Classic Communities

p. s. Don’t be surprised if Classic Communities changes their name to Susquehanna Valley Builders. Just remember, changing your name doesn’t change the character and dishonesty of the people running it.

Classic Communities markets itself as a home builder, one of the largest builders in South central Pennsylvania. My wife and I first encountered the company when attending an open house in Boiling Springs back in February 2015 (Old Forge Station). In February 2015, we signed a contract to build a new home there, with an estimated settlement date to fall at the end of August 2015.
Our build has been plagued by several major issues, many at the hands of Classic Communities itself. As a company, they have struggled significantly to get contractors and trades to our homesite to do any work. This was first explained as a general labor shortage issue, but through conversations with contractors and community members, it seems that Classic also struggles to pay their trades, causing them to avoid partnering with Classic, meaning little to no work happens at any given time.
After breaking ground 6÷18÷15, there were only 11 days of work through 8÷25÷15 (23% of workdays used) and in the entire month of July, only two or three hours of work occurred on a single morning of work. While there was a spike in work beginning September 2015, our settlement date keeps getting pushed back later and later.
As far as customer service, overall the company really struggles. We’ve had a wonderful relationship with our Sales Representative, however the management is very poor at communication. This changed briefly with a significant management clear out in September 2015, but overall the company settled back into a habit of no meaningful updates pretty fast. Since breaking ground, the Construction Supervisors responsible for our build have never called us unless we’ve called and left messages AND asked our Sales Representative to call them on our behalf. Even after meeting with the owner of the company and voicing these concerns, no improvements to communication have happened.
Our settlement date has been bumped from August to September, then to November, then December, and most recently to January 2016. This has been due to issues finding contractors and trades willing to work for Classic, due to what appears to be Classic’s continued difficulties with finances (ability to pay workers). Classic made some minor concessions to help us with the hardship the delays have caused (i.e. inability to sell our current home, emotional distress, changes in mortgage rates), but this happened only after we went and spoke with the owner. The continued delays are due to Classic’s failure to do business effectively.
When asked what Classic intends to do to improve these issues, we’ve been told (on several occasions) that we can «get our money back and walk away,» since they’ll just sell the house we designed to someone else when it finally gets finished. This leaves a very sour taste in our mouth, as the company doesn’t seem to want to take responsibility for its failure to fulfill the contract we signed with them.
While we are hoping for our home to be finished as soon as possible, I would strongly recommend anyone looking to build a home to avoid Classic Communities. They are a company full of good intentions, but very little follow through. Building a home is a huge commitment and this has been an emotional nightmare for us. If you’re doing your research and see this, find another builder and avoid the problems we’ve experienced!

Horrible Way of doing business. They dont have any business ethics, bottom line is money!
Stay away from this builder!