HawthorneVillager.com

This reply comes a little late I know, but:

Amen Sandra, Amen.

I'm going to come at this from the point of view from somebody who could not line up for 5 days. Now don't get me wrong, if I could have lined up I would have been right there with all of you

What the lineup did was cause a panic, and it cost every other person who did not line up a fair bit of money. You can say that by lining up you "saved" money, but I see it as the line up gave Mattamy the opportunity to charge thousands of dollars more to everybody else. I don't think the price increase reflects the value of our homes at all. It was just a supply and demand thing, and if hundreds of people are lining up to buy houses then obviously the demand is very high. If only a few people lined up the night before then no way would the prices have gone up the way they did.

I do think that Mattamy could have handled this whole situation a lot better then they did. Rather then have you people sleep outside for days they could have taken your name and held your place, or gave wristbands like they do for concerts. What they did was "hold the line" so that the hype would get out there. And it worked.

Again please don't think that I'm knocking you guys for lining up. I 100% understand where you're coming from. It just sucked for everybody else who could not line up.

What I think and maybe others as well is Mattamy themselves created the panic as a marketing ploy. To pray on peoples minds and get them to think that if you don't line up you won't get what you want.

1. It creates publicity for them
2. It insures people buy their homes
3. It creates precidents for the next phases
4. etc etc.

Please add to the list.

Tim

Oh BTW, I heard someone saying they will be lining up the Friday before the 50's phase opens up.

Well, here is our opinion on it.

First of all, we agree 150% with Sandra & Angela. We all waited out there for 1 reason only - we wanted it more.

We wanted our first choice of everything, and we got it!

And, the fact that people didn't wait up and Mattamy raised the prices isn't bad at all. Even the people that had to pay more a week later shouldn't be complaining, because when the NEXT phase comes again, even they would have made money. And I'm glad that all of us waiting outside paid off big time in the long run - not only did we make money, but we met all of our new neighbors. Granted, this site is allowing many people to chat, but alot of people on here weren't outside for days and don't know each other like our Day 1 Group do!

I actually get so frustrated when I hear people say "I couldn't line up". Come on, who out of us really could? EVERYONE in that line from day 1 made HUGE sacrifices, and we all should be commended for it. And everyone there had families, jobs, pets, everything at home that needed attending to, but we still managed to work something out.

We called in sick almost all week long, lost wages, went to work the next day after sleeping outside in a chair all night, had to drag our parents out at night to camp over - even pay my little bro's teenage friends to hang out there for us by offering them booze!

But, we wanted it more than all of the people who said we were "nuts" or that they "couldn't line up".

EVERYONE could line up - it just depended on how badly you wanted to. We all had to work really hard to get people to line up for us - it cost alot of time, money, sleep, effort and generosity from our families and friends, but all of us from Day 1 were willing to do WHATEVER it took to be in that line.

So, Magellan, and everyone else that came "late" and had to pay more, we're sorry that our line up caused a panic, and that Mattamy saw it as a chance to raise the prices, but if everyone who showed up after Sat. really wanted to, they could have been on that list with us.

Laurie

_________________

Like Tim said
Mattamy were the ones telling everyone that there had been line ups
the entire week before the release the phases.

Yes it was a plot to get all the attention and Yes we lined up.

Maybe we are sheeps to have done it but we are getting the house we want, with the brick we want, where we want and of course at the right $$$$ !
Sandra

Again Laurie please don't think that I think the people in line are the reason why everybody who didn't lineup had to pay a premium. I blame Mattamy for using you guys to make even more money then they already are.

But in all fairness there are people who are in lines of work who cannot use sick days because they have people relying on them to be there. And I would guess that we are on the low end of the age scale (mid 20s) and the last thing my friends want to do is wait in a line for me.
Of course everyone could have stayed in line for days, but for some of us the cost of doing so would have been too great. Trust me when I say that I would much rather have been hanging with you guys then spending those days thinking I'm not going to get the house I want. I'm just happy that it worked out great for everybody and I can't wait to hear the line up stories.

That being said, with the publicity that this has received what do you think is going to happen if the release a major phase in the middle of winter?

Mattamy hype? Absolutely. Do I imagine it works for them? Sure. Do I feel like a corporate billboard? Maybe. But then again, I wear a pair of shoes that say Nike and I am wearing an Old Navy t-shirt. We all do it.

As for being commended for our efforts by lying in calling in sick, I'm not too sure. That doesn't sound commendable to me.

But we did make sacrifices for ourselves and I doubt there's even a handful of us that would regret it. We did what we did because we felt that it was the only way to get what we hoped for. And that's the thing. Our hopes were so high, that we did the best to take our fates into our own hands. There's nothing heroic, nor immoral about that.

In my opinion, Angela (under Frank's name) said it best. In time the sacrifice will be a distant memory, but our homes will be real. Somethimes the end do justify the means.

Marc

Hi.

I read the stories about camping out and such.

I would like to know the appeal of buying a Mattamy home.

In Milton there are about a dozen builders actively building homes. Some better, some worse, and all with different value.

We didn't buy a Mattamy home. We didn't camp out. We got the exact model we liked, in the right price range, on the right block, and in the right area and it resulted in a good quality home.

What made you camp out in front of this particular builder? Were the models the best fit for you? Was the price just too good to pass up compared to other builders? Was there a feature set that you had to have?

I am very very interested to know as I am sure are others who have also read the camping out stories and are curious.