Pheatured Photo
I woke up at 6AM because of the birds/the sun. This is actually ok, since I get my best work done in the early morning.
Jeremy and I are still in shock over the sudden turn-around with the house project. We woke up yesterday feeling absolutely exhausted, and it carried throughout the day. We can’t figure out how the appraiser missed and then found that extra 26k in the value of our house. Jeremy thinks that she might have run her original search with a cap of 150k, and then something he said may have rung a bell and prompted her to go back and search with a higher cap. But bottom line, we’re both pretty happy with ourselves - our gut/educated feeling about the finished value was exactly right. We knew better than the appraiser. How’s that for a couple of smarty-pants?
And kudos to Jeremy for going after that bad appraisal like a cougar. Thank you Jemmy!
We have a list of mostly small tasks to complete on Saturday. I’ll have to test the rest of my recipes, since the propane might be unhooked any day next week; I also need to clean the grill so that we can eat for the next couple of months. Good gracious, I hope it’s still working! We need to empty our storage shed so that it can be torn down. Finally, we need to plane the front door sill and oil the latch so that we can use that door during construction.
All for a good cause!
Written by Angela at 6:10 am - Filed under HomeWork - No Comments
The bank’s appraiser missed the twenty-five thousand dollars hiding under the couch.
….. Yeah. So. We received the appraisal of our finished project today. The appraiser came in at 25k under what we’ve seen “similar” homes selling for around here. I could pick apart all the things I’m finding wrong with this, such as the fact that she used sales dating back to a year ago (correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the reasonable limit for comparability supposed to be six months?), and that comparable #2 was a foreclosure purchased by a rehab company (um, yeah, that’s the best way to determine fair market value)….
But I think this is the most telling aspect of the report. Comparables 1, 2 and 3 are listed, right across the top, at $140.63, $133.63, and $149.65 per square foot, respectively. On the next page, our “Cost approach to value” starts with a value per square foot of $110.52. Hm… wait, there’s the missing twenty thousand dollars! I guess it wasn’t under the couch after all.
So why are we worth $30 per square foot less despite the 100% brand new vinyl siding, the 30-year brand-new roof, and the… wait for it… brand new EVERYTHING ELSE?? Our loan officer is out of the office this week, but her fill-in will certainly be answering to us tomorrow.
Again, I’m assuming this is some kind of ridiculous mistake. It’s not possible that this is a deal-breaker. I’m a little stunned, but I’m not crying yet.
*****Two hours and a dozen more accounting-brain stretches later, and I realize that she deducted out the value of the land from her derived price, then divided the remainder by the finished square footage. So this might actually be the end of the line, as ludicrous as it is. Well, why would I be so foolish as to imagine for a moment, much less months, that ANYTHING good would actually happen anyplace other than in my imagination??? (If it’s worth less, why not just give something up you ask? I can answer that because I’ve already done the math: the only item we could give up to drop enough of the cost would be the garage, and taking that off the list would push the value low enough that we then could not do anything. !@#$%)
Don’t worry. Jeremy will make me take out the fake swear later. For now you can live with it.
This thing with the closing costs must be some kind of mistake, or as Rebecca said, a misunderstanding.
One of the things I’ve found that I’m good at as an accountant is figuring out how somebody else reached a number. I’m sure this isn’t a special or unusual talent, but it is very useful. What we received from the bank yesterday was a whole mess of documents, two of which look contradictory and very scary. After a good night’s sleep, I sat down this morning and broke out both of these documents line by line. According to one of the documents, the closing costs are twice what we were given as an estimate (then there are some extra bits on top of that, but they are added to the monthly payment during construction - so it really isn’t 2.5 times the estimate to be paid at closing). This document makes it look like these extra-high closing costs are all due to be paid at closing, but the other makes it look like half of them are rolled into the loan or paid later on (such as the fee for the inspection after each portion of the project is completed). When you add what looks like the actual cash-at-closing number on that second document to the loan application fee, you get a number that is spot-on with the estimate given us by our loan officer.
That would be ok. We should have that number by the end of this month actually. (Which works out very well, because next month we’ll be paying a lot for my prescriptions. Drat that HSA.)
We’ll find out on Monday. In the meantime, it just doesn’t seem possible to me that we could be dead in the water. We met with another heating contractor today, who said that yes, those first estimates sounded unbelievable. He’ll be coming back with some numbers next week, so maybe we will have central heat. One of us - we can’t remember who, it must have been synergy! - also remembered that the hardware store up the street carries propane stoves, so we made a visit. It turns out they carry three different lines, and provide installation! Joe helped us out hugely, answered all our questions off the top of his head, and sent us home with three different brochures. It wasn’t hard to pick a favorite, and when we called back to get a price, we learned that not only is this option completely doable, it also brings us in under budget for heat. How could that possibly happen if we aren’t meant to go forward with this?
Not only that, but our builders stopped by today to show us the plans. We can fit the washer and dryer upstairs! We can have two sinks in the master bath! We can have a small linen closet! AND, the price they quoted us on the garage DOES INCLUDE VINYL SIDING!! We’ve been thinking for the past month that we’d have T-111 there and put vinyl on when it needed to be repainted. They ALSO described to us the perimeter drain system/gutter system that is included in their plans to take care of the water streaming down the sloped lot toward our house. That’s a bonus.
Bottom line, not only does the addition fix all kinds of little problems that would be horrible to take care of individually, but it’s all coming together so nicely. We’d have such a cozy, welcoming place. We could eat a table every night instead of TV trays in the damp basement. We could have people over. We could play the Wii without hitting each other. We could host Jeremy’s 30th birthday party at our own house instead of renting a hall. We could have house guests. I just can’t see this not happening. In fact, that’s why I was crying so hard last night. I can’t see a future with this house as it is, it’s just black in my head when I try.
So, I’ve decided it must be a misunderstanding. We must be okay.
We got a “good faith” - HA! - estimate and explanation of loan from the bank today. The closing costs are 2.5 TIMES higher than estimated by our loan officer (read: completely out of reach). The interest rate was set, not four days before loan closing as indicated by our loan officer, but six weeks before loan closing; not at the current rate as indicated by our loan officer, but higher. We do not have the option of foregoing escrow, as indicated by our loan officer, but are required to escrow. I had earlier provided our credit card information to pay a fee that covered appraisal and credit check (I do have a copy of the document, which says this in writing) - we are now told that fee covered only the appraisal, and the credit check is an additional charge. We are responsible for a flood certification charge, although we do not live in a flood zone. (We will be by the time I’m done crying over this though.) We are required to pay mortgage insurance, even though nobody knows yet if we’ll owe more than 80% of the house when we’re done.
I can’t live in this house anymore. I can’t. We’re not poor, and I can’t live like it anymore. This house was fine as a step on our way to something else. But we can’t make it better, and we sure can’t sell it as-is with the market where it is, so now it’s not a stop on the way to somewhere else anymore, and it’s not okay anymore.
IT IS NOT OKAY ANYMORE.
Jeremy says these numbers may be a mistake, but I am not signing any mistake put in writing by a bank. I am just plain not signing these documents. In any case, we won’t know anything until Monday. Happy Friday!
Written by Angela at 5:52 pm - Filed under HomeWork - 2 Comments
(Title courtesy of Jeremy.)
We just got a quote on the heat. Starting at $14,000 folks. Just to give you some perspective, the garage is costing us about $12k. And we were thinking about 5-6k, of course allowing for the fact that it will always be more expensive than we think.
But three times more expensive? The biggest-baddest furnace we could find online, which is not what we would be getting, was $3500. They average around $1500-$2000 or so (not much info available online.) Plus three zone dampers at $200 each. Even adding labor, ducting and markup, we can’t make that equal $14k. Baseboard heat was $17k. Radiant was, get this, twenty thousand dollars. For one thousand square feet.
I think somebody doesn’t want the job. Why don’t service people ever just say that? Why do they play these games?
I’ve learned something though. As far as this project goes, I am flexible on absolutely everything except: 1) my pantry, and 2) the project itself. So far, I’ve given up:
They make really nice looking faux-fireplace ventless gas furnaces that are 99.9% efficient. I’ll give up central heat if I have to. Although, we will of course be getting some more bids….
Do you want some amazing for the day? I’m not panicking. No panic. I’m feeling a little fluttery, but that’s it.
We just got our credit scores from Chittenden. Highest possible score is 850, and I was a little scared to see we were below that, with all sorts of reasons like “Too many inquiries last 12 months” (Haven’t applied for any credit, so What the Heck?), and “Length of time accounts have been established” (Discover just told me today that we’ve been with them for eight years, so What the Heck again?!) Credit scores must be calculated like gasoline prices: the people in charge use any excuse at all to move them in the wrong direction.
But it’s okay after all. I Googled for a reality check, and our credit ratings are just about as good as humanly possible. We definitely won’t be denied the loan based on our credit scores! And if we keep going in this direction, maybe we will hit 850 some day. 
Jeremy mentioned yesterday that we’re “a pair of very discouraged homeowners.” He probably got that by watching me completely and inexplicably flip out over the glossy prints of the baseboard heaters that our heating contractor left for us yesterday. (Something about the thought of a baseboard heater in my house makes my chest tight. I don’t know what my problem is.)
Actually, overall I’m not feeling particularly frustrated with this project. We’ve run into a couple of bumps, sure, but on the other hand it’s gone more smoothly than we could reasonably expect, what with our historic pattern of random and reliably timed catastrophes.
So far:
In addition to all this, we have independent parties we can ask if we’re unsure about the building process (Dad, I hope you’ve already guessed that you’ll be on speed dial….), and we have some decent knowledge about everything that needs to be done as far as finish work, so we’ll always know what’s going on. We’re not at anyone else’s mercy (at least not as far as that goes!) Plus, we don’t actually have to get our hands dirty or drive ourselves batty with problem-solving. I don’t need to wake up at 4 in the morning and start drawing mental pictures about which trim pieces need to go on first. We don’t need to spend six hours in a half-finished bathroom banging our heads against the wall - well, my head anyway - trying to figure out how to hide a 3/4″ height difference in the walls. That’s somebody else’s problem!
All this to say that I am feeling good about this project and our prospects. Not very frustrated. Just kinda good.
We’ve had quite a ride the past couple months as we worked hard to bring our vision of an actual house to the baby stages of fruition. Last you heard, the bank had given us some bad news, and the project was dead in the snow. One week ago, we talked with someone from Chittenden bank, who told us exactly what we wanted to hear: “You can have all the money you want!”
Ok, so they didn’t say that, but their policies would allow us all the money we would need to go forward. Fan-freakin-tastic! So away we go again, meeting with the contractor to settle the estimate according to the bank’s specifications, calling the gas company, and getting quotes for a heating system. Darn, stupid heating system.
Heating is a big, fat pain in the bum-bum. We had originally planned on forced hot air, because Angela is dead-set against baseboard heating, having a strong and inexplicable aversion to it. I would prefer the inconspicuous heating grates as well, although I like the idea of the quieter, non-dry-your-skin-off heat put out by radiant baseboards or panels. Of course, baseboard heat is the least expensive, but being 100% out of the question puts us with either forced hot air or radiant heat in the floors. Forced air would be fine, but running the ducts would be clumsy and make the downstairs substantially less navigable. Radiant would obviously be ideal, but requires a lot of labor for installation, in addition to the furnace itself. With the cheaper baseboard system only barely (and may not) meeting our hopes in the money department, we’re are at the moment a pair of very discouraged homeowners.
I’ve taken a look around online for a bit, and come up with another option, which may turn out not to be an option, depending on what the heating guy says. Vent-free propane stoves look kind of nice, and seem to be pretty efficient, but may have issues with moisture buildup, and don’t allow for programmable thermostats. A mix of stove and radiant might be a possibility, but again, we’ll need some serious feedback from the heating contractor.
So, here we are, waiting for pricing on our other option. Six Flags ought to come up with a new coaster called Building-on-to-your house. It’d be the scariest darn thing out there. Fortunately we’re fairly sure this one has enough momentum to get to the end!
We just got home from the bank. We can borrow the money for the house, but only exactly what the bid was, and only if the house appraises at the upper end of the estimated range. The bid does not include 1. overages, 2. heating system, 3. bathroom fixtures, 4. anything to make the house liveable (chairs, dishwasher, larger hot water tank). And since there is no way that we can come up with the $12k or so in cash in the course of four to six months, it’s a no-go. We could afford a monthly payment on far more than we’re asking to borrow. We just won’t own enough of the house when it’s done, so the bank wouldn’t let us borrow what we could easily afford.
Silver lining? Our tax base won’t go up. But that’s not much of a lining, since I worked the increased property taxes into my calculations of what we could afford. I’m trying. Jeremy’s much better at it than I am, you should go talk to him.
Written by Angela at 2:59 pm - Filed under Our Little World, HomeWork - 1 Comment
Thus said Jeremy as he walked out of the bathroom just now. The flapper in the toilet tank has been suffering from a missing hinge for almost a month. We finally got the right part in this week, and Jeremy just fixed it last night. So now it works, yay for my handy hubby! The only thing is, for the last month we’ve been taking the top off the toilet tank to readjust the flapper every single time we use the bathroom.
I guess new habits die just as hard as old ones!
Written by Angela at 1:53 pm - Filed under Our Little World, HomeWork - No Comments
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