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".