it took several months of paying super high heating and cooling bills to get that fixed....and here we are several months later and are still dealing with this, and many other issues that resulted from sloppy workmanship! 7) We've had SEVERAL things explained to us one way in the the sales process, and then delivered differently......we've had to fight tooth and nail to get somethings switched back to how things were in our contract. One example was the brick.....the brick was chose in the design center was clean and pretty....and almost grey brick, that we felt went with our contemporary style. However, when they installed the brick to our house it had ORANGE flakes/spots exposed all over it. It turns out the brick was not a real brick (so to speak), but was a orange brick with a gray veneer plastered over the front (this is a cheaper product for the builder to use than bricks that are consistent all the way through). We were never once told the brick had a cheap veneer front. Nor did the sample in the design center give even the slightest hint of orange being able to show up on the brick. But there it was......our greenish looking home was spotted with HUGE, ugly orange spots. We literally hated our home and was about to walk away....I would have walked away if it was my choice, but my wife wanted the lot..... they ended up paying us some money, but it was after a week of intense arguing, stressing, and almost even getting into a fight with their customer service guy because he was a jerk, so unsympathetic, and deeply offended my wife in the way he was talking to (read scolding) her and I for being ''difficult'' Just a HUGE jerk. Literally ruined our ''new home'' buzz the week of closing. I could go on FOREVER....there are so many stories I could share that are even worse that this stuff....but it takes more time to really explain. For the purposes of this review, suffice it to say I HATE MI. I'd live in a trailer before I built with MI again. Every angle of their business process (sales, customer service, building, etc.) was tainted, misleading, shady, and bad. Building with them has probably shaved 12 years off my life...not worth it. I know there are a lot of shady builders out there, but MI and their army of cheap, shady labor force really takes the cake. Literally, we had to send a few guys home they were so drunk they were sweating all over. And Ryan, our job SV, was the worst!

In the beginning the process went very well. We loved the neighborhood, and the sales rep. was responsive & helpful. We started feeling a bit apprehensive when we went for our first planning apt. at the offices on Keystone Ave. The planning process was impersonal & we were rushed throughout the apt. It felt more like we were purchasing a used car than a home (this continued to be true throughout all stages). Building started on our home in late spring. Many things went wrong with the home from the beginning: The basement flooded multiple times, the second floor / floor boards were already creaking, the upgraded kitchen counters were poorly done with rough edges and multiple seams (even a seam down the middle of the kitchen island). The quality of the upgraded carpets was sickening......we upgraded for a more expensive carpet & padding, but the poor quality of even the upgraded carpets was unbelievable. But, the "deal-breaker" came when the house was being bricked. The brick looked as though a kindergarten child had completed it with extra-wide mortar joints in some areas, and tight joints in others. The left-front of the house actually looked like a cartoon house with the top of the house wider than the bottom where the workers had gotten off track the further they worked up the house. (After we complained and asked to speak with administration they did tear- out the most poor quality of the brick, and re-bricked this section). There was also mortar-wash all over the front of the house, and mortar slung / dropped on almost all sections. When the brick was completed, they washed the mortar off at our request. While washing the brick with a pressure-washer, the workers sprayed water in the outside outlets, and the outlets shorted-out and caught on fire. Thankfully, no one was injured (to our knowledge), but the outlet was ruined and the brick singed black in this area. We backed-out of the deal at this point, and MI Homes did refund our down-payment. But, we were out multiple trips from out- of- state where we were living at the time, hours & hours of our time, and the stress of dealing with a company that acted as though these things were commonplace. We were told that we noticed more things than most other people purchasing / building homes. Please be aware that there is very little supervision / oversight of the building process with this company. All of the work is sub-contracted and the work is completed in fragments with almost no oversight during the process. You may love the beautiful neighborhoods, as we did, but quality is not a priority with this company.

Poor quality of carpet and window screens. Did not inform that water softener is essential in this area, thus impacting performance of dishwasher, laundry, calcium deposits. This was not even suggested as an option. Reseeding the back lawn was promised but never completed by M/I. Two broken bricks at front entrance were to be replaced...never done. Customer service dept receptionist was polite but was never followed by actual service.

Tried to buy house. Price raised 5000 dollars over night while talking with them. Also interest rates rose. Then had date I had to buy or their deal ended. Every time I talked with them something changed. Then the payment went up with a 6000 dollar down payment.Go figure!

Jeff Forey with MI Homes is amazing and he was not a pushy salesman. Not only is he has well versed on his product, but also has a great deal of integrity. He always answered my questions immediately, but never pushed me to buy and let the quality of his product speak for itself. After investigating multiple builders I came back to MI. I was impressed with their quality and the way they do business. Everyone I worked with at the design center and at MI financial was sincere and honest. They weren't trying to sell me something to benefit themselves, they truly wanted to help me find what was going to work best for me. In addition, they went above and beyond to get my needs met in a situation that I would have never expected it. They do business with a great deal of integrity. Overall I was truly impressed with my experiences so far and will be closing on my new home in November. Jeff Forey comes with my highest recommendation. I would recommend MI to close friends and family.

About two years ago, I started having plumbing problems in the house. I am a single person living in a three bedroom house so my plumbing needs are not unusual. I sarted having problems with repeated backups in the plumbing line from the two toilets in my house. On one weekend, both toilets plugged up, backing up both my shower, two bathtubs, and two toilets. I had a plumber come out immediately as it would have been an unsafe health hazard to not address the situation immediately. The plumber informed me that the plumbing pipe had been laid incorrectly and was in fact slopping back into the house rather than away from the house. It took several hours to pump out the pipes. M/I refused to pay for the repair stating that the situation was not an emergency. At that point, I installed a higher powered toilet in an attempt to overcome the pipe problem. Unfortunately, the same problem reappeared a mere nine months later. This time, the plumber rippped the entire length of piping from the front of the house to the master bedroom in the rear of the house to ensure the proper slope of the piping. At this time, I was told that the original piping had not complied with the building code because there was an inadequate number of support struts supporting the original piping. When I contacted M/I to fix the issue, they replied that the problem did not qualify as a structural one. I have never worked with a builder who has been so unresponsive and so disinterested in keeping homeowners satisfied.