PulteGroup, Inc. is an American residential

home construction Home construction or residential construction is the process of constructing a house, apartment building, or similar residential building generally referred to as a 'home' when giving consideration to the people who might now or someday reside th ...

company based in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, United States. The company is the 3rd largest home construction company in the United States based on the number of homes closed. In total, the company has built over 775,000 homes. The company operates in 44 markets in 23 states. In 2021, it ranked 284th on the Fortune 500. The company was founded by Bill Pulte in Michigan, and moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia in 2014. Since 2016, Ryan Marshall has been the President and CEO of the company.

History

In 1950,

Bill Pulte William John Pulte was the founder and chairman of PulteGroup, one of the largest home construction and real estate development companies in the United States. Biography Early life and education Pulte attended De La Salle Collegiate High School i ...

, who was 18 years old, began building and selling houses. In 1956, the company was formed and was based in

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Bloomfield Hills is a small city (5.04 sq. miles) in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a northern suburb of Metro Detroit and is approximately northwest of Downtown Detroit. Except a small southern border with the city of Bir ...

. In 1972, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. In 1998, PulteGroup acquired Divosta for an estimated $150 million. The company also acquired Radnor Homes. In 2001, the company acquired

Del E. Webb Construction Company The Del E. Webb Construction Company was a construction company that was founded in 1928 and developed by Del Webb. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, it became the Del E. Webb Corporation a publicly traded company on the New York ...

, founded by Del Webb, for $1.8 billion. In 2003, the company acquired Sivage-Thomas Homes. In 2009, Pulte Group acquired Centex for $1.3 billion in stock. In August 2014, the company acquired the real estate assets of Dominion Homes for $82 million. The company changed its name from Pulte Homes, Inc. to PulteGroup, Inc. in March 2010. The company moved its headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia in 2014. In 2016, Ryan Marshall became president and CEO of the company. In April 2019, the company acquired the homebuilding operations of American West Homes for $150 million. In 2016, the company won at 9th Annual

Shorty Awards The Shorty Awards (also known as “The Shortys”) honors the most innovative work globally in digital and social media by brands, agencies, nonprofits and creators. The Shortys’ mission is to celebrate, inspire and push the boundaries of exce ...

for real estate, and in 2022, it was named among Fortune Best Companies to Work For.

Criticism

Stucco defects in Florida homes

In 2019, after an investigation by

Florida Attorney General The Florida attorney general is an elected cabinet official in the U.S. state of Florida. The attorney general serves as the chief legal officer of the state and is head of the Florida Department of Legal Affairs. The office is one of Florida's t ...

Ashley Moody Ashley Brooke Moody (born March 28, 1975) is an American attorney and politician serving as the Florida attorney general since January 2019. During her tenure as Florida attorney general, Moody has supported lawsuits to invalidate the Affordable ...

, Pulte agreed to pay $4.7 million in restitution and make repairs to houses it sold in Florida that had cracks in

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

applied to a wood frame, stucco

delamination Delamination is a mode of failure where a material fractures into layers. A variety of materials including laminate composites and concrete can fail by delamination. Processing can create layers in materials such as steel formed by rolling a ...

, and improper installation of weep

screed Screed has three meanings in building construction: # A flat board (screed board, floating screed) or a purpose-made aluminium tool used to smooth and to "true" materials like concrete, stucco and plaster after they have been placed on a surface ...

2009 allegations of systematic construction defects

On March 26, 2009, Building Justice, a project of the International Union of Painters and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, with support from the AFL-CIO, released the report of a survey of 872 Pulte and Del Webb home owners in Arizona, Nevada, and California in which 63% of respondents reported construction defects in their homes. The report "Poorly Built by Pulte, No Different at Del Webb: Homeowner Dissatisfaction in Arizona, Nevada and California" was published on the project's website.

Assault of picketing workers

In May 2007, during a protest at a Pulte Homes construction site, an employee used a water truck owned by the company to repeatedly assault a group of workers picketing outside a home with a high pressure water hose. On June 20, 2007, a video of the incident was posted on Youtube.

Dismissed lawsuit regarding propping up sale prices

In October 2009, a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit was filed by

Steve Berman Steve Berman is an American editor, novelist and short story writer. He writes in the field of queer speculative fiction. Biography Berman was born on August 28 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in southern New Jersey. Berman realized i ...

accusing the company of artificially propping up house sales prices and contributing to the

United States housing bubble The 2000s United States housing bubble was a real-estate bubble affecting over half of the U.S. states. It was the impetus for the subprime mortgage crisis. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reac ...

. The lawsuit was dismissed by the court.

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1950 establishments in Michigan Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States Companies based in Atlanta Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1950 Home builders