HanselMugatu wrote:
So are they not aware of these issues when they give you your original closing date?
To answer honestly no; this market and difficult municipal challenges right now are shattering all the old play books that production schedules and land planning schedules were based off of for decades. There are also unexpected things that tend to come up but 'planning' is generally based on normal expectations. They know from experience how long it generally takes to get site plan approval and land registration; they know from experience how many days it take to build various types of homes.
Builders are all trying to work through creative solutions to still meet their closing commitments, but for example when your trade just stops showing up to site one day and trades won't return calls for the oppprtunity to work the site, or you have something unexpected happen with the weather (for example foundations can't be poured when it's raining and other weather can cause missed production days too)... there are many variables that aren't all predictable. Mattamy has a particularly strong trade base that has traditionally afforded them a fairly predictable production schedule; this year and last.... I don't know of a builder in the GTA who isn't struggling to line trades up....
On the land side it can be an unexpected environmental issue (ie there was one case where a rare bird laid a nest of eggs on lands we were about to start building on and the enviro protection agency stepped in and forced a multi-month delay until the bird flew the coop!), it can be an issue of differences of what the town or region Wants and what the builder/ developer is willing to do) .
New home building has often been fraught with delays; I just think it's worse right now.
My first Mattamy home in 2006 closed on time, my second house a Tiffany Park closed in 2008 without delays. This will be my first new build with delays.