i'm not using multiplayer patch.. and this has happened to me since 1.0 (unless what i've experienced is something similar but different).. used to be a lot worse though
using city zoom build mode doesn't solve anything. i've tried with both on and off as i thought the zoom mode is the culprit... in fact, i think zooming out helps. zoom out a bit more... but not all the way to cloth map (haven't tried building in cloth map yet).. this is especially common when building a city that spans a long narrow strip.
what happens is that you click to build somewhere and the camera just jumps to the city centre and the building is placed where the new mouse curser happens to be.
heck.. if you try holding mouse button without releasing it (to place the building) you'll see your screen scrolling in all sorts of wonky directions and keeps jumping back to the centre - where you don't want it!
win 7 64bit e6750 + ati 5770 + 4 gb ram