Phase V - The Final Build

Now to update you on what's happened with this whole finish construction deal. In my last blog post I shared how dissappointing it was to hear that we had to somehow cut so much from the budget to make it work.
We had it narrowed down to 4 contractors. One never got back to us, another one told us that they were too busy to give us the attention we needed. But that didn't really make us feel discouraged since our top 2 picks were the ones that came back with their proposals and ideas on how to cut the budget without cutting the quality of what we wanted.

I think either contractor would have done an awesome job, but in the end it came down to the contractor fee between the two of them, since both had similar ideas of what to cut, and how to make it work. In the end, we ended up choosing Tasteful Homes to finish building our home.

We met with Rich, the owner, several times to go over the budget, and we went back and re-priced a lot of things, like cabinets, flooring, etc. etc. In reality it was impossible to cut enough out of the budget to fit the construction loan amount. So one thing we did was to finance the new geothermal heating and cooling systems separate through the vendor. We did this for two reasons: 1 - It will allow us to have the construction loan so we don't have to cut so much on the things we want, and 2 - because we will get about 40% of the cost back in tax rebates from both the feds and the state, as well as rebates from our electric company. This will allow us to pay-off this loan within a year.

So we went back to the bank with our new proposed budget, a copy of our contract and the specs to finish the house. And they agreed that the cuts we've made will not affect the value of the finished property so we got our loan approved! So after getting the title search on our property, we closed on our construction loan and signed the contract with Tasteful Homes.

It is hard to believe, but we're actually going to finish our house! Yay!

I have always felt that it is all in God timing and for his purpose, so we have tried to be very patient during these long months of going around in circles.So in the end I began to feel that maybe it is for the best that the appraisal came back the way it did, because believe me, if the appraisal had cone higher and we would have gotten a bigger loan amount, we would have spent every penny of it.
This setback really forced us to look at how we're going to spend every penny and to make it count. But we feel very happy and very confident that Rich and his team will help us make our home the way we want it.

So Phase V will be the last phase of this major project. Construction is scheduled to start on Veteran's Day! We can't wait!