🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡

We are going to be stopping by quite often to see the progress on the house. We stopped by last Thursday and again on Sunday with my parents. Roof should be going on this week. Moving along nicely!

Thursday:

Sunday:

Update from Our Project Manager

We received our first update from our PM today:

 The footers and walls are in, the undergrounds for the plumbing are in and inspected by the county today, and the conduit for the electric is being installed today. The slab should be able to be poured on Tuesday and start framing on Wednesday. I attached a picture of what it looks as of this afternoon.

Short, sweet, and to the point! I plan on driving by in a few days to see for myself.

Footers in!

They broke ground on Friday! We have footers! It's supposed to rain for the next 2 days and snow on Thursday so we're not expecting much progress but it's exciting none the less. We drove over yesterday to check it out. It was extremely muddy but it was so worth seeing where our house will eventually be.

This will eventually be our front door.

Brad standing on the back footer. This mound of dirt will eventually be our garage... looks tiny but I guess it will fit two cars.

That really is a big mound of dirt.

No broken ground

SO building was supposed to start January 14th, but they still have not broken ground. The weather has been horrible for the past few weeks. We only had school Thursday and kids didn't have to go Friday because of the 3 degree temperature and -15 degree wind chill. We are currently in the process of moving into my parents' summer home to save money before the move. Hopefully they will start soon! We need to be out by Memorial Day (not really need but want to).

In loan news, we are still working with Integrated Financial on our USDA loan. Everything was looking good until we were told we make too much money to qualify. However, we definitely do NOT make more than the salary cap in our county. There was a problem with figuring out my income due to the fact I have two jobs: one in our local school district and one at the restaurant I have worked for the past three years. We were told it should be worked out this week so we're patiently waiting.

Hopefully I will have some pictures to post soon!

NVR- DENIED

After waiting over a month and half, we were told our loan was denied. It took some some time to finally get a response from our LO (I'm assuming since we were denied). I finally emailed her boss and received a call from her right away. It turns out the loan gods have changed their policy on how to account for student loans. Instead of adding what I pay each month, they had to use 1% of my loan total which is SIX times higher. This put our debt-to-income ratio way out of whack. Melissa (our LO) told us she could try for one more different loan but at this point we had had it with her and NVR and asked her to issue a denial. This way we still get our incentive (40% off options).

So, next step is working with Jen at Integrated Financial Solutions. Apparently, 80% of the loans that do not go though NVR are pushed and approved by her. Our SR wrote a letter to NVR requesting all of our documents be sent to Jen. When we asked Melissa when Jen can expect them, she sent an email that someone else was working on it so we are assuming it will take forever.

Anyway, this really sucks. Through the entire process we were constantly told, "Everything looks good!... You guys should be fine!" Apparently not. Good news is Jen will give us an answer within 10 days as opposed to NVRs ~60 days. Her debt-to income ratios can be a lot higher and Brad may even qualify for a VA loan under her guidelines.

Everybody pray for us!

In other news, they pushed back our start date to the first week in February due to weather conditions. I have a bad feeling it will get pushed back again due to Juno coming in this week. Oh well... More time to get approved and more time to save money!

Pre-Construction Meeting

We had our pre-construction meeting yesterday. We met our project manager, Mike, and went over our selections, the building process, and what to expect. They break ground January 14th and our settlement date is April 14th. Mike answered all of our questions:

If we buy ceiling fans, will you install them? No. They are pretty adamant about this.
Can you move the garage light switch inside the house? Sure. He explained they simply flip the switch box. 

Add outlet in tray ceiling? Sure. $75 fee. 

Exterior colors? Silver mist siding, maroon shutters, and black, leaded glass front door. This is planned per community (HOA guidelines).

Will garage have a window? Yes, plus garage door will have windows as well. 

Can we get a beveled edge on the Formica? Not sure. Will check and get back to us. 

Mike seemed pretty knowledgeable. However, he did inform us that this is one of his first builds with Ryan Homes since he left a few years ago and recently came back. He told us he would contact us every Friday with updates on the building process. We told him we would probably be stopping by verrrrrrry often since we live 5 minutes away. He said that was fine as long as we are with him or Jenny. 

All of the people we have encountered so far with Ryan Homes have been wonderful! I'm so excited to finally start the building process!

Now to the bad. Still no word from NVR. We have contacted our LO several times since before Christmas and have not had a reply. It has been over 30 days and it's strange to start the building process without our loan secured. Our SR said she contacted her manager and he contacted NVR. He told her there is are no "red flags" so we should be fine. I just wish someone would give us an OFFICIAL OK. Oh well. The waiting game continues....

Final, final change order and new loan... Maybe

We met with Jenny, our SR, to make one final change order (probably final but who knows!). After much deliberation in my own mind, I decided to nix the granite in the kitchen. Although I love the look of granite, I felt uneasy about selecting the color from a small swatch. I couldn't really picture what the kitchen would look like. I decided we would instead get Formica and replace it within the year. My persuasive self talked the bf into it pretty easily.  Apparently,  it will also be much cheaper to get an outside company to put in in. We don't have that much counter space so I'm thinking this is the best decision... cheaper and I can pick out the entire slab.

So instead, we added a tray ceiling in the master (special request), under cabinet lighting, and 2 more ceiling fan rough-ins. I thought it was more important to get structural things now... Right? Anyway, we chose "Jamocha Granite" Formica. I want to ask our PM if we can get a beveled edge but I think it just comes square. Hopefully there won't be a seam line because that's sooooo 80s.

Good news is our pre-construction meeting is scheduled for December 29th! I'm extremely excited to finally be starting the building process. Building should begin the second or third week in January and delivery in April. Hopefully this winter won't hold up the process too much.

We still have not been approved by NVR. It's been over a month. I contacted our loan officer yesterday and she informed me that she thinks we should now use a conventional loan instead of USDA. My first question- "Don't you need 20% down?" Actually no! It's 5% down and the funding fee goes from 4.5% (USDA) to 3% (Conventional). Cool. Also, PMI will drop off after 2 years. I didn't know with a USDA loan that PMI NEVER goes away so this seems like a good option. We are going to meet with her after the holiday so hopefully she will have some good news.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays blog readers!!!... If anyone is reading my blog.