Morning -
Visitors...
Evening -
P.S. This is about the end of the exciting happenings for this post, so check back soon for updates - or feel free to continue reading the following very boring things only being documented for the purposes of our wonderful memories or those wanting to go through this process in the future.
---------- WARNING: LOTS OF BORING DETAILS TO FOLLOW (+ 1 PICTURE) ----------
In order to get approved for a loan, we had to first decide what we were going to build - DONE! But I guess the banks don't just hand you blank checks and cross their fingers that you build something they could eventually sell to get their money back if they had to. So now that we had our dream home designed, we sent it off to our OBN point of contact and he reviewed it and sent us back an estimate of how much it would cost to build, based on what type of flooring, appliances, exterior finishes, etc. that we wanted in it. After we had the initial heart attack, we decided we could handle it. Towards the end of July, he sent those plans off to the bank. The bank then sent them off to an appraiser, who contacted us a few weeks later for some additional details. The appraiser goes out and looks at the homes around our lot, similar homes sold recently and those currently for sale and does adjustments to those prices to tell the bank what they feel our home would be worth if we built what was on that piece of paper. On August 28th, we got our appraisal back with exciting news. The estimate to build our house with OBN came in much less than the appraised value! Yay for instant equity! (Although I wonder how much we should offset that with all the time we'll put into it...time will tell.)
So bank says, alright...house appraised for this much, after you pay this much...we'll give you this, sound good? We said, "Yep sounds great. Can we have our check now?" They said "Not quite." We had to go through the whole loan application process, gathering documentation and whatnot. Well apparently while they were doing that, the tax bills for the 2012 taxes got sent out. And that "lien" takes priority on the title for the property so the bank told us on Oct 10th that they couldn't give us our loan until that was all settled. Great...considering the taxes weren't actually DUE until January 2013.
Now it was time to meet the neighbors. Remember that first post that mentioned it was a 6 acre tract that got subdivided into 3 lots? Well the tax bill went to the old owner and it was for all 6 acres. So us and the other 2 new owners were responsible for paying the whole bill, and it took us a few weeks to all get on the same page and go up to the county to pay the taxes all together on October 28th. Luckily they were both pretty nice and understanding. One of them had already started building before the tax bill was sent out so it wasn't really his problem, and the other one was going to run into the same issue soon so we got it all worked out. Meanwhile, we told the bank they were paid but then they didn't see it on their side yet...so we waited and waited for them to post. That whole process took from early September until we got the call on November 8th that they had posted as paid. November 9th we closed on our construction loan! Another exciting step in our journey was completed.
Meanwhile, actual house building/non-loan related steps were being completed...we had to get our soil tested to see what was under there so they could tell us what kind of foundation we needed so that our forever home will actually last forever. We sent our plans off to a company on Sep 10th, who subsequently took some kind of tractor thing out there and dug two 35 ft deep holes into our lot and took some samples back for analysis. They sent us back a report a couple weeks later, that was a bunch of technical jargon that I didn't understand. Luckily, we didn't really have to understand it all. October 15th, we took that report and sent it to someone who we paid to understand it all for us, and they designed us a lovely post-tension slab foundation based on the information in that soil report.
So we knew exactly what kind of foundation we needed, so just go pour it on there right? Well...again, not quite. The town frowns upon building houses without permits, so we decided to follow their procedures. But as part of the permit application, you also have to tell them who your contractors are going to be for electrical, HVAC, and plumbing work AND they have to be registered with town in order to get permit approval. So before we could decide on our contractors, we had to get bids. Lots and lots of bids, and make lots of decisions. For the most part, we sent them plans in pdf that we had from the architect, they would call and ask more specific questions about what type of A/C system we needed, and water heater and all that good stuff. Luckily, Rob was very interested in these things and asked lots of questions to make sure we got what we needed. The guys were all very knowledgable and answered all the questions so in the end we picked ones that may not have been the lowest price, but we felt confident in the work that they would provide for their bid. We accepted the bids for contractors we liked and got them registered with the town.
Once we had all of our paperwork ready for our permit application, on December 6th we proudly marched into Fairview Town Hall with our packet and plopped it down in front of them, held our hands out and said "permit please!" Well maybe not exactly like that. Have you seen Fairview's monstrous Town Hall in the Village at Fairview? It's quite lovely, see?
Sadly, they said it would be a week or so until the plans had been reviewed and then they would issue our permit. Again, we waited. They came back last Thursday and said well, you're required to build an Energy Star home and this doesn't say Energy Star on it. So we gave them our paper work that showed our home would be 15% more efficient than code, which is the Energy Star requirement. Still, not quite good enough. We had our Energy Code contractor run us yet another report that had the official Energy Star ratings and we were in business. That was just what they needed and they issued our permit today! As soon as we handed them a check for all their wonderful fees. Guess that building doesn't pay for itself.
Lot - CHECK.
Designs - CHECK.
Loan - CHECK.
Permit - CHECK.
Contractors - SEMI-CHECK. First ones down, many to go.
Calls were made today and the site prep guy should have been out to stake the property by now and he'll be out tomorrow with the tractor to level it out and drop off our load of rocks for the entry so that all the trucks don't track mud onto the town's streets. We're off work for the next few weeks, so hopefully we can update with some more exciting things and more pictures soon!
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