XII: Inching Forward

We expected to close our building loan at the end of December, but the appraisal has yet to come through, nearly two months later!  That’s frustrating to say the least.

A couple of the fins on the agitator of my 15 year old washing machine broke off, so it works, sort of.  We were told to not make any big purchases and each week we thought, maybe this week…. But nope!

I finally was able to have the banker confirm that we could, in fact, make the purchase.  Yay!  So we are scheduled to have a new washer and dryer in this Thursday.

While that was a great step, the real goal here is to get moving on the building project.  We spoke at length about the appraisal and that it could possibly come in at less than the amount of the project (they wrote the loan to cover 100% of the cost as a safety to them that the house will be built in its entirety, even if we have a financial drain for some reason), and that we would need to come to closing with some cash.  This seems unlikely to me, as we own the acreage, but finding a comparable sale seems to be what is holding up the appraisal.  This is why she had hesitated on us paying the first draw out to the builder, but running through our numbers and seeing we could both pay the first draw and have funds at closing if needed, she conceded we would likely be alright, but cautioned it was a risk.

With that, I contacted the builder.  He sent me the paperwork to prove we had the cash for the first draw in hand—a note from our bank and recent bank statement were required.  He authorized the driveway to be built and I purchased the insurance for the build!

Driveway authorization sounds small, but in the county we are building, it is the key to the next steps.  Once the driveway is in and inspected we can get a 911 address.  That allows three other things to happen—water tap, electric hook up, and the permit to build the house.

I can’t wait to see that gravel construction driveway!