After yesterdays excitement, the corrected credit report allowed the lender to be able to pre-approve us in time to keep the lot and not have it bought out from under us. We are very relieved! I probably could have dealt with losing the lot, but not being approved for this loan would have led me to seriously question whether I wanted to continue with the building process. This loan is a one time close construction loan with much, much better terms than our other option(s).
So now we meet with the builder tomorrow afternoon to finalize some changes to the floor plan. Then we submit it to the designer, get the appraisal, close out the construction loan and start building. The builder expects to begin in 1 month!
We are excited to get this show on the road. In the end, we could have got a much larger house if we would have bought a previously lived in house instead of building, but we both agree that it wouldn't feel like "our" home. We don't know why we can't shake that feeling, but ultimately that was a large part in deciding to build a more moderately sized custom, well-built home that we are the first owners of. Plus, after learning about the new framing and energy certifications that have been implemented in the past few years, I couldn't make myself comfortable not building a custom home that meets those standards and is of that quality. This way, I know I have an energy efficient home built the way I wanted and won't have any surprises that you typically find after you buy a previously owned home.
Congrats!!!
ReplyDeleteWe are in the same boat -- we could get a lot more house if we bought pre-built, but we have some pretty specific criteria, and I haven't seen anything that even comes close. We'd rather have a smaller house that's exactly what we want than a bigger one that's what someone else wanted.
We couldn't agree more. We were finding it aggravating that close friends and family were blatantly not happy for us and kept stating that they couldn't understand why we are building for our first house purchase and we finally gave up defending ourselves because when we tell them why it goes in one ear and out the other! Now we are just happy and excited for ourselves. We know what we are getting down to the structure itself and it is all how we want it. It will be energy efficient and save us on bills.
ReplyDeleteWe are working with the architect to try to trim some square feet off of the design. I'd rather forgo some of the space in order to do some upgrades on the interior spaces. Not an easy task!
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