Day 12

Tried my best not to visit until the weekend but as I drove by the highway exit towards the build, I could not resist.  Here's what I found: 

I can't understand why this part is so open.  I do have a walk out basement, but I've compared this to other blogs with walks outs and none are this open. Any thoughts?  Dont laugh, I know, I'm totally clueless!

A little waterproofing.

View of the lake.. I'm going to talk to my PM about the trees.  There are way too many as compared to my neighbors

Day 10: It's going down, Basement!

Finally.. drove by the lot and saw that the forms are going up for the basement walls!  With the time change, it's usually dark when I drive by the lot so this morning I went early and got a glimpse of the action. 

Day 5: Nothing

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  Sadly, there has been no progress since Monday.  Of course, I didn't expect any work to be done on Thanksgiving but we've had some pretty great weather the last few days so I thought we'd see more progress.

I guess I was just soooo happy that they started clearing the lot that I thought, ok, this is it.. better luck next week, I guess.

Day 1: Clearing the lot

I was so happy to drive by this morning and see work being done. I'm embarrassed to say though that I was too shy to snap a picture so I got a drive-by pic (LOL). Can't wait to go back this evening (once they're gone) to get a good one.

WooooHoooooo! My Monday is going to be a great one. I feel like a kid on Christmas.

My Palermo Peeps... I have a ? for you

I'm so confused about the stairs & railing. I'm getting a capped wall??? No clue what that is. Even after asking for an explanation, I'm still not clear.


What did you choose? If you chose something there.

**Update** I think I figured it out. I guess the capped wall will have to do but I'd really like the balusters.

Here is a photo from the Palermo model. 

Here's an image from Google.  This is the capped wall .  

At The Starting Line

All went well today at the pre-construction meeting. It took about 90 minutes to go over everything.  My PM seems like a pretty thorough, Get-Ir-Done type of guy.  One slight hiccup though, my last change order didn't make it into the plans.  Luckily, I save everything so I provided a copy of it to my SR like "Here it is, I signed it and delivered to you, SR".  Quick fix. 

We'll be breaking ground on 11/14 and our ETA for completion is 2/21/2013.  Not bad.

Our lot was staked and was much bigger than I expected.  Since our home backs up to a natural lake our backyard will only be cleared back by about 25ft.  Anything past it falls into what is called an Environmentally Protected Area designed to keep the lake in its natural state.  With that though, we gained a decent amount of buffer space to the left of the house where the drainage easement is.   For us, it just means that if we build a fence we must make sure that runoff can flow freely down to the lake & for hubby, more grass to cut

I'm praying that everything goes smoothly & stays on track.  So far, I'm pleased with the experience.

Preconstruction Meeting Scheduled!!!

My SR just called me (yes, this late) with good news.  Plans are in and the Pre-construction meeting is scheduled for Wednesday @ 4pm.  We'll break ground the following Monday 11/12/12. 

Going to bed with a super smile on my face & doing my happy dance. 

To all of you who've done this already, what should I expect?  How should I prepare?

Heartache and Loan Approval

Boy oh Boy, the last six weeks have been a roller coaster!  But I finally received loan approval on Halloween Night. 

On 10/19 I got a call from my LO at NVR informing me that my loan application was denied.  I was stunned!!  When she delivered the message, it was like she was pulling straws trying to help me understand why.  IMHO when you drop a bomb like that, please have all of the information available. 

Anyhow, to sum up a long story, my Debt to Income ratio was a little over the percentage that NVR would allow (but not close nor pass the maximum that the FHA 30 year fixed allows).  NVR told me early on that due to my DH's student loans he would not be able to apply for the loan with me so I applied alone.  With less than perfect past credit, I'm assuming they viewed the loan as risky.  Now we all know that NVR turns right around and sells the loans to big banks, so I think, had they approved my loan, they'd have a hard time selling it on the secondary market. 

So, the alternative was to pass my loan off to a Broker who would easily approve the loan because their requirements were not as "strict" as NVR's.  I kept being told that "NVR is stretched" and "they are nitpicking everything". 

I'm not ashamed to admit that I am a young adult who like many others in America, struggled to pay credit card bills, loans and monthly obligations and still remain afloat.  In the past couple of years I've worked diligently to pay off credit cards, clean up my credit, boost my score and save money so that I could get to this point.  It has been a long time coming.  The denial was like a slap in the face.. like WOW, you work so hard and think you're there, but not quite.

Thankfully my SR is terrific and assured me that this happens to about 30% of the loans they make and 95% of them are approved.   He told me not to view it as a bad thing, because it was not. 

The Broker quickly approved the loan with all of the documentation I submitted to NVR with all of the terms I agreed to.   

I feel it is important to share my true testimony because I honestly thought I would never see a score above 650 a year ago, let alone be on my way to owing my very own home.  There may be someone reading, that like me, was discouraged and thought they'd never see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

I'm happy to say today I am debt free (no credit card balances, no car payment, no student loans) and blessed to be able to provide for my family and build the home that suits me.

Lets get this ball rolling already!   :)