Bids, Appraisal & Financing for Green Homes? We've been busy...

So we haven't blogged in awhile, Sorry. Lots of reasons but no good ones. We were waiting for our bids to come in so we can secure our financing. Its a process and a half. We recieved our final bids its took over four months but we finally got them. Since it is a new construction loan we have to show exactly or as close to it how much everything will cost, what we've spent so far and how much we want to borrow. We have put down quite a bit between the cost of the land, the well, engineering fees, architect fees and septic design and we will be spending additional cash out of pocket to pay for other things like certain fixtures and appliances. The bank has to make sure that we are borrowing less than 80% of the value of the completed property, this is called the "Loan to Value Ratio" (LVT). We should also mention that its a bit nerve racking.

The house is not built yet but it has to be appraised. This means an appraiser has had to go on site to check out the property, go over our plans and bids, as well as compare similar or comparable properties in a six mile area that have sold in the last six months. This in order to come up with a fair number. What's makes us nervous is that there are no similar properties within six miles, ours is pretty unique for our immediate area. Once we get back the appraisal we go on to financing and the complicated business of new construction loans. We have found a mortgage broker in the area that specializes in modular building and new home construction. Ted Daley at Homestead Funding Corp. has really treated us very nicely and is not the typical mortgage broker I've dealt with. He has not steered us towards any risky types of loans and has really helped us understand the process and the best way to go about it. At the moment we are waiting again... this time for our appraisal to come in, we want it to come in very high. This will help when borrowing from the bank in these heady financial times. Banks are getting burned badly in the sub-prime mortgage debacle ( their own fault ) so now they are being very stringent in their lending practices. Although we are very qualified and have a decent amount of equity in our property, we are freelancers. So they will be going through our financials extra carefully. We are optimistic though!

At least we're not the only ones check out the Sjodin's Blog: Sjodin Dream Home They are building a Green Home in the Austin area and are going through some similar things.

Hopefully if enough people decide to make their new construction sustainable it may become easier for others.

Comments

[Myleen Sjodin]

Hi Lynn!
Thanks for featuring our green home blog!
E-mail me and I'll send you our appraisal (don't want to be public with it because we're still waiting on a couple of bids)... I totally relate to you and am watching your project closely. Any help I can offer, I'm more than happy to give you any info you need. I think it's wonderful that you are building green and support you all the way. I'll be reading on...

Thanks,
Myleen