Coordinating new construction

New construction looks simpler than resale. There is no seller disclosure history, no aging roof, no negotiation over a twenty-item repair list. Coordinators new to it often expect an easy file.

It is not an easy file. It is a different file, and almost every assumption carried over from resale is wrong.

The paper is the builder's

The first surprise is that you are not working from the regional association form. You are working from the builder's contract, drafted by the builder's counsel, for the builder.

What that typically changes:

• The closing date is an estimate, sometimes explicitly, with contractual permission to move
• Inspection rights are narrower than the standard form provides, and sometimes structured around the builder's own walkthrough process
• Assignment is restricted, which matters for investor buyers
• Deposits may become non-refundable at defined milestones, which is very different from earnest money held against live contingencies
• Change orders have their own pricing and approval mechanics, and they affect the loan

The practical consequence: read this contract properly, every time. There is no "standard" to compare against, and builders revise their forms.

On a resale file the contract tells you the closing date. On a new construction file it tells you roughly when the builder intends to be finished.

The date problem

The completion date depends on trades, municipal inspections, and a certificate of occupancy. None of those are within anyone's control at the transaction level, and the contract usually anticipates movement.

Which means the risk lands on the buyer's side of the ledger:

• Rate locks expire. An extended lock costs money, and a lock that expires in a rising market can change qualification entirely
• Lease end dates and move-out plans were made against a date that is now soft
• Sale of a current home, where the buyer has one, is now timed against an estimate

The coordination job is to make that softness explicit early. A buyer who understands in week one that the date can move will plan differently from one who learns it in month five.

Track the build, not just the file

The milestones that matter are not contractual, they are physical:

• Permits issued
• Foundation poured
• Framing complete
• Pre-drywall stage, which is a real deadline for the buyer's own inspection
• Mechanical rough-ins inspected
• Drywall
• Certificate of occupancy, which is what actually gates settlement

Ask the builder's sales office for status on a schedule rather than waiting for updates. They have the information and they will share it; they simply will not volunteer it weekly.

The pre-drywall inspection

Worth insisting on even where the builder's process does not contemplate it. Once drywall goes up, the framing, wiring, plumbing and insulation are permanently hidden, and a municipal inspection is a code check rather than a quality inspection.

It is a short window and it moves with the build, which makes it the one item on a new construction file that genuinely requires watching the site rather than the calendar.

Financing, and the lock

Extended locks, float-downs, and lock extension costs should be discussed with the lender in week one rather than in month four. A buyer who knows what an extension costs can make a decision. One who is told at the point of expiry cannot.

Where the builder offers in-house lending with incentives, the comparison is worth doing properly: incentives are real, and so is the rate difference, and they do not always point the same way.

What to hand the buyer up front

Set three expectations before anything else happens: the date can move, the deposit may harden at milestones, and their own inspections are their responsibility to arrange. Every difficult conversation later on a new construction file traces back to one of those three not being said clearly at the start.