New home construction is strong in Saint Johns, FL; in one particular subdivision all 20 homes sold during the month of September were new construction. Because of the increased demand for new homes throughout the county the permitting process is taking longer than it was just a few months age.
As you can imagine, the builders are happy to see more buyers in the market and do not want to lose customers who can’t wait more than 3 months for their home to be built. Now that the permitting process can take several weeks, a typical 3-month turnaround is very difficult to achieve.
Most of the builders are playing by the rules and have adjusted their timeline and promised delivery time. A rogue builder, however, has been playing by his own rules. This builder continued to promise the same delivery time as he had been and rather than wait for permits he began clearing lots and putting in footers and sub-slab plumbing without a permit. In a couple of cases, the permits hadn’t even been applied for when he did this. A sales agent in their office was overheard telling an eager customer that instead of worrying about permits they “start building now and apologize later.”
That plan turned out to be not-so-good. The county caught wind of this, issued Stop-Work orders on several sites and levied fines on the builder for both the construction and the plumbing that had been performed without permit.
That is appropriate and fair but where does it leave the customer? If they expected the house to be ready in 3 months and now it will be delayed at least a month, what are they to do? What if they are in temporary housing waiting for their home? Or what if they are relocating and have already sold their home? As a result of this builder’s bad choice these customers will be disappointed at best and hugely inconvenienced and possibly financially affected at most. My guess is that the builder probably wasn’t forthright telling the customers what caused the delay, either, and likely blamed the county or some other force.
Most builders and contractors I have worked with have been reputable, ethical and honest. This particular builder is not someone I would be eager to present to a customer but if one of my customers is interested in seeing his homes you can bet I will be exceedingly vigilant and will closely watch both the promised delivery time and the permitting process in order to protect my customer and avoid an preventable delay.
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