Thanks very much for your response. The paint quality is not great and I do plan to have the home repainted in the near future. The builder used a flat sheen which is also harder to wash. Hoping that a new paint job will help preserve the rest of the walls.

Put a good coat of bonding sealing primer on those walls, and then two coats of a very good quality paint. It sounds like it either wasnt primed before painting, and no 2, the paint was a very cheap paint, so when you wipe with water, the unsealed texture and paint are both wiping off.

Question - is there ever a case where wall texture should just wipe off/fall off?

Um, no.

Btw, what necessitated tile repair work in a brand-new home? Hopefully it wasn’t in the shower. :/

Poor/sloppy workmanship in how the accent tiles were laid in the shower. They were removed and re-laid correctly.

@cat_ky Thanks very much for your response and the advice of a sealing primer. Yes, the PPG paint is cheap and marks easily throughout the home. We are by no means hard on our home and our previous home we were in for 11 years with BEHR paint never had the marked walls this house already has. We will repaint with BEHR in a satin sheen in the near future.

PPG does make good paint, however, builders typically use the cheapest grade they can find. If you are more comfortable with Behr then use what you are comfortable with. My daughter in law uses Behr Marquee and it holds up excellent.

This is a perfect time to get rid of the texture I have no idea why this is a choice ever. In Canada this would be a considered a poor job of drywall a smooth wall or ceiling is the norm here for good reason all texturing does is hide a bad drywall job and serves no purpose at all.