Our experience with Hakes Brothers was phenomenal. Jeremy, Matt and JJ were attentive, knowledgeable and made our experience special. The attention to detail to displayed for our home was exceptional. Their willingness to go above and beyond to address any and all concerns was amazing. They're part of a great team.
Hakes Brothers provided exceptional customer service the minute I walked into the model home in El Paso, TX. Henry greeted my son and I with a big smile and quickly assisted us by showing us all the model homes available. His expertise in Hakes Brothers homes quickly convinced us that a Hakes Brothers home would be ours one day. My son and I had seen many different model homes from most builders in our city, and after being homeless for a few months, we quickly regained our smiles knowing our dream of owning our own home would soon come true. After qualifying, Henry continued to walk us through the home building process and made sure to connect us with the correct personnel. When our home was complete, Albert walked the home with us and made sure it was just how we had dreamed it. It amazes me how the Hakes Brothers team worked together to take care of their customers. The only disappointment we had was the paint job in front of the home. I have expressed my concerns about the paint job being redone and have been waiting for about 2 months. I know Hakes Brothers will respond to my concerns. I am very happy with our home and definitely tell everyone Hakes Brothers builds the best homes!
Everyone was great, but due to circumstances brought on by the pandemic there was issues with our home.
THE NEGATIVE: Imagine the disbelief in buying a brand new car that was handed over to you dusty, dirty interior, holes in your radiator, and the car was built by an inexperienced mechanic. Well please continue reading to understand my analogy. There have been many issues that started when the frame of the home was going up through the closing/hand off of the home from Hakes Brothers. Majority of the issues had to be brought up multiple times, again and again, before the issue was "resolved". Some of the framework in our home is mediocre which we'd assume is due to a lack of experience on the contracted framers, not sure who that would be. Example, some hallway edges/corners do not run parallel with the rest of the hallway, sad. Tubing within the walls for the wires where your TV would be mounted are not even aligned accurately so at this point, they serve no purpose. At handoff, the home was handed over to us DIRTY. Thick dust, never wiped cabinet shelving. Upstairs bathtub was handed over scratched and stained with purple plumbers liquid, which does not come out. Lighting under cabinet stopped working. Carpet has tack strip poking out of carpet which has already poked our feet several times, even enough to make my child's foot cut open and bleed. Tile floors were supposedly "mopped" but not to anyone's standard or approval. Superintendent stated the cleaners were going to be called back, but of course that never happened. Tile was eventually attempted to be "cleaned" with Lemon Pledge, yes that's correct, Lemon Pledge. I've never seen or heard of using that product to clean tile floors. In my opinion is was to give the floors the appearance of being "shiny and clean" which it was far from. There was/is grout and concrete everywhere, still getting it out to this day (45 days later), along with dirty water drip marks on wall tiles. There are countless holes in the grout throughout the home, including showers. They called out someone to patch the grout but there are still holes in the grout in the showers. Before the carpet was installed, the office room was used to cut wood for the railings in our home, thus sawdust everywhere. One would expect the walls to be cleaned and free of the thick sawdust, but no, that was also left on us as the buyers as well. Manufacturer window stickers and thick stucco were left on master shower window, again left to us as the new homeowners to remove and clean ourselves. About one week before closing, the electrician needed to drill holes in the walls throughout the home for an unknown reason that was never explained to us. A sad attempt was made to remedy these eyesores and someone "patched" or filled the holes with what appears to be glue and looks like a 10-year-old completed the work. The walls in the home are obviously sprayed by the contracted painter, but when you do touchups, something other than a paintbrush should be used. We can clearly see all mediocre touch ups, with the brush strokes very evident everywhere and almost seems the gloss in the touch up paint does not match. There are huge parallel, deep scar marks in the asphalt in our driveway. It appears some sort of machinery accidentally scraped the asphalt and our concrete driveway when some sort of work was being done. A few days in we discovered the stucco crew drove a nail into a water line in the back of the house under the foundation! Back yard was soaked! Thankfully it didn't enter the home, or that we know of. This was a hassle in itself to get fixed with no follow-up and poor communication. I thought there was a "water pressure test" that would identify any leaks. I am assuming that wasn't done either. HVAC landings/platforms are crooked and just appears like sloppy work. In my opinion the last part of this home building process was a race to the finish, which is a sloppy move! Hakes Brothers NEEDS to hire a quality inspector to ensure the work done by their contractors is being completed professionally throughout the home building process. The superintendent cannot do this alone, obviously! For the price of the home, there are far too many simple mistakes that could have been avoided or addressed before closing. It is unfortunate that as new homeowners we have to feel like all of this was either left for us to do, or to live with it. It almost seems as if HB received their funds from the bank and said ADIOS! We feel that we are no longer priority and that our voiced and documented concerns can wait till HB is ready. Supposedly the CEO was in the area during the final days of closing on the home and he happened to do a walkthrough of our home. I find it concerning and disappointing that the CEO gave his approval and thumbs up to hand over the home. How were some of the above mentioned issues not noticed? I would've rather waited another 2 weeks and ensure everything was addressed instead of receiving in the condition it was purchased in. THE POSITIVE: Most of the employees are nice and display common business etiquette. For the size of the home, it was completed in a timely manner, although may be a contributing factor to all the above mentioned issues. The aesthetic options to add to your home are great, a lot of other builders do not have as many options. The design/layout of the home is unique. Overall, we have a beautiful home and are grateful for what we have. We are thankful for the integrity of all parties for doing the right thing when it came down to those specific decisions. It is the small details that matter most, and we feel that was definitely missed here in our home.
Although there were significant delays in the finishing of our home, Edward and Christian helped negotiate a fair compromise in regards to our penalty of not closing on time due to delays from our lender.
My home is beautiful because of Hakes Brothers. All models are beautifully made.
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Could not have been a more frustrating experience. Was told my closing date was set. Got to the day of closing and was told we couldn’t close because Hakes never informed the appraiser the house was ready. Then proceeded to charge me a late fee for a mistake they made. When I finally closed, the keys they gave me didn’t open the doors. The only reason I got into my house was because it was left unlocked. When I moved in I found a broken sliding glass door, writing on the dry wall and several other issues with the house that needed addressing.
I think that Hakes Brothers is very superficial. They appear to make nice houses but when you actually buy one you realize how little they care about the construction. When I am paying for a nearly 500k home, I expect to not have paint on my carpet in every room, I expect to not have wire mesh coming out of my stucco throughout the home, I expect people to respond to calls and verbal guarantees. But maybe I expect too much? I think Hakes gets you in the door and then shows some of the worst customer service once they have your money. I think they find no interest in paying attention to the details, yet claim that their rounded corners are some work of God. I can't express how disappointed I am in the Hakes home I bought, and that is considering I came from DR Horton.
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