Once you get the plan finalized, pick stuff out and get a price, then you have to put up the money. The contractor told us the hard part was done when we got the price, but I have to disagree. The hard part is asking a bank for the money.
Since we're not rock stars or chewing gum heirs, we had to go to the bank and ask them for the money to build our dream home....
First step, filling out the forms online with all the stuff you would think, employment, bank accts, etc. Then the bank required hard copies of everything, so I got to spend a day or two chasing bank statements around town and getting proof of IRA balances, etc. The scary part was when the bank required us to sign a contract with the builder.
Kind of hard to do. You're committing to the builder, but you don't have the money, and you can't get the money if you don't commit. YIKES!! We made the builder put a clause in there that if it fell through, we could back out.
The next step was an appraisal of the new house and the property it's being built on.
Right now, houses are not worth much, and are not selling well. Our appraisal came back WAY lower than expected, mostly because there was nothing to compare our new house to, as far as prior sales go. That means the bank wants a VERY LARGE down payment.
We've pretty much decided to go with it, realizing that it really won't get any better and this is a really good time to build. So, now, we're waiting (again).
According to our new friend chadfromthebank, there's just a few "housekeeping" things to be done and then the loan goes the the board for approval. (really? that's not what we've been doing all along?) Anyway, coming down the home stretch, and this part will hopefully be over by the end of feb., nearly 2 months from when we started.
Next week.......squiggi gets a landscape plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment