More waiting

I talked to Indigo Mortgage today. They need a couple more things from us, so they haven't moved forward with the loan processing yet. I should have been more diligent, and known that they needed more. So, I need to get some things again, since they are from July/August, and Indigo needs the most current statements and paycheck stubs. I will try to get that gathered ASAP!

New new news

I was told that it takes less than 2 weeks to get a building permit. That is true IF everything is ready. We found out this week that we need a couple things. First, we need an engineered drainage and grading plan. I was told by someone in that office that we would NOT need it, but apparently that's not the person who has the power to make that decision. I talked to UbuildIt about who we should get to do it, and they are trying to track a specific person down who was able to do it for very reasonable prices. They also said I should call Rio Rancho and explain a few things about our land. Maybe we won't need it after all.

We also need to extend the water line. There is a fire hydrant on the corner of our lot, but I guess that's not good enough. I should have seen that coming because our neighbor wouldn't have run the water line all the way to our lot if he could have just run it to the edge of his. UbuildIt gave me the name of someone for that, but I have to submit different paperwork to Rio Rancho before we do anything. I was also told not to do anything before we get financing. And that leads to the next bit of news.

Charter Bank was going to do our construction loan, but after reviewing everything they said we need to sell our existing home BEFORE they can give us the construction loan. That's not exactly what we had in mind, seeing that we need somewhere to live during the construction. It's a good thing that we had talked to another lender who is ready to give us the loan. We just didn't go with them yet because of Charter Bank. So, Ben at Indigo Mortgage said that there is a 98% chance of us getting a construction loan and being able to begin building by October 1st. Another reason we were going through Charter is the timing. We were told not to do anything at all to our land until we had the loan finalized, or it would cause problems with the financing. That means that we can't begin anything until October 1st. Any chance of moving in around Christmas is lost. So, January or most likely February is when we will be able to finish the home.

We also talked to another possible contractor who would manage the entire job. Indigo Mortgage recommended him. Jim Flores is his name. If we use him, we wouldn't have to do all the things we are going to have to do through UbuildIt. He also costs more than UbuildIt, but said that he can usually save people enough to make up a lot of his fee. I don't know if he realized that we are already saving a lot by going through UbuildIt. When he looked at the price of lumber that UbuildIt quoted us, he told us that it couldn't be right because it was too low. I called UbuildIt and they went back to the lumberyard, and the price they had quoted us had actually dropped a little since the quote was first given. It is not very likely that we will use Jim Flores to build our home. He is working on a detailed quote for us. If his quote impresses us, he may still have a chance.

I had a pretty heavy work week and a reunion today. I hope you didn't miss the blog too much this week. I should have more time in the coming weeks and try to be a better reporter when it comes to "breaking news".

We will have a building permit in less than 2 weeks

Hooray! I was finally able to get everything in for permitting! The basement engineer needed a little bit of a push to get our engineering to us, but he finally got it to me on Wednesday. That was the last piece of information we needed. Rio Rancho got all the paperwork and plans on Thursday for our permit. Initially Leonard at the permitting office said it would be a few days. I had him clarify that and he said within 2 weeks. There is also a water meter request that must be accepted before they can give our permit out. That was also submitted on Thursday with a 5 day waiting period. We are just glad that it should be done in 2 weeks and not 6.

I talked to Horizon Mortgage as well. They are an affiliate of Wells Fargo and they cannot do a construction loan because of new strict corporate regulations. Mark at Horizon Mortgage said that he will be able to get us the best deal in town on our permanent mortgage, but we will have to get our construction loan through someone else. I played phone tag with Jonathan from Charter Bank and will try to meet with them ASAP. We have met with Charter Bank before (about 9 months ago) and were prequalified for the loan. I have since gotten a fairly significant raise, so I think we should be able to get our financing quickly. Charter is who UBuildIt recommended and normally uses. I just thought that I would shop around a little. I know we like Horizon Mortgage, so I tried them.

I also spoke with the Alpha Septic. They wanted an estimated time of septic installation, which I'm not too sure of right now. They said any time after rough in plumbing, so I told them October. They weren't too concerned with exact timing, just wanted to make sure they had us on the horizon.

In the next 2 weeks we will have to get the construction loan finalized, and sign the contract for the building phase with UBuildIt. We will also have to get PNM to get electricity on our lot. There's a PNM box about 1 foot away, and in past conversations they have said that our lot is ready for it. We just need to have them set it up when the time is right.

Not much news

So. We are now waiting on a couple of things. The basement engineer said that he will get everything done by early next week. I also met with Horizon Mortgage on Wednesday and he will get back to us on Monday. He was very confident that he will be able to get us the best deal around. They are the same ones we have our current mortgage through, and I am very happy with them.

Based on that information I am planning on submitting everything for permit next week! Hopefully permitting will go quickly and we can start building soon.

Plans are almost ready for permit

We have some progress being made. Tuesday I got the plans from UBuildIt along with the approved truss engineering, and then dropped them off at a structural engineer to take care of the basement walls. He said that he should be done next week sometime. I told him to engineer the basement walls based on poured concrete, not block. I have been in contact with a concrete company that can do it for about the same price. We won't know for sure until we get the bid back from them, but we were willing to spend a little more for the better walls.

Thursday I picked up the septic approval. I will have to double-check, but I think we will be ready to send the plans to Rio Rancho for permit as soon as we get them back from the basement engineer. From what we've heard, it takes 4-6 weeks to get a permit from the City. We are hoping that the City can go faster since there shouldn't be as many other people building right now. Maybe they can get it done in a week or two. If everything goes well we can break ground in August, but we should probably be content with early September. We will try to build in time constraints into our subcontracts to keep everything moving quickly and smoothly. We should be done by January! Right now it's just a little bit of a waiting game (for the basement engineering and the permit).

From El Paso, Texas

We are out of town this week and it's been a little harder to work on anything. I did find out a couple of important things though. First, we do not need to get an engineered grading and drainage plan! That was going to cost money and take a lot of time. I talked to Rio Rancho and found out we won't need it because we are not altering the landscape enough to disrupt the water flow. Also, our trusses have been approved and stamped by an engineer. That was something that needed to be done before we submit our plans for a building permit. Finally, I got word that our septic tank has been approved by the New Mexico Environmental Department. That is also needed before a building permit can be requested.

All we need is our basement walls to be stamped by an engineer. UBuildIt was supposed to be getting quotes on pured concrete walls, but they haven't been able to find anyone. They have a quote for masonry block walls, and thought that would be o.k. Based on a few different conversations we've had we feel like we would like to get the poured concrete. Our basement plans cannot be stamped without knowing the material it is made out of. I have called around a little and will hopefully get some bids on poured concrete soon. Then we can make a final decision and get a stamp and submit for permit!

Permitting

The permitting process is underway. We are going to try to have the entire home completed by December. Grandma's lease expires in September I believe, so I think a 6 month extension will be more than enough buffer time, in case the construction takes a couple extra months. I will work on some more today and keep you posted.

A Video of Our Lot

On Sunday we visited my brother's family. They live about 2 minutes away from our lot, so I decided to take the video camera and make a recording. The video file is pretty big, so you may have to wait for it a little.

Latest Floorplans

I haven't ever posted the floorplans. Here is our house. Scharese and I looked through hundreds of different plans and nothing quite worked. Scharese designed this entire house from scratch. When we submitted the design to our draftsman, he was very impressed because everything just worked. Scharese had to take into account the thickness of walls and proper measurements of doors and fixtures throughout the entire home. If anyone needs a great designer, Scharese's services will be available at competitive rates!

We have since gotten numerous comments praising the plans. Dennis, the contractor who we considered, loved the plans so much that he is stealing them. They actually have a copyright on them but he said that it just takes a few minor changes to become "his own" plan. It's a little aggravating, but what can we do?

Septic Permitting

So, we are now working on getting all the necessary permits to start building our home. The New Mexico Environmental Department has to approve our septic system. Our home design had too many closets for a conventional septic system, so we had to remove the doorways from the closets in the study, the den and the loft. If we kept the doors, those rooms would be counted as bedrooms and we would have to get an advanced septic system (which costs 4 times as much as a conventional system). My Dad wants me to look into a new kind of system that would use the greywater for watering the lawn and such. They are called Pugosystems. I will have to look into that.

Once we get the plans accepted by the Environmental Department we will need to get a couple of engineer approvals and we can submit for the building permit.

Meeting Reports

Some significant information has come out of our latest meetings. We met with our neighbor Dennis and his partner about building our home. We came away from that meeting discouraged. We were told earlier that they were going to be within a price per square foot that made us excited, but when we got the actual price breakdown it was significantly higher. They added taxes which made it higher. More drastically the price per square foot they quoted us included the basement, which they are not going to build. Why are they charging us for something that they are not building? They had some reasons, but none that we really feel are valid. So, they said they would look at some things and rework the numbers. We have almost entirely ruled them out, unless they come back with something really looks good. It would have been nice to have someone to build the whole thing for us, but I guess we will probably save a lot of money being our own builder/contractor.

Thursday we met with UBuildIt. Earlier they said over the phone that they were really happy with how the price was looking. But I was sceptical since our meeting with Dennis. When we got in there to meet with them, we found out that the price they calculated after getting bids from all the subcontractors was much more in line with our expectations. Then we found out that UBuildIt had allotted us more generous amounts of money for things than we think we need. We think we can build it for even less than UBuildIt allotted. So, we are definitely leaning towards UBuildIt. My dad is worried that UBuildIt may not give us enough support for the fee that they are charging us. I think their fee might pay for itself based on the quotes from subcontractors that they showed us. We need to talk to them and see if we can't get something in writing for them to visit the construction site a little more often.

I need to talk to James Lane and see what he will charge us, and what he would be able to offer. One little red flag that has come up is that he said Ybarra Concrete was a good company to contact for our basement, but they are actually out of business. That makes me wonder if it's been too long since he's done this. Maybe he won't be able to get the kind of prices from the subcontractors that UBuildIt can. UBuildIt claims to only use subcontractors that they know and trust. If we go with James Lane, we won't know what subcontractors are good and trustworthy. Maybe UBuildIt doesn't really know the subs like they claim to?

So, unless Dennis comes back with something spectacular, it looks like it's down to UBuildIt or brother Lane. I would say UBuildIt has the edge as of right now. But I was giving the edge to brother Lane last Saturday, so things might change.

We would love to get your input and feelings on this Grandma.

And the excitement builds!

We are really getting things rolling about now. We met with James Lane, who was a contractor in the past. Now he is an engineer at the Albuquerque Temple, but is interested in helping us with the house. He has built homes in Rio Rancho with basements and could be a great resource. We got him some plans today so that he can give us an estimate for his consulting/overseeing the project. In our meeting with him, he said that he would like to visit the construction site twice a week to monitor its progress and keep the subcontractors on task. He seemed very willing to loan us a tile saw, and paint sprayers to help with the do it ourselves tasks. After that meeting on Saturday I would feel very comfortable with him being our consultant instead of UBuildIt.

We were supposed to have a meeting tonight with a contractor and get a definite cost breakdown on our home construction. This contractor is our neighbor, Dennis. He was actually a contractor for Longford, and oversaw our current home when it was being built. We are familiar with his work, seeing that we live in one of his homes right now. That is a good thing and a bad thing, because we get to really know this house and all its faults. The meeting tonight was rescheduled for tomorrow night because his partner was unable to make it tonight with the bulk of the paperwork. We did have a talk with Dennis, and he said he could build the home for the price that we wanted (maybe we could have wanted it for a little lower price and gotten an even better quote???) Nonetheless, his price is definitely lower than what I was quoted by other builders that I have contacted. The nice thing about possibly going through Dennis is that he wouldn't just consult us, he would do it all. That would definitely take a lot of stress away, but we wouldn't learn as much. He would also be able to get it built quicker than we are anticipating if we just have a consultant. Tomorrow night we will get a definite bid from him.

Then on Thursday we are meeting with UBuildIt to see how all the bids from their list of subcontractors look. Scott at UBuildIt said he was pleased with the prices he is getting from the subs. We don't know how that will compare to Dennis' quote, but if it's higher we may just let the contractor take it. We will find out more on Thursday.

So, I guess we will have a BIG decision to make. Right now we have 3 major options. We build it with James Lane as our consultant; We build it with UBuildIt as our consultant; Or we let Dennis build it. Some prayer and contemplation will be required.

To really get things going we need to get the necessary permits. Tomorrow I am going to try to get the paperwork we need to get a Wastewater (Septic Tank) permit. That will take up to 10 days to get, then we can send 2 full copies of the plans for review with Rio Rancho, and finally finish the application process for our building permit. That will take up to a few weeks. If we really push it, maybe we can begin the actual construction by the end of July. If we keep pushing, maybe we can have the home completed before Christmas. I'm not sure why things haven't moved faster, but maybe it will work out for the best. One thing James Lane said is that we will get more quality work out of the subs when the weather isn't so hot.

I will report again in the next couple of days!!

The Bidding has begun!

We have moved on to the point where we have ordered a dozen sets of house plans and YouBuildIt is sending them out to subcontractors to get bids. They say it will take a couple of weeks to get bids back from everyone. Then we can see how much the actual construction costs will come out to. One thing I need to do is to make sure we get bids on the basement if we were to build with block walls or with poured concrete walls.

We got a basic bid from a contractor who lives across the street from us, but he's saying the basement will be the most expensive part. That is completely opposite from what we thought it would be. No one in New Mexico builds basements, so I think it's just a matter of finding someone who knows how it's done.

So, the waiting game continues. 2 weeks until we get the bids back (maybe more)

Here's a couple pictures of the Lot

We signed all the paperwork about a month ago and the lot is ours now. I got this picture from MSN maps "bird's eye" view. Click the picture to see it a little bigger. Or you can try this link that takes you to Google's street view of our lot:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.240817,-106.69894&spn=0.008307,0.021544&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=35.23664,-106.699906&panoid=jNP_GeGpVbkLcmnYJiho2Q&cbp=2,367.49984380433267,,0,8.295385914024956

It's actually pretty neat. you can use the arrows in street view to drive up and down the street, or you can drag the picture with your mouse to look around.

Some news today

I still need to give all the backgroung details about our home. But for now I just want to report on todays news. Scharese got our plans back from our neighbor, who is a general contractor. He gave us a ballpark price quote that seems very tempting. I will be out of town next week, but Scharese is going to probably meet with UBuildIt. Maybe grandma can go too. It's a long meeting, and I've been so busy with work, it's hard to find the time.

The Blog is Up!!

Welcome!

I have set this blog up to track the construction of our new home. Hi Grandma!!

More details coming soon!