M/I Homes

Choosing to build with M/I Homes is our absolute biggest regret. This has been the most stressful, regretful mess and complete waste of our time. Seven and a half months in and we are still dealing with very high dollar quality issues, not to mention the smaller, but in no way insignificant, ones. Here's a list of our bigger issues:

Wood Floors: Waiting to be replaced as of today is our wood flooring, showing in excess of 130 cracks, after ridiculous attempts to repair multiple other cracks with a black back fill substance that left black wedges in our wood floors. With documented emails to M/I Homes on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th day after closing on the home showing us reporting cracks in the wood. Not able to even move our furniture into our home due to extremely poor carpeting and cracking wood floors. We now have hired an attorney to fight this battle. Neither M/I Homes nor Kermans Flooring will take ownership, basically placing the blame on us. We slept on an arrow bed for at least 10 days after closing due to the upgraded flooring in our home being a complete mess. The carpet was eventually completed. Now our "upgraded" wood floors...

Foundation Cracks: Several have been pressures sealed now. Structural inspections shows basement slab to have very poor workmanship on expansion joints. We are working to get this corrected. Driveway and sidewalks: Completely deteriorating. Either the cement was overly troweled or the concrete was poured in poor weather and had been rained on them while wet and is now looking as though our driveway and sidewalks are 15-20 years old after having driven on them with salted tires... M/I Homes now has a date that these will be completely tore out and new concrete poured.

Very high dollar items... Full of defects and a constant struggle on our part to keep the follow through going. Many wasted vacation days and time off work. M/I Homes uses sub-contractors for every process in the building of their homes and our experience with most were sub-par and showed no pride in their work and no forethought in any process. M/I Homes has no quality control process in place that checks the work of their subcontractors. Most repairs showed a halfhearted careless attempt at being done, leaving some items in worse condition than the original poor condition, this including the carpeting throughout our home and wood flooring.

There is so much more we could cover, to include our wasted time and lack of peace of mind in the past seven months. They have used so much of our time and energy prior to closing and since. The discouragement started early on and especially so when we closed on this home in good faith only to have them fail on their written promises given the day of closing, on the very next day.

There are a multitude of other issues from the start of the sale to the closing and repairs that included seriously shaking floors, drywall work, paint work, tile work, shower glass work because the shower wall is not level, the list goes on... While one is to expect that there will be things to be addressed after moving in, we really had no idea to what extent we'd be dealing with quality issues. While M/I Homes has taken measures to try to correct some of this, they have wasted so much of our time and energy and much remains to be repaired. If you choose to use them do your research, check reviews, weigh what you read, and most importantly, don't think you'd be an exception. They have taken the joy and excitement that comes with the purchase of a new home and left us feeling complete regret and exhaustion with this purchase.

I was attracted to M/I homes by the features I saw in a new development. Full gutters and downspouts, granite countertops, ceramic tile and hardwood floors, wrought iron balusters on stairs, sprinkler systems, framed bathroom mirrors, very nice light fixtures and chandeliers, water loops and drains for a water softener, and so on. Even found a house we really liked at a fair price. The development itself had some drawbacks, though, as a street had been cut through to a neighboring huge subdivision and this one had become a shortcut to the freeway, so morning and evening traffic was shaping up to be a nightmare for residents. We moved on, but I was impressed with M/I Homes' feature list, so I searched for other M/I Homes developments and found one in a pretty good location.

The new location was a small development by M/I and only M/I. Only about 20 homes had been completed. That's where the story changes. It seems that M/I--here at least -- starts out with deluxe features, then cuts back later. The first homes built in the new development had all the things that attracted me. The house we liked had gutters in the front only, silestone rather than granite countertops, and hardwood in only one small study, and no water softener connections. Finishing the gutters cost about $2,500 through an independent contractor -- not M/I, who would have had to add their profit to the price. The silestone we can live with for a few years. The water softener will cost a lot because of no access to drains where the water enters the house. Really cheap and ugly light fixtures. However, we're lucky compared to those who followed.

The next round of houses also lost the wrought iron balusters (back to wood) and lost the sprinkler systems. The last houses they build here may be just shells at this rate! Clearly, though, they've also cut back on subcontractor costs, so there is very clear evidence of short cuts in the central air (low end condensers, sloppy duct sealing, mistakes in thermostat configuration), plumbing -- bargain basement fixtures, and electric. We've had service calls on every single subcontractor item: plumbing, electric (had one switch connected to nothing and no light where there should have been one), sprinkler system, air conditioning, kitchen cabinets, and door trim. Pre-wired alarm sensor at the front door had the wire broken inside the wall. At least, though, the company responds to problems and follows up with the subs. That's why I still gave four stars -- five for customer service; three for value.

I have built 5 homes in Tampa FL from 1998 to 2016. This is my first home built with M/I Homes. On April 7, 2015, we signed a contract with M/I Homes in Tampa to build a new home located on **. I paid the escrow earnest money deposit of $9650.00 to M/I Homes to start building. Our M/I home was scheduled to complete/finish on 10/31/15. Per the Addendum to Agreement Cash Closing, we were to provide to M/I Homes within five business days following the effective date financial statements or other written verification of our financial ability to purchase the property. We provided our signed sale contract for ** as written verification of our financial ability to purchase the property as cash equivalents. M/I Homes accepted this as satisfactory.

Adrian ** informed us that we would not need to sign a separate contingency addendum to dissolve the contract and receive our deposit back in the case that we could not sell our existing home to fund the purchase of the new home. Before signing, we asked Adrian ** point blank if we would be able to remove ourselves from the contract and recover our $10,000 in the event that we were not able to purchase the home. We asked that specific question because we understood that we would not be able to purchase the property without first selling our existing home. We made that very clear to Adrian ** before and at the signing. He affirmed that we would be able to remove ourselves from the contract and recover our deposit and that no contingency needed to be written into the contract to affirm that.

We took his word as a representative of M/I Homes and signed the contract. Had we been properly informed that we would not be able to recover our deposit, we would not have signed the contract. He stated that M/I Homes would act in good faith to return our deposit if we were not able to buy. M/I Homes never requested from us any other proof of ability to purchase, as they never expected us to have another avenue to purchase (i.e. A mortgage or cash on hand). Our Briarhill Ct home was listed for sale on 4/6/15. Then, came the unforeseen circumstances, when the sale of our residence fell through on August 2015 that I was unable to meet the deadline and finalize the M/I Home purchase. I went to visit Adrian ** and advise/show him the cancellation of contract. We acted in good faith having full intentions of purchasing the M/I Home.

Then the issue began with M/I Homes. I spoke to the manager Brian ** several times via phones/emails begging him to give me some more time, explaining that I had dropped my home selling price again. He agreed to grant an extension until November 30, 2015. I continued diligently seek new buyer and dropped the price of her home multiple times hoping to finalize the M/I purchase. Our home didn't sell by 11/30/15. But we had another signed contract at hand, so I contacted Adrian **, he stated the home is sold. Later I found out that M/I Homes sold Crowned Sparrow Lane home on 11/29/15 and it closed on 12/28/15. I spoke to Adrian **, sale consultant several time in person and via emails, requesting a refund of the earnest money deposit funds. Explained that is a substantial amount of monies to lose due to lack of representation.

Unfortunately, because I was without proper representation and if I had representation, we would have been advised that the agreement must include a contingency on the sale of her home in writing from M/I Homes and not to trust any their words. M/I home defaulted and lied to us and on their contract. I filed a complaint with BBB, Department of Consumer Protection and now Florida Office of Financial Regulation and Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

If anyone is reading this and have the same problem or issue with M/I homes, and you know they lied and did not act in good faith or did not have you signed the proper agreement or lack of representation and keep your money, please contact me at ** - I will be happy to share my story and more detail and we can file claim against M/I Homes. I want to hear from you, I do believe I am not the first one. Tell me your story. P.S. I recently purchase built a home from Taylor Morrison in Tampa. When I told them it's a cash purchase, they request evidence of funds. i.e. bank statement, assets documents with 5 business days.

Beautiful Models - Your home won't look like that. The first problem and we should have walked was it took 8 months to build. The finish work on our home is HORRIBLE! Our first construction manager quit halfway through the build and no one thought to see where the houses he was involved in were at in the build process. Mind you, all of my problems were/are finish work and we aren't the pickiest people on the planet but for what we paid for this house we should have gotten much better results.

None of the doors were hung properly - They close automatically, they don't close all the way, there are large gaps and one door doesn't even touch the stop. You can see in the gap into the guest bathroom. All the trim on the doors need to be redone, none of the corners meet properly and some are sticking off of the wall a good 1/2 inch.

Tile was a mess - We paid for the upgrades and most of the tile work in the master shower is/was done so poorly they had to come out twice and still haven't fixed it right. Cracked tiles caulked over, missing grout and bad alignment. The tile guys said when you use dark grout with white tile it's a problem and blamed the M/I Design Center for selling us that combo.

Counter tops have gouges in them like someone with a hammer in their toolbelt was leaning over it and damaged them - both bathrooms. Paint was very uneven and some walls weren't even painted all the way. The landscaping on one side is completely dead because we had bad rain and it got washed away. They said they'd fix it - still waiting. Texture is really bad in spots. Fixes are really bad. Window sills weren't sanded before install/paint.

Every upgrade wasn't done well. We have used all of our vacation at work to be home for these repairs to be made. Three times no one showed to do the trim work (and still haven't) and the two times the tiles guys came one guy was there for 6 hours and messed up more than he fixed and the second time they were there for an hour and still missed stuff. Now it's our problem because we can't be there during the week to get this stuff done going on 4 months later. Like I said it's all finish work that would take a crew that knew what they were doing a few hours to fix but it's getting that crew to do it. Waiting to get stuff fixed is a nightmare.

We bought a home in 2012 through M/I Homes. After living in it for a year and some months. We had a inspection done because we were about to move. Being a military family we move every 3-4 years. The inspection came back saying that water was running back under the house. So we put in for M/I Homes to come fix the problem along with other issues. Someone came out, put dirt and left no grass to keep mud from washing away. Week later the rain comes in and washes away most of the dirt. After call they and emailing M/I Homes they send out someone to put grass on the dirt so the rest wouldn't wash away. Most of the dirt was nearly gone so now we back where we almost started???

A year later we put the house up for sale and most of the realtors are saying this house has foundation issues. Now we are had to take the house off the market to get it fixed so we can sell it. In almost a year's time no one has reached out to say "ha let's make it right" and offer anything. We ended up with a complete foundation lift on our home. It's March now and if the house is not sold by May we will have paid over 16,000 in mortgage. Our realtor said that she would never sell another M/I home.

I would not recommend MI to anyone. When they built my home they use pressed paper for the trim. My home is not 15 yrs old, and even though it has always been painted thoroughly the pressed board trim is deteriorating, and it is costing me a fortune to replace it. How could any reputable builder use pressed board trim. They even used it under the front door. It deteriorated over time, and it destroyed the joist which supported the front door. What a horrible builder.

We visited the sales on site location on 2/9/17, and was engaged and told the lot cost was included in the base price of the home by a sales representative on site. Confirmed two days later by primary principal sales representative, Cameron as he was working up the final figures on our new home. 24 hours later $15,000 lot premium added by Cameron to our home price quote. Explanation? Business is good... I am out... I am your target audience 60 year old baby boomer with a credit score north of 820. You my friend and M/I Homes lose!! Left a message for M/I Homes dispute contact person Bruce **, so far no response...

M/I Homes is simply a money hungry, low level builder. Do not purchase a home from M/I Homes in the Houston area. We regret ever considering doing business with them. We were building with them in the Katy area and lost a significant amount of money. We went through 4 months of the building process with them and finally opened our eyes towards the type of company they are and decided to pull out of our contract before we lost more money. They have very poor construction management. Apparently building 3 to 4 houses at a time is too much for them to handle. They missed many things that we had requested in our initial contract. Once they had missed those things, they refused to go back and make things correct. When you request to speak with management, be prepared to get the run around and eventually very unprofessional responses.

Be prepared to be your own construction manager and inspect daily because their QA/QC is subpar and below a beginner home builder. Once we decided to cancel our contract because of multiple missed requests and poor quality, we were asked to put our complaints in writing. Their response to our complaints and refund request was a simple no. They kept our $9000 deposit and refused to refund any of it. Their contract is written completely in their favor as is expected. I wish I had listened to other reviewers on here. They are simply a very bad home builder and should not be trusted with such an important investment.

DO NOT BUY AN M/I HOME!! You will live to regret. I wish I had listened to those who warned about them and I didn't and not only do I regret it every day, I am paying a steep price for not listening. There are so many other builders to choose from who do far better work. Please do not make the same mistake I have made. My home is defective from the foundation to the roof. The stress of the situation combined time off from work. This home has cost me so much. Do yourself a favor... DO NOT BUY M/I!!

M/I Homes are beautiful but stay away. I fell in love with a M/I Home but have been very upset since purchasing one. Biggest issue was a gas leak. I have been smelling gas on and off since I moved in. The gas company came and the radar began to alarm the minute I opened the front door. The pipe under the stove was not connected correctly. I have been inhaling gas for months. I have had headaches, sore throats and coughing for months. The gas company turned off the gas. I had not hot water for more than a week. M/I Homes was no help. They do not care. They told me they have no control over the gas company. No they don't but the issue began because of M/I Homes poor workmanship. I have missed numerous days of working waiting for issues to be repaired by M/I Homes. Since purchasing this home I have been all alone. I'm being billed for taxes on this property for time before I owned it. STAY AWAY FROM M/I HOMES.

These people responded to all our emails promptly about any questions about the house when we first moved in. A few months later, they stop responding to mine and my neighbor's emails about how their construction material for the new homes is blocking our driveways and streets. I couldn't pull into my own driveway. My neighbor couldn't get out of her driveway this morning to get to work. The floor boards constantly creak even though the house is less than a year old. Avoid any houses from MI homes.

I would highly recommend that if you are looking for a home builder to avoid M/I Homes. They conduct shady business practices and attempt to bait and switch you once you sign the contract. We signed a contract with them to build a house on Aug. 31st. The division president Cliff ** signed off on the contract as the authorized agent for M/I homes on September 1st. We proceeded to place our current home on the market to sell. We were in the process of negotiating with a buyer for our house when we received a call from the sales representative for M/I homes on September 15th (16 days after signing the contract) stating they had made an error in the pricing of our home when writing the contract and the price of the home was actually $20,000 more than the agreed upon price.

He told us that he was really sorry for the error and hoped we would agree to still build with M/I Homes even for $20,000 increase in price. If not then he understood and they would cancel our contract. They took zero responsibility for their own mistake. Any reputable company would have accepted the error and held their employees responsible not the customer. They get out from underneath their mistake with no penalty or consequence from it. They preach to you about family and how superior their customer service is and how each step of the way they will be there to ensure customer satisfaction.

I guess they only care about their customer when they are getting your money. They don't care about customers they only care about their bottom dollar. The founders of the company would be so disappointed in this. As stated on their website they said they always asked themselves if they were the customer building the house would they be satisfied with the outcome? What customer would be satisfied about negotiate in good faith only to have the other party negotiating in bad faith and pulling the wrong out from underneath you two weeks after the contract has been signed?

We built our home with M/I and had a terrible construction and closing experience. The quality of the build was far below acceptable standards. The poor customer service has continued throughout the first year. M/I has yet to complete the 90 day inspection and repairs and we can only imagine when they will get around to the 1 year inspection. We do not anticipate any improvement after this amount of time. With so many new home builder options in this area, we would encourage potential customers to look elsewhere. There are several other new build developments in the Zionsville area. In fact, we drive through the adjacent "nice" neighborhood each day to access our neighborhood. We are green with envy. Do not make the same mistake we did.

Contract signed 29 February 2016. All buyer required actions completed by 24 March 2016. Mid-April builder discovered house as configured would not fit so we agreed to a second lot. Two weeks later, the builder again discovered the house wouldn't fit. We agreed to a third lot and some configuration changes and now, 4 weeks later, still no movement on M/I's part. No permits applied for, no lot survey, NOTHING. This was supposed to be our retirement home.

Lying **! Scheduled an appointment to look at a townhouse. We look at it. Then get told it's sold and they have a contract on it, and they try to push another house to us! I find out they sold all the lots to RYAN HOMES for a huge profit. Really shady people. The houses they built do look nice but the salespeople are LIARS and I have a hard time trusting them. I feel like they just wanted to get me there to push another unit I had no intention of buying or wanted to see. WASTE MY TIME! LIARS! I just hope when they have their heart set on something someone pulls a fast one on them just like they do to people! I can't tell you how disappointed I am in their sales staff! REAL CLASS ACT LIARS! THANKS.

As promised, BOTH M/I Homes and I, gave each other second chance and I must say, I'm ELATED I did! The home they built is simply unbelievable. It far surpasses a mere shelter. The home they built is a haven of beauty and quality. It's a place I can be proud of, that I can happily invite other family members to visit and enjoy with the utmost confidence in quality and craftsmanship. Moreover, my entire experience was AWESOME! The people, from my agent to the builder rep, to the folks at the Style Center and even the folks at M/I Financial, bent over backwards to accommodate our concerns.

What people have to recognize is, there will always be a certain amount of craftsmanship concerns in building a new home. But the number of houses built, vice the percentage of flaws is usually surprisingly small comparatively. But in this day and time, where common courtesy and decency is a needed commodity, I can honestly say M/I Homes did just that with me and my family - they wowed us. Would I go thru the experience again? In a heartbeat. Would I go with M/I Homes... not even a second thought in a heartbeat! I've had three homes built in my lifetime. And this experience by FAR has been the best! Thanks M/I Homes. You did EXACTLY what you said you would. You helped us - Move Up.

Don't do it!!! We have had awful experience. We have lived in our home a little bit over 2 months. Cracks appear everyday, floors have been repaired 3 times on the second floor (they don't pay their contractor to nail down the floors, that's what we were told by the people that came to fix them). 4th time John said "You are stuck with it" and gave us a bs story. The roof leaks in the main room, they sent somebody to fix it and it still leaks. They came twice to repair a wall in the main bathroom and they wanted only to patch and we had been told that it was going to be replaced. We even got it on writing and we stopped the guy and had him remove the piece of wall. Upstairs bathroom tub was not installed correctly and had to remove it including tile. The list goes on and on. Read the review please!!! Don't do the same mistake we did. We had to pay a third party inspector we found more stuff that we were not aware.

The seller agent named Lorie working on M/I Home Concord, NC location is very rude and very unhelpful. She does not give good and reliable information. Need to do more research before signing contract else you are mercy of God. She does not even give a day to receive. She just want you to sign contract. Once contract is sign, she is not helpful. She won't listen to you. Please be careful working with seller agent named Lorie working on M/I Home Concord, NC. Best of luck for your home purchase.

I never leave negative reviews for any business. However, M/I is not a trustworthy company. I completely understand that every business is in the market to make a profit but, there's a line which should be drawn. Not being able trust your builder is the worst feeling when purchasing a home. BE AWARE. If you purchase a home with M/I I'd highly recommend that you get something in writing because they will NOT stand by their word. They are completely MONEY driven, and that's all what it'll come down to. After increasing our offer by $10K, they changed the terms we'd agreed to. Lastly, NO sales representative has the right to talk down to potential customers and tell them that they don't belong in their community. Everyone deserves an equal amount of respect. My husband and I were going to purchase a home with M/I (in Plano, TX) and they've lost our business due to their ethical misconduct.

We signed our contract with M/I in March 2014 and we closed in September 2014. (Sheffield Square subdivision) Everyone was great until we signed the contract and things got even worse after we closed. There were many things we wanted in our home that we saw in the model home. We were told that we could have these items, but they were an upgrade (which we expected). We were ready and willing to pay the upgrade for the items we wanted as they were huge selling factors for us. During the design phase we were told one by one that we could not have the upgraded items we had specifically inquired about. One was a range hood featured in the model home. Their reasoning was that the design of the home could not accommodate the hood.

When we questioned them about the hood in the model (after being given several very different excuses) we were ultimately told that the hood in the model was not functioning and never would function. Why didn't they tell us that before we signed the contract when we specifically inquired about the range hood? After months of going back & forth we ended up with an ugly, ill-fitting hood with a huge price tag. They destroyed the sides of our cabinets when they installed it and refused to fix it. The height of the hood is significantly lower than what was specified by GE (the manufacturer) and M/I refuses to fix it even though we were told it would be raised by the time we returned from closing. (I suppose that was our fault for trusting them and closing before these items were actually fixed).

There were numerous selections (crown moulding, various can lights, additional outlets, upgraded fixtures, etc) that M/I failed to "pull through" on the final papers and were never installed. The original customer care representative (who is no longer with the company) assured us that these items would be installed within 30 days of closing. It has been over a year and M/I is refusing to do anything about it. Our walls have severely cracked in several places. Our wood floors are uneven. The base boards have noticeably separated from the walls. The granite on our island has come loose from the cabinet base. Our range hood is not secure and about to fall off the wall (honestly not sure if that would be a bad thing since it is hideous).

We lose power in half of our house a couple times a month and were told that it could be a bad power cord from our new TV. We moved the TV to another area of the house and it worked fine, however the original part of the house still loses power every couple weeks. The walkway leading to our front door has cracked in half. All of our grass is dead. Shingles are falling off of our roof on a daily basis. The grout in our shower has "fallen out" a few times now. When moving our range to clean behind it, we noticed they "forgot" one wood plank. The pendant lights above our island were installed completely uneven... They wouldn't fix them so we had to resort to taking the lights down and capping them. The list goes on and on...

A couple of weeks ago, they sent a painter out to "fix" all of our wall cracks... Perhaps it was his first day, but we now have paint on our wood trim everywhere he worked and white paint from the trim on our painted walls. We have paint on our railings and on our floors and they told us to "chip it off with our nails". We were forced to use M/I financial for our loan and I say "forced" because they refused to provide our original lender with documentation he needed. And then said they would have to charge us $500 to get him the documents and then they would have to remove a 5k option allowance they gave us when we purchased the home (we never said we were using M/I financial at that time so not sure why we would lose 5k).

We have lived here for just about a year and already have all of these problems. We have spoken to a woman in their Chicago office, who I will not name, but she has been nothing but rude to us. I have never been treated so horribly by someone who I gave my business to, or just any person for that matter. To make matters worse we now have huge issues with our taxes which the county told us is a result of M/I homes failing to properly divide the PIN numbers before closing. We submitted all of the correct documentation to divide by legal description after closing. All of our neighbors are also having the same problem and M/I will not assist them either.

I visited open house for M/I Homes. There the people are so friendly. They insisted to buy a home before April 1st 2015 to get a promotional offer - finished basement worth $10,500. So when I get that much in promotional offer, I got interest in buying and signed the contract after a week. They started harassing. Everything you ask, they will charge. Later they insisted me to take loan form M/I Homes. Everyone should confirm that before you sign the contract. That is the mistake I did.

When I say I am not going to take loan from M/I Homes, they asked me to pay for the promotional offer they gave. If I take loan from M/I Homes, they charge 7000 dollars as closing cost. No lender in the entire United States charge 7000 dollars as closing cost and also high interest rates than any other lender. Not only me, I saw so many people who are victims of M/I Homes. Bad luck, I could have visited this site before I sign my contract. NEVER AND EVER GO WITH M/I HOMES. You will not be happy for buying new home after you make agreement which deals with thousands of dollars... Instead you will regret forever.

My family purchased an M/I home in Arlington Heights, Illinois in a housing development called Arlington Market. While our home appears to be structurally sound, I have following warnings for future buyers: Do not close on your house until you are completely satisfied with the work that M/I Homes has done. Once you close, they do not prioritize completion of punch list items in your house. It appears as though their only priority is to build as many houses as they can in the shortest amount of time. There is little to no oversight of work being done in houses. The construction managers are nowhere to be found unless there is a home inspection taking place. There is no oversight of workers coming to do repairs in homes after you've closed. Many of the residents have complained that repair workers are careless and upon repairing one thing they ruin another.

Residents (many of whom have infants and young children) are not given any notice as to when construction workers are going to complete tasks that will block residents' garages. Residents have been "trapped" inside for numerous hours by workers. M/I Homes does not employ workers who can construct walls at or near 90 degree angles. Once you close, the only solution that M/I Homes has for your crooked walls is to remove the baseboard trim and shim it so that the trim masks the crooked wall.

These are a few of the punch list items that we are still waiting to have fixed after having closed on our house 6+ months ago: Exterior white paint is already chipped and peeling off of our house trim and staircases. One section of our house siding wasn't caulked. Mortar, cement, dirt left on house & garage siding and staircases. This was supposed to be cleaned in spring and it's now the end of summer. Doors are unpainted. Drywall hung in garage has muddy footprints all over it (from workers). Dirty drywall was hung anyways. Taping/mudding of drywall in garage is atrocious. Sidewalk, that was poured in winter, is cracked and chipping. Sod is dead in areas. No notice that residents were responsible for tending to landscaping until a week had passed and grass was already dying. Massive electrical boxes in front yards were supposed to be "hidden" by landscaping and weren't.

No fence in front yards and it's been 7+ months since first house was occupied. 75% of the walls in the houses aren't squared off making flooring, trim and closets crooked. Excuses given as to why walls can't be built at 90 degree angles. Lumber used to construct windowsills in our home are beat up and chipped but they were installed anyways. Cabinetry is unpainted. Hardwood flooring and oak staircases were severely scratched by workers. Upon having the staircases restained, which made the scrapes disappear, the painter got stain on the white trim of each stair. Now we need the white trim repainted. Fireplaces turn on by themselves. Remote interference between homes. This is an extremely worrisome safety hazard.

Let me start by saying I did not build with them, cannot comment on their final product. With that out of the way, I would not recommend any one to build with M/I Homes in Cincinnati based on the way they conduct business. I spent countless hours with M/I agent trying to decide what floor plan to build with M/I. We finally decided to go with the Ainsley floor plan. We were going to build at the Windsor estate in liberty township. The agent told us she would ask her boss to give us $20,000 off in incentives. The deal they had going was half off up to $25,000 options. We met with the agent on Sunday morning at the lot/home site to make sure it was still available and also to make sure we could build the Ainsley plan. We were given the green light.

We went back to the office and wrote a $5,000 check and signed paperwork to get the building process started. I was told by the agent that he would forward the paperwork to his boss to see if they approve it and get back with me. I reached out to the agent on Tuesday to see if I was go to go. Things got really interesting. I was told that the price of the lot I was planning to build on had gone up exponentially. I was told the developer decided to raise the price of the lot because it was the last decent lot remaining in that area of the community. I was told that they wouldn't be able to offer me any incentives on that particular lot I choose to build on it. The only problem was that I personally called the developer and was told the price of that particular lot was still the same as before. They never increased the price of the lot.

I got an email from M/I homes even before my real estate agent confronted about them about the lot, asking me where I would like them to mail my check. My real estate agent called the M/I agent and confronted the individual about their story. Let's just say there was a dial tone involve from M/I agent. A few minutes afterwards, my real estate agent got a call from the VP of sales for M/I. He was very rude and arrogant. His first words were, "How dare you bring me a contract like that asking $20,000 off?" My agent tried to tell him that his agent had suggested the 20,000 off incentive but he just talked over my agent.

Mr VP also said that the incentives they offered were only valid on lots they owned. The irony about that is that every single lot that the agent showed us, three other builders showed us the exact same lot as theirs. In other words, the lots they claim they owned (at least the ones we were shown) were all pool lots. I was just so tired of going back and forth and just ask for my check back. I am glad they showed me their true colors before I got stuck in a horrible contract. I dodge a bullet. So please learn from this and don't do business with M/I homes. I am just on here to tell my story.

Folks, stay away from MI homes. Their quality is crap. You get substandard materials put in the homes and i doubt if they have folks who know how to build homes. Everything you see from toilets, to ventilations, security systems, to backyard, lawns have issues. They use a $100 toilet which doesn't flush properly. You'll see holes in all parts of the windows, doors and so heating/cooling becomes a hell.

MI built our house in a development called Franklin Landing. We had them out several times during the first year with a number of problems, and to their credit, they took care of them. Recently we noticed that the trim around our front window was rotting. When we looked closer, I noticed that they used either plywood or particle board. There is no way that whatever material they used was up to code. When I tried to get them to come out and take a look at the rotting, I was asked to send them some images. After a few days I got an email that said the damage was our fault because we did not properly caulk or paint. Again, they refused to come out to even look at the damage. I cannot recommend an MI home to anyone.

Contract to purchase a town home in Oviedo, FL had issues qualifying, and once we had my spouse lost his job. Just after the financing contingency expiration. They said they would give us our deposit back if they found a buyer with the same time line. We wanted to find something else to possibly purchase thinking it wouldn't take my husband to find a new job. They had another location in Sanford, FL that we could purchase in cash (with all proceeds home sale). Speaking to the agent at that location about our circumstance, we had been told that it would be impossible to qualify someone in time to be able to close, so we would lose our deposit. So we decided to put a contract on a home in that community. My husband found a job at the end of November and we also learned they had a cash buyer for the first town home (which seemed impossible to the agent).

December came and my spouse lost his new job - wasn't a good fit. But we still thought that he would find something before we had to close in Feb 2014. This did not happen. Early Jan 2014 we asked how much we would lose if we could not close. I have an illness that I have to have health insurance and with healthcare reform in would be a $400 shock to our budget. Crunching the numbers we realized that we would be bankrupt in a few months, since there would be no unemployment extension. After trying to get an answer we were first told our whole deposit, a little over $30,000. The contract states the 4% or the full deposit. Never in my mind did I think that M/I would keep the entire deposit - feeling a 4% amount will be fair for all contracts. I mean why put 4% if you are just going to keep the entire deposit, and you would treat customers differently by the amount of money given?

They ended up giving us just over $20,000 back, saying $10,000 would be their holding cost. We checked the market, and places were selling within 30 days. Which this was not exception, and sold for more money. So they made money and they kept our money. We did sign a termination agreement, but only after them threatening to keep all our money if we didn't sign by noon that day. The amount of money we lost was deemed liquidated damages, but liquidated damages are not to be a penalty - if it can be deemed a penalty the section claiming the damages can be void. My husband didn't find a job till Aug 2014, at 1/3 of his salary.