Schell Brothers Reviews 82

Great company that wants you to have a positive top notch experience. Everyone I have encountered is kind and helpful. Great company!

In my first year post construction and concerns being met. Would be helpful for future to have a face to face with plumber, electrician/ to understand panels associated with these specialties. Did receive a review but too much information given in one session prior to closing. Love and trust your company

The She’ll process was so smooth. Everything was well organized. We were kept informed throughout the build. The employees were all friendly from beginning to end. We love our home. We love the design of the Bristle and the Peninsula Lakes Community. We would recommend Shell to anyone.

We’ve had a couple of things needing attention and Justin has been on top of it all. He works with us to schedule work and follows up to make sure everything was done and we are happy. We’d also like to recognize Eric from Wilkerson Co - Eric has been great to work with. He too make sure we are happy with the work done. He’s timely, professional and so pleasant to talk to.

Everybody cares about customer satisfaction.

Post occupancy help is very unlike from pre occupancy.
Several mixup requests were denied even though they were construction or product defects

Schell doesn’t sell houses, they sell homes and a community bursting with your new best friends. The process exceeds all expectations and I’m so happy to be in my lovely new home.

The entire experience from lot selection, to model selection through construction and closing was better than we could have ever imagined. Schell has done a fantastic job with our home buying experience. Thank you.

A courtyard fireplace design that’s doesn’t function well. Boxed in with
No hearth with heat going up through
Flue. My friends and neighbors all
Agreed, where’s the Heat! This is my second outdoor gas fireplace, so I have
Experience and the first one function well.
Plus Un- Creative Courtyards failed to put
Hole or space for soaker lines between
Two beds in Courtyard. Numerous calls
Made over last 5 months. They said they
Would be by to fix, but still a NO Show.
Pictures are in Heartbeat
Thank You
Jim Gibbs
Lot 12

From start to finish, Tom and I felt like family with Schell Brothers. Rosemary sold us our house and TK built our dreams. Our experience with every single Schell employee was seamless during a somewhat stressful but super exciting time. We are in love with our house and would highly recommend Schell to all friends and family.

Andy is a very good CM he followed through and knew his profession.

When I first came to look I told Allie Perry that I did not want GE appliances and I was told no problem I could get Viking. Then 2 weeks after I signed contract I was told no Viking appliances they could only do GE. I already told Allie that would be a deal breaker as I adamantly did not want GE. Then I asked for Wolf stove and they said I would have to go up to Chefs kitchen and that would be another $16 k. I should have been offered the option to wait for Viking or not been charged the additional 16 k
Also I have no spice racks or any other upgrades that would make this a chefs kitchen. I really would like to be reimbursed for the 16 k as this was your fault and not mine as I did state from the beginning that GE Appliances would be a deal breaker and I was assured that wouldn’t be an issue!

CM David Church and Warranty Representative Jason Pinder are excellent representatives of our experience with Schell. Great communicators that always kept us informed through each and every step of the process of home building and warranty repairs.

Great staff
Great follow up
A little confusing with change in project managers during build
Sean has been great as a customer service representative
Overall experience good and recommend company

The friendly, happy nature of all team members is integral to all aspects of the decision processes at Schell. While issues are inevitable within any building process, Schell addresses issues proactively and effectively.

Drew in the warranty department as well as Ashley always kept me informed of all appointments. They were both prompt and always communicated well. The few issues I had were handled with professionalism. I’m so happy I moved into Hailey’s Glen.

The entire experience from Rosemary in the sales team to Jared my construction manager made the process as seamless and professional for a first time homebuyer.

We bought a home in Richmond, VA. Generally, the experience was positive. Schell has great floor plans with great curb appeal. Definitely not cookie-cutter. Their sales and decorating teams do a great job. Our construction manager was great to work with. And we were able to customize quite a bit, which is not what you normally see in production builders like Schell.

However, the warranty service manager in Richmond was less than helpful. He frequently marked warranty items as “completed” when they weren’t and he explained that they were duplicate when they were not. His logic was that the same contractor would be addressing multiple items so he marked the “duplicate” items as completed when they were not. The problem is their system for reporting and tracking warranty items requires you to categorize warranty items and there is no way to group items by contractor. So, when they would mark items completed when they weren’t, you lost track of what was really done and what was not.

They would also take FOREVER to address warranty items and they would show up at random times. So we eventually got frustrated and fixed many of the items ourselves.

They ran drain tile from the foundation to the middle of the yard and just stopped it right in the dirt. As a result, we had very marshy conditions and spent well over $10k to mitigate.

Lastly, they used engineered wood I-beam joists on our main level and they “over-spanned” them. We have a large open floor plan and several rooms are larger than the 15’ span for which wood I-beams are typically used. As a result, we have considerable bounce in our floors. Dishes rattle and lamps shake when someone walks by. I brought this up to the Richmond division president and she apologized but basically said “that’s our product.” To fix this, we are going to spend more than $23k to add additional steel beams to support the floor. This is not at all what I expected when I paid $755k for my house 4 years ago.

To be fair, I had two different structural engineers look at the floor bounce problem and they both said this was a well-constructed house. But they said Schell built to the code requirement, which is the bare minimum.

Would I buy from Schell again? Maybe, but I would do things a lot differently and would not have assumed their commitment to happiness meant I was going to get exceptional value in my house.

I've built two homes with Schell Brothers and both experiences were by far more superior to the other production builders. I have bought a Ryan home in the past so I have personal experience from two different builders. Schell gave me weekly updates on the build (which doesn't happen with other builders) and had a very seamless step by step process from beginning to end. There were definitely things wrong when I moved into the home but anyone familiar with construction knows that no home is built perfectly, no matter how good the builder is. The main thing is that they come back to correct it. And Schell 100% stood by this and made every correction. I have neighbors that have complained about warranty but usually it stems from not being able to talk with someone on the phone or the timeliness of getting it fixed. They have a customer portal called heartbeat where you just submit a warranty claim and then you can watch it go through the process. You have a dedicated specialist and you can chat with them through a messenger but can't contact them via phone. Personally I prefer this because with the messenger it gives them time to research the answer and respond verses having multiple phone calls. Regarding timeliness, somethings take a little longer to get finished but it's not urgent issues. We had a leak in the first house and they were out immediately. It seems like major issues are addressed asap and minor stuff takes a bit longer. If I buy another home and Schell is an option I will choice them a third time.

Schell Brothers controls the HOA Board at Walden. They refuse to provide details on the 2024 Budget and Assessments. No Transparency. Buyer beware!