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Breathe. Breathe.
This is the third time we've built a home and the fourth home we've purchased. Never in my life has it been such an episode. This morning we finally closed on the course of construction loan, but not before feeling utterly beat up and screwed over and smacked around.
First, we went through the nightmare of trying to get a reasonable construction loan package due to:
- The massive short sale rate in our area plunging appraisals to well below build costs
- Banks with all our bailout funds (read that: hard-earned tax dollars) who don't want to lend it back to the people they got it from
In spite of good credit, good income, and a huge down payment, we were put through the wringer.
Then, to top off our fun, Washington Federal—one of the few lending institutions who had a one-time close construction loan package with a moderately reasonable rate (given the rock-bottom fed rate)—went from “you're a great candidate for a 90% loan” to offering 80%, then changing that to 75%, and finally holding at 70%.
Seriously?
The reasons given ranged from a concern about being unable to sell the home for the build costs (forget the quarter million already put on the land) to complaints about the home having eight bedrooms and a homeschool room.
Eight bedrooms? Have you ever been to Utah? This is the house-with-massive-bedrooms capitol of the world. If you don't have at least five bedrooms, you're not a real Utahn. And they go up from there.
Homeschool room? It's just a room! It's just a space that could be a formal dining room, a recreation room, a craft room. There isn't some sign over the door that screams, “Hey, this is a house for crazy-weird freakish nut-jobs who are stockpiling ammo and hunkering down for armageddon! Run!” The real problem seemed to be that we were honest about our intended use instead of the space rather than making up some room that is a big selling point to future buyers.
Sigh.
So, here we are. Beaten and bloody, but finally ready to build.
The closing agent noted that we can't make any draws until Monday. But I swear, I'm going to get a shovel and run over to the lot and dig myself a hole. Just try to stop me.
Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.
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