Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
^A few questions about building your own house
We are most likely going to purchase land and build our own house. We are not sure yet whether we will go with a builder or if we will buy a modular home. We can see the benefits (MM and otherwise) of both. We are just starting the process but will do much research before jumping in.
Anyone want to educate me on loans for land and new construction? I know that some builders will take out the loan or pay for the house themselves and then you take over the mortgage when it is finished. I think there are also other ways of doing it and would love to understand our options.
My dad is going to be our GC. Since we aren't the best decision makers and want everything to run as smoothly as possible, how should we go about budgeting for everything inside? Just go start pricing things out? I would love to have things chosen far in advance so we aren't doing things on the fly, though I know that some of it will be that way.
What do you wish you did differently? We'll take suggestions of any kind (for example: "I wish we didn't go with a modular." OR "I wish we put a light over our sink"
I'm sure I'll have more rambling along the way. Thanks in advance!!
Re: ^A few questions about building your own house
This is information I received directly from our mortgage broker:
My company does not provide Construction Financing (which is usually referred to as Interim financing). Most builders have a relationship with a bank that provides this type of financing, but of course, you can also call around to banks and choose your own.
Once construction is done, then you need to get ?permanent financing?, which will be your regular mortgage loan, which is what I can provide.
With new construction, the bank will control what the builder does. Every time the builder completes a certain project he can then request for another ?draw? for more money to continue the project. They are never given the full amount needed for construction up front. You usually only pay the monthly interest on the loan while construction is being completed. Most people building a home will usually buy their lot/land first. Once they have a contract with the builder, then you will get your construction financing. At that time the bank will payoff your land loan (if you have one) and add that to the financing.
But?? if you are building a home in a subdivision for a big builder such as DR Horton, etc.., the builder usually builds the home for you based on the contract you sign with them. They do their own financing, and then you would get a mortgage through me or another mortgage company.
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
I think we going to build. It seems like the best fit for us.
My dad will not be building the house. He will be doing the GC work (such as hiring the flooring people, electrician, plumber). He will work with the builder on timing but will be doing all of the hiring himself (which should save us 10-20%)
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
We just bought land but haven't signed a contract with our builder yet. Any equity you have in the land can be used as a down payment in the construction loan. We plan to pay off our land first and then it'll cover the whole 20% down payment.
The bank we plan on using does a "one time close" that converts to a 30 year fixed mortgage when construction is complete. Some banks will make you do a second closing after the building is finished. During the construction time, the builder can request draws from the approved loan amount. We would only pay interest on the draws during construction.
Spend your money on structure not all cosmetics if you are forced to choose--bumping out walls, bigger garage, fireplace, etc versus paint color upgrades, etc.
ETA: with our builder we will pick out everything before they break ground. So there will be no delays waiting on us to make decisions.
we custom built our home (with a builder) and I just want to let you know that building a home takes a lot of your time! Every day I was at the site ( and was expected so that any questions they had could be answered)
Every weekend and many week nights were spent running to Lowes, Home Depot, lighting showrooms, etc... picking out things we wanted.
I am not sorry we did it, but I am not too sure I'd do it again just because it consumed our lives for a LONG time!
I'm not sure if production builders would allow this. You might have to find an independent or custom builder that will let your dad hire the subcontractors. Lennar, Ryland, Toll Brothers, etc. hire their own contractors for liability and quality control so I'd be very surprised if they let you use your own people.
Ah, yes. We have a custom builder that we will use if we decide not to do modular - he built my parent's house.
Consider joining the bone marrow registry
Deleted because I didn't realize this was a zombie thread... oops!