"He says it is the "times we are living in" and "our name is on the list"."

It is, while supply chain has gotten better there is still in most area not enough contractors for the amount of work. You may be seeing other houses lap your but they may not have been started until the GC had everyone lined up or has subs he uses repeatedly. Is this GC a smaller builder who only does a few homes a year? If so he may not have the clout that others have. And faster does not mean better, I have heard many, many people say going in the house was going to take 14-16 months in todays climate, except possibly tract or developer homes and even they are taking a lot longer than they did 3 years ago..

Many of the components that go into a home have limited availability and longer lead times. For example, I used to be able to call my garage door vendor and schedule installation of just about any door in the catalog within four weeks. Now I have to order my garage doors four months in advance. Ditto for windows that used to be available in four to six weeks (I have to order them before I break ground.) If builders are not anticipating extended lead times and ordering stuff a lot sooner than they are used to doing, it could very well take two or more years to build your home.

It is very frustrating, and we feel your pain. What is the quality of the work? If you push too much, he may hire less good subcontractors and that can be a problem. This may also be a case of good, cheap, fast: pick two.

What region of the country are you in? It's not unusual to pour a foundation before a deep freeze, then wait until the weather warms up to frame. Unless you're in Florida!

His painters may have taken off to work elsewhere during the summer. Or it's hunting or fishing season. And supply chain problems are real. We just had a property painted, and the Sherwin Williams guy said there was a shortage of High Reflective white paint.

Lesson learned. Next time get a lawyer and a contract. A house is one of the biggest investments you will make in your life. If we don't learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to keep making them over and over. Always cover your rear. Also - always read the ENTIRE contract. Contracts are legal documents that you are legally responsible for - regardless what was said verbally. If you don't feel comfortable with the contract, or the people working, have your lawyer look at the contract before you sign it. Cover your rear - cover your rear - cover your rear - always. I would get a lawyer at this point, but that's me.

In my area my small independent builder is doing better than the large production builders that sell their "custom division" to clients. People think the larger builder will get it done faster or have more pull, but the reality is that their labor pool is more transient and they concentrate their resources on their spec/tract projects.

One custom house by a large builder is on its third year of construction. The owners are picky, but there were months when no one worked at the house.

Another house was a tear-down back in Nov 2021 and the owner seemed to think his large production builder would be breaking ground on his semi-custom home in Feb 2022. It is now Aug 2022 and I think they just staked out the foundation last week!

My small builder has around 6 custom houses and major remodels in different stages of construction. As they say, time is money and choosing a builder these days shouldn't just be based on who gives you the lowest bid.

2nd coat of paint on what ? The walls , the siding ? I need more info and BTW 8 months for new build in this time is unreasonable to expect . You needed contract that spelled out the time frame and honestly I have no idea what a semi custom home is . Are the homes you see being finished tract type or "semi custom" I need to get a lot more info as to what you are doing to comment on time frame .

Lawyering up is a terrible idea. Now you'll lose money for sure. This kind of thing has virtually nothing to do with the law, fairness, or right or wrong. It has everything to do with a position of strength. Vanessa doesn't have much strength at this stage. She should be just enough of a PIA that he wants to get rid of her ASAP.

so sorry to hear, please contact the better business bureau for your state. The lawyers there help for free and get the job done!! I cannot sing their praises enough!!

everyone should use the bbb as their first step when researching a business. the website will let you know if anyone filed a complaint against that business

Not every business is registered with bbb.

You don't have to be registered with the BBB to have people say nasty things about your business on their site, beleive me. In fact, the BBB uses it as a recruiting tool.

The required "time is of the essence" phrase belongs in all contracts with stated penalties for missing benchmarks. You can include a "best efforts" section, but that gives everyone an out.

You're only 10 months in? My house took 27 months. Is this a tract house or a custom house?

"The required "time is of the essence" phrase belongs in all contracts with stated penalties for missing benchmarks."

In my experience those clauses are typical in commercial construction contracts, but I've never heard of one in a residential construction contract. That's the kind of thing that will make the pool of willing builders or remodelers a lot shallower. Spend adequate time vetting your contractor and you'll minimize the potential for problems more so than you can with any contract clause.

It depends what exact stage you are at, but I would suggest to sit down with the builder, go over the major work items that need to be done, and set a timeline for each of these items. Then, keeping reminding him to complete these items.

I understand your situation - we are in a similar one, but not as bad. Construction began in Dec 2021, and was originally promised to be complete by June-July this year. Then we had a major delay of windows that pushed back the schedule. The roof tiles are also still delayed. This is also slowing things down. On the other hand, some of the delays are due to the builder being a bit disorganized - ordering items too late, scheduling subs too late, etc. There were times when weeks went by without anything happening in the house.

Actually I wish my builder had waited 90 days to frame. Concrete doesn't fully cure for 60 days to full strength. Builders now days frame the second the slab is laid down and you end up with cracks, honeycombing and slab issues. I went under contract in September 2021 and Im supposed to close next week. Delay after delay after delay. You should count your blessings they aren't using sub contractors. There is a massive labor shortage right now and the people many of these builders have coming to job sites have absolutely zero skill set for the job they are doing. I have heard stories about a sub of a sub getting day laborers to do tile jobs in 600k houses. My advice, realize you (and me both) picked the absolute WORST time to build a house. Be persistent and patient but I would not threaten the guy or get nasty. I'd rather have a custom home builder doing things the right way and taking longer than a poorly built house that they threw together in 4 months. It took me a year and my people used subs. I had to watch over them like a part time job and micromanage the project myself. It's been exhausting. Good Luck.

Bob:

The marketplace is giving you and every other home builder/owner just exactly what you've demanded. In the 60s, your middle class neighbor may have been a tile setter. No more. You demanded lower prices and voted for opening our southern border to illegal aliens who provided unfair competition to your ex-neighbor the tile setter.

My condo board contracted to have our roofs done. Not a lick of English spoken, nor a green card in sight. Wearing the gear, but no one is tied off:

Mexican lives are expendable apparently.

"Actually I wish my builder had waited 90 days to frame. Concrete doesn't fully cure for 60 days to full strength."

There's really just so much wrong with this statement.

Framing on top of uncured concrete has nothing to do with cracking, honeycombing, or slab issues.

Sorry if my comments were misleading, was told that by a guy who does the concrete jobs for a custom builder. Thanks.

Joseph: I can promise you my viewpoints are not part of the problem. I was raised by a guy who did 2 tours in Vietnam in recon/3rd marine division and worked in the steel industry for 30+ years. If I demanded lower prices, I'm doing a bad job based off what I paid for my house.