HawthorneVillager.com

I just wanted to say hello to all the new Mattamy home owners in Phase 12! I've been following Rick's blog for some time, and he's turned this into an excellent site. I wish it was around last year when we purchased our home! It's very helpful and everyone seems quite friendly. I hope the neighbourhood turns out that way too.

The exciting thing for us is that we're closing on August 4th, so the countdown to our move is on! We've seen the dirt, the foundation and framing. Done the frame walk through, and just this week did our PDI. And next year, some of you may be our neighbours too. We're on Storey Drive, at the south end of the Phase 11 development.

We're currently Milton residents in the Main Street Village development. I was born and raised in Milton, while my wife moved here from Mississauga when we were married.

So a warm welcome to all our future neighbours!

Hi trish,

No, our closing wasn't delayed at all. The closing costs came out to about $9500, which was significantly more than what we were expecting. One of the reasons for the difference is that the land transfer tax was 20% more than what Mattamy had estimated when we purchased the house last year.

Well, we pick up the keys today, so we're very excited!

By the way, great website!

Hi Anne & Dean!

Congrats on your closing today! I hope it's going well.

Btw I noticed you have the Tothburg Elevation C, that's the same model we're getting (Closing next year though, october 5th).

How did your upgrades go? Did you go with the standard kitchen layout? Or make it resemble the model tothburg with the build in microwave/wall-unit oven?

How did your PDI go? Did you bring a home inspector or someone with you during the PDI? What did you find??

Hi Rick,

The closing went really well. The only annoying thing was that the lawyers called us at quarter to 2 to let us now that everything was closed. So, being as excited as we were, we rushed to the construction office to pick up the keys, only to get told that they hadn't received the go ahead to give us the keys. So, we waited impatiently for another hour and then called them back again to ensure that they were ready.

When we got to the house, our builder was there to greet us and he went through the items in our PDI that were fixed and not fixed and had us initial those that were fixed once we inspected them. He also let us know the status of outstanding items on the PDI.

It was very hard deciding on what upgrades to get because we loved the model home so much, and wanted everything in it, but they were so expensive!!! We did go with some luxuries like the open stairs to the basement and maple stairs with a carpet runner. We did not get the built in oven in the kitchen.

The PDI went really well too. No major issues. There were things missing like knobs on the cabinets and an opening window in one of the bathrooms, but these were fixed before we moved in. They touched up the paint in those places that needed it, and are replacing a couple of cabinets that we found scratches in. But so far, we haven't really found anything to complain too much about. We will be looking for things in the next 20 days to ensure that the 30-day report we provide to the TARION is complete.

We did not bring a home inspector with us. But the guy who did the PDI with us - Dominic - actually does home inspections, and he was very good at pointing things out that we hadn't noticed.

Hi Trish

Only first time homeowners get back land transfer tax, to a maximum of $2K I believe. As 2nd time home owners we are out of luck. Also, the LTT is based on the total purchase price of the house, which includes upgrades, so this is something to factor in when deciding if to go with builder upgrades or complete the upgrades post purchase.

Derek