For me, the question of whether the developer even still wants to build is more important than whether it starts a month earlier or later.
We were also a bit on pins and needles at the beginning. As I said, the building permit wasn’t there yet and it kept getting delayed and delayed, and meanwhile, you hear that construction is collapsing everywhere and others are abandoning their projects. We also asked several times whether they really still wanted to do the project, which they always assured us they did. But yes, you do start thinking “what if they don’t.” In our case, there were also quite a few clauses in the contract about who compensates whom and when. In the end, for us it was actually the case that as soon as the building permit finally arrived, construction started right away.
By the way, of all the houses currently for sale in the project (terraced houses and semi-detached houses), less than half have been sold and there’s virtually no progress at the moment. But in our terraced house block, actually 3 out of 4 houses had already been sold when construction started. I’m also curious how things will continue with the blocks where nothing has been sold yet. Ultimately, for us that would only mean more dirt in front of the door, but oh well :)