The first thing we completed was our cabinet bid. I had actually bid the cabinets a year ago to find out what our allowance should be. When we changed builders, the new builder suggested another cabinet maker in town. I figured I would see what they had to offer and their price and go from there. Um. Hmm. Apparently if you are in your late 20’s and wearing jeans and a t-shirt on a Saturday morning, you can’t afford anything. Literally everything I said I wanted, the sales rep said, “well, that is more expensive” or, “are you sure you want white painted cabinets?”. Well, I will be the judge of that, thank-you-very-much! I knew I could get everything I wanted for our allowance since I had already done the leg work last year. I even asked him if he would bid a closet island for me and he acted like it was an inconvenience. It’s interesting because I have read a few other blogs where people have complained of the same thing happening to them. Owell, we met with the first cabinet maker again, and they were great. Bid came back in the same range as last year, so we are good to go.

Kitchen Wants:

– White painted cabinets (entire house will have white trim)

– Ceiling height cabinets

– Shaker style doors

– Marble look in Granite or Quartz

– Large island with slide in range in the middle

– Microwave/Oven combo in cabinets (2 ovens!)

Kitchen Inspiration:

Kitchen Design:

Just a quick timeline to show how we got to this point:

July 2010: Purchased land

June 2011: Started house plans

October 2011: Built steel building

January 2012: House plans complete

March 2012: Initial bid from builder friend

July 2012: Listed house on market

August 2012: Selected new builder

October 2012: Took house off market, re-financed

December 2012: First tenants moved in

January 2013: Re-finance was complete

February-March 2013- First bank appraisal

April 2013- Second bank appraisal

May 2013- Closed on construction loan

June 2013- Perk test, staked land

July 2013- Building permit

August 2013- Broke ground

[8.16.13] We went to the land to see what they were up to yesterday (day 3) and were surprised to see concrete! It is a lot of fun to see where everything is going to be.

[8/14/13] Imagine my surprise when I received the below picture from my husband

Relief. We have started. Anytime someone says “have you started building your house”? I won’t have to reply about banks, perk tests, the county, surveyors, excavators, etc. I can say “Yes.”. With a start date of 7/22, our completion date was 12/13. I am hoping we will still be around that same time frame. I am really hoping for before Christmas. Well, I was hoping for before Thanksgiving but beggars can’t be choosers right?

I called the builder on Tuesday (8/13/13) and he informed me that if all went well, we would be breaking ground the next day. We did not get our hopes up as who knew what crazy thing might hold us up this time, but it seemed like a good possibility.

So, the land was re-staked [8/2/13]! And then it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Basically it rained about 10 days in a row. During a drought. We basically had no moisture for an entire year and it decided to rain the week we were going to break ground. However, I will say I am happy for the corn. The corn is happy and tall and green. I will also say that our grass on the land looks beautiful. Not something you usually see in August.

OR NOT. So, we closed on the construction loan in early May and expected to break ground in late May/early June. However, as always with this house, that did not happen.

We were asked to mow the area where the perk test would be done (for the septic system), so that the sun could reach the ground more easily and give us a better perk result. We were under a short time frame because were were leaving for vacation and would be gone 12 days. We expected that the perk test would be completed by the time we were back (May 29th). Wrong.

We were in the airport on the way back from our trip and I received a call from the builder saying that the perk test had not been done yet (What??? It had been 3 weeks since we closed on the loan!). Apparently it had rained a lot while we were gone and they were worried that it would not perk well if they proceeded.

So… we waited, and waited. Finally, towards the middle of June, the perk test was completed and we achieved a perk that did not necessitate an engineered septic system (yay!). However, at this point, interest rates had gone from 3.5% to 4.5% (WTF!). So, we were definitely stressed and just wanted to the process to move forward.

* Just a side note- a jump of 1% in interest rates causes our mortgage to go up $200/month.

Then, there was a little issue between the excavator and builder and the report did not get handed over that the builder needed for the building permit. We also had to wait for the surveyor to stake the land.

Towards the beginning of July, the builder finally had what he needed and proceeded to apply for the building permit. But wait! Nothing can be easy! The county advised the builder that we could not put our house on the land where we had staked it. Apparently, the 3 acres was “platted” and the 13 acres was not platted (basically zoned differently) and the house could not overlap onto the 2 pieces of land. We had no idea about this when we bought the land and although it is fixable, it would take another 45-90 days to re-zone the 2 pieces together (words were thrown around like “vacate” and I have no idea what that all means).

The county told the builder that we could put the house on the 3 acres or 13 acres. We were not interested in putting it on the 13 acres because it would be behind our neighbors house. If we put the house on the 3 acres though, we would need a new driveway because the current driveway was on the 13 acres (seriously?). Since that was the fastest route, we decided it was worth the approx. $2000 to put in a new driveway. Luckily, the perk test was done on the 3 acres so we didn’t have to re-do that. However, it did need re-staked and the surveyor had a 3 week wait. We also had to get an “entrance permit” that had to be approved by our township.

But wait! It has to be as hard as possible! When the builder took the new survey to the county they said, “well, they can’t have 2 driveways because that would be 2 tracts of land and the bank won’t like that”. Um what? So I can’t put it where I want it and I can’t put it where you said I should? I called the bank and they said it was no issue for them (like I said, best bank ever!). It eventually got wrapped up and we only had to wait for the surveyor to do his re-staking.

Patience is a virtue? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? — My mantras during July

The construction loan was another hiccup in the building process for us. The first step is getting an appraisal. Our first bank (bank who we had the land loan with), would loan 80% of the appraised value. We started the appraisal process in February 2013. By the end of March, I still had not received the appraisal. After a lot of pushing, the loan officer sent it and much to my surprise, it was VERY low. Like, “we aren’t going to be able to build this house” low. It basically didn’t give us any credit for the steel building, and in turn did not leave us with much equity. We would have had to save an additional $20k in addition to our already large planned down payment amount.

So, I started calling banks. I happened to call a bank in town that was just awesome from the very first phone call. They said that they loan 85% of the value, which I knew would help us get closer to the amount we needed, even without a higher appraisal.

We met with the new bank and they agreed that the first appraisal was very low for the land worth, building and house. They submitted a new appraisal and it came back $20k higher than the first. That combined with loaning an extra 5% put us exactly where we needed to be. We were finally going to build the house!

Appraisal Summary:

– Appraises 85% of value (land+building+house plans)

– Uses comparables to other properties in the area

– Calculation (numbers used as examples):

* Appraised value= $100k

* 85%= $85k (amount they will loan)

* Cost to build house: $70k

* Amount owed on land: $25k

_______________________________________________

= $10k down payment

For our construction loan, our down payment does not need to be paid until the end of construction. Basically, once the builder has drawn all of the money in the construction loan, we will start paying the builder.

We are charged interest monthly based on the money that has been drawn from the account.

The construction loan is for 9 months, but we expect to be finished well before that (even with delays that we have experienced)

I cannot say enough about how great bank #2 was. If you are in my area and looking for a great bank, I would happy to give you the name.

Well, I never thought we would be the type to own “investment properties”, but here we are. We listed our house in July 2012, and by October we had only one showing. Going into winter, we knew that the traffic would not pick up. We had another realtor come look at the house and he told us that there were many people in our same situation, and that many had decided to rent their houses out. Because interest rates were so low, we decided to re-finance our mortgage and keep our house as a rental (we are living with family during the building process). We were able to lock in a rate of 3.375%, which was exactly half of our initial rate (6.75%) when we bought the house July 2007.

Looking back at the re-finance process, I can only laugh. We were supposed to close on 12/24 and that didn’t happen. Then we were going to close on 12/26 and the mobile notary didn’t show up. Then we were actually on our way to meet the notary and they called and changed the time. And then they did it again. I seriously thought I was being “Punk’d”. Good grief. Good news was that I got my loan application fee back because of all the ridiculousness ($350). So, all’s well that ends well.

Our tenants moved in on December 1st and it has been pretty smooth so far. We had a few issues with the rental management company we hired to manage the property, but it is worth it in order to move forward with the building process.

We initially had a friend bid out the plans for us in March 2012, but when the bid came back in May, it was way too high. At that point, we were unsure if we were going to be able to build or not. I knew that houses were being built in our budget, so we decided to get bids from other builders in the area. We started this process in June and by August we had selected our builder. His bid was about $70k lower than our initial bid (I told you it was high!). We were very relieved, however we still had one last thing to accomplish before we could start- selling our house.