Revisions finished, lender change

This was a relatively busy week, full of frustration and some progress here and there. We finally got the revisions from John and we are happy. The size has ballooned to 1948 sq ft., something I was really hoping to avoid. With a two-story house, it's really difficult to get it at a particular size. There are certain things you want on the bottom floor, and you have that footprint to build on top of, no matter what you want upstairs.

I was hoping to have the final construction drawings done by the Friday, but John was just too busy to be able to finish them. One big surprise- he told us we would need to have structural drawings done by an engineer- something I wasn't aware of, and said they should be under $2000. That was a real shock. I think it was something that was just so common he assumed we would know about it. David James, one of the builders we are looking at is also an engineer and can do them himself. One of the other builders said the lumber supply company will draw them up for you if you agree to buy all your lumber from them. So evidently we probably won't have to pony up the $2000.

Wednesday we closed on our Raleigh house, after taking out the last remaining items- cleaning supplies, tools and a chair and a ladder. As much as we liked the house, it was easy to say goodbye. We've been moving out over the last 9 months and that made the parting much easier. The buyers were at the closing, which I wasn't expecting. It was nice to meet them and tell them how much we thought they would like the house. They (or their realtor) had caused us some last minute headaches complaining about the location of the radon mitigation system (in the master bedroom closet) but there was no other place to put it. We thought the closing might be delayed but everything ended up working fine.

The lender from BB&T finally wrote us back last night, 8 days after I asked her 4 simple questions. She answered one. Unbelievably bad service- I really don't want to give her my business anymore.

We met the builder David James over at the lot on Thursday and he said he didn't think we would have to have a crawlspace, but that it would probably be better. He also suggested we flip the house and put the house on the up-side of the lot, something that probably seems obvious now, but we had gotten so used to the plans as they were, we didn't think of flipping. It will also make the entrance side prettier, as the backside was going to be facing the entrance- the part you'd see every day when you drive in.

As of Wednesday night, I hadn't heard back from our lender at BB&T (after 6 days) so I decided to start talking to Jeff at Wrightsville Mortgage. He was very helpful and responsive. I wish that I had spoken to him first. I went over to his office on Friday afternoon and we went through everything. I'm much more confident we can pull this off by May 5 through his company. The terms are actually better as well. My Beacon score, something I never really thought about is causing a little bit of hassle. The middle score is 695, and a lot of terms get better when you're over 700. I'm not sure why my score isn't perfect- probably a couple of late payments because of our mail getting forwarded, or perhaps when we changed banks, but it was enough to cause me some headaches now. It has really pissed me off that it's not higher- my own fault. Construction loans are a real tricky puzzle to put together, based on the amount the lot and plans appraise for, but I think we're going to be able to borrow around $340,000. With the lot costing $122,00, that leaves us $218,000 for the house- which means we're probably not going to build a garage for starters, and may mean a couple of other sacrifices we have to make- mainly because the size as gotten up to 1948 sq ft.