You will be working with a great team of people and they build…read more a beautiful quality home with so many standard features included!

Simply the best. Quality work. Hard working. Fair pricing. Great communication. Clean and…read moreconsiderate of owners. Lance knows his stuff!! Have worked with McDonald Construction on three houses and a six-plex. There isn't anything this company can't do!! Wouldn't go anywhere else.

Read this before you sign anything with Creative Homes…read more First, no matter which builder you choose, bring your own realtor. Do not rely on the builder to "look out for you." We worked with Vic Wittgenstein at Coldwell Banker Burnet (Crocus Hill) and he was excellent, but that representation was critical. Now, the hard truth: Just moments before handing over our first $5,000 earnest money check (with another $10,000 due shortly after), we were informed that Creative Homes only uses flat paint (a non-negotiable). This was disclosed after hours of selections and decisions had already been made. Flat paint. In a $400,000+ brand-new home. With young children. Flat paint cannot be cleaned without damaging it. The walls now look terrible, and repainting will be inevitable far sooner than it should be. The timing of this disclosure felt intentional (and gross). It didn't stop there. We paid $250 per room to paint our kids' bedrooms different colors. Total: $500. They didn't even paint the closets. Quality issues were constant. Their "thorough inspection" missed multiple electrical outlets and a pot filler. When we pointed out a missing outlet, it was slapped in at the last minute in the wrong location. When we raised concerns, we were told, "You got an outlet." Plans be damned. Selections are another trap. Any faucet or fixture that isn't their cheap default is wildly marked up, often 2-3x the retail price. Even worse, the defaults don't match other finishes. We ended up with antique silver cabinet hardware and ugly chrome faucets. Our kitchen faucet was quite literally half plastic. We chose to replace fixtures ourselves because it was cheaper than their "upgrade." Then came the windows. They don't use local manufacturers like Andersen because Pella is cheaper for them. While cleaning, we discovered the windows were only caulked where visible. The top edges weren't caulked at all. That sums up their approach perfectly: If it's hidden, skipped, or the bare minimum- they'll do it. Anything to save a dollar, at the homeowner's expense. My advice: Do your homework. Talk to real homeowners. And don't be fooled by a polished model home, as it does not reflect the quality behind the walls.

We live between two homes built by Creative Homes (ours was built by a different builder), and our…read moreexperience with their construction staff and customer service has been incredibly disappointing. During landscaping on the neighboring properties, their contractor broke one of our sprinkler heads and cut our underground electric dog fence wire--not once, but twice within a week. We have a young puppy, so having a functioning fence wasn't optional. We repaired the damage ourselves each time and paid the supply costs out of pocket. When we tried to resolve the issue, I spoke with the landscaping crew but there was a language barrier that made communication difficult. My husband then contacted the site supervisor of Creative Homes. Rather than taking ownership of the problem, we were told to contact the landscaping company ourselves. After that, our follow-up messages--including an email to the Woodbury corporate office--went unanswered. What disappointed us most wasn't the relatively small repair cost. Mistakes happen on construction sites. It was the complete lack of accountability after the damage occurred. We've also watched and heard from neighboring homeowners who have had to deal with repeated construction-related issues, including utility lines being damaged during construction, a fire during construction caused by a contractor, wrong color cabinets installed causing a multi week delay, etc. Seeing these experiences, combined with our own, has left us with little confidence in Creative Homes' oversight of their contractors or their willingness to stand behind the work being done.

During the build/design process, we were greatly satisfied with the overall ease of building. There…read morewere some architectural mishaps along the way, but the builder was quick to correct them with our proposed solutions. We had been very happy with the home until we discovered that the builder falsified records when reporting and certifying our New Construction Energy Code Compliance Certificate. We were told that our AC unit was a 3.5 ton when in fact what was installed was actually a 3 ton unit which was not compliant with the heating loss/gain calculations which were noted directly on the certificate. Hanson Builders failed to acknowledge their wrongdoing which has cost us thousands of dollars over the years in electricity bills. Hanson is still claiming the onus is on us, the homeowners, for reporting an inaccuracy on documents which were submitted, certified and approved by the City of Blaine. We took care of our HVAC and had no reason to suspect that Hanson Builders would lie to us about the sizing of our AC unit. Sadly, we are now left to wonder what other inaccuracies were slid under the radar by unsuspecting homeowners who placed their trust and reliance on a home builder who had a seemingly untarnished reputation. Hanson Builders has lost our trust and will be reported.

My life was like a whirlwind…read more I was married in October, found out we were moving from Washington state to Minnesota about a week later, went on a house hunting trip compliments of his new company Thanksgiving weekend, then we moved in December. The relocation package assigned us a Realtor named Nita who I will someday write a review on. ( She was awesome ) and we were given four days to quote find a house. Knowing absolutely nothing about the state of Minnesota other then the most freezing unimaginable winters (we flew in the day after Thanksgiving in 2010 which they claim was the worst winter ever ). Anyway, I could write a book about the painful cold here, but you people from Minnesota already know about them while others simply could not possibly understand. My husband and I had absolutely no clue what city whatsoever to want to reside in, so we saw no less then 100 houses within 4 days basically all over the place. ( No joke ) We had a major list with stars and notes on each house we looked at and we had a list with the top 5 homes that we personally liked the most. Well, the model home in Plymouth by Hanson builders was both of our number 1 choice having different second and third choices from each other.. Hanson homes have the most amazing functional and spacious floor plans. We worked with one of the builders reps named Lisa who was so helpful and was always quick with an answer to the many questions that we had. Our Realtor wrote up an offer and it was accepted. We actually had the same plan built on a lot that overlooked a really cool large pond with fountains, so we had the opportunity to pick all of the paint colors, granite, carpet or any additional upgrades we were interested in. Their person who was in charge of that was Nancy and she had tremendous helpful ideas on coordinating the right granite with tile, color choices etc.. They definitely have professional people who seem to truly care about their jobs that work for them. We did see many Hanson floor plans and they are actually pretty similar in many ways from the other. My conclusion for that is this. They have really perfected their floor plans so why change a good thing too much. If your thinking about buying a home, I would highly recommend you setting up an appointment to walk through them and see them for yourselves. They pay attention to detail and although there were a few little problems in the end, they took care of it right away to our satisfaction. The only reason why I did not give Hanson builders five stars was during the final walk thru, it was really not as clean as we would have expected. We did mention this and we were told that they just routinely do a spot clean. So here we move into this beautiful home and we had to do a deep clean prior to the actual move. That part was a little disappointing. But the end result, we are absolutely thrilled with each and every Hanson floor plan and we felt like all of the pieces fit together with all of the help from those who worked with us.

This company goes above and beyond just doing good work. If you have any concerns at all, the…read moreCompany addresses them in a prompt and professional manner. The work product is first rate and so are the employees. You wont be sorry you hired them.

the work was excellent, price good, and service also excellent. They were very helpful when…read morediscussing the project in person in advance.

Chris and his team build an exceptional home and the quality of their design is outstanding. You…read morewon't find anyone who works harder to make sure the job is done right. The thing that I loved about Chris is that he is a humble man who worked right alongside his team, even vacuuming and tending to every detail to get it ready for our big reveal. If we ever build another home it wouldn't be with anybody else!

We used Norton Homes to build our new construction house. We felt so comfortable working with them…read moreand could tell they cared about what we wanted. They were flexible with our decisions, and they allow you to truly design a customized home. We even got to pick a lot that wasn't in one of their developments. There are so many "upscale" features that come standard with many of their models that we hardly had to upgrade anything (which saves a lot of money compared to national builders). They were also right on schedule. We recommend them to any of our friends looking for houses.

We are super excited about our new deck so I have to review these guys…read more We talked to Ray at Amaris in the late summer but unfortunately we didn't start the project with him... A few guys in the neighborhood said they could do it but they got it all messed up so I told them to stop and went back to talk to pros. Total mistake... Ray came out and we talked about our project and especially about doing the project with renewable materials. He ribbed me about starting with a couple of amateurs but I deserved it. They rocked out our deck project over the course of a long weekend in September and we love it! The price was fair and they used all green materials (makes my wife happy). If only we had a pool, live would be perfect!

From the owner: Amaris Custom Homes is a Twin Cities based (Minneapolis/Saint Paul Minnesota) affordable, custom,…read moregreen-home builder...where healthy living is built in. We build homes that are more energy efficient, healthier, safer, more durable and more comfortable, all for about the same price you'd pay one of our competitors. Before you buy new, take the time to understand the Amaris Advantages for you and your family by calling for a no-obligation, no-pressure education on a better way to build.