Let the paperwork begin!

Let me tell you! This process is not the most fun thing we've ever done!

In a previous post I told you that we had to practically give our home away when we "sold" it. Because we didn't walk away with a dime from the sale of our house, we had to start at $0 saving for a down payment for our new house. Luckily, we are living with my parents and they are generous enough to not charge us a dime to invade their space.

When we started shopping for mortgage/construction loans, most banks wanted 20% down. I understand how this may be possible for folks who actually made some money on a home but not us. It was pretty defeating. If we were going to save that much money it was going to take us a really long time! We definitely didn't want to wear out our welcome with my parents so we kept searching.

We came across Park National Bank and found that their down payment requirement was only 5%! We started getting our paperwork submitted and the rest is history!

Here are the items that were required for our loan application:

1. Last two pay stubs
2. Last 2 months of bank statements
3. Last two years of tax returns

 

Once all that was submitted, the process was pretty simple.

We elected to clear the property on our own, it was pretty heavily wooded and doing that would save us $5000. We had about 30 days to get the property cleared. They told us to clear the dimensions of the house plus 30 feet on every side.

 

Here is what our property looked like before we began clearing. We purchased 11.71 acres and we were ready to mark our trees to be cut down.

 

We (but mostly Kyle) spend about 4 weekends working on the property. It was not an easy job! Near the end, the trees were just too big. Once he got the bigger trees down, we didn't have any way to move them. Luckily, we have great friends with the right equipment! Here is a photo of our friend taking care of business!

 

 

 

 

Once the bank let the builder know we were underway, the bank went out to appraise the property and the builder is scheduled to stake the house this week! Our loan is scheduled to close on Dec. 18 and then they will begin building!!!

EXCITING!!!

 

 

 



We found a house!!! JUST KIDDING!

A beautiful home came on the market and because I'm an MLS stalker we had an appointment within hours of it's posting. We went, we offered, we were out-bid :(
We were pretty bummed because this home offered an amazing view, lots of land, 2 ponds and a barn, most of what we had on our wish list.
This is the one that got away....

We picked ourselves up, and forged ahead!
We looked at several more homes after this but they all came up short.
I was still convinced we could build and Kyle was convinced that it wasn't going to be possible. In a last ditch effort to see if we could find a reasonably priced builder, I called TK Constructors and we scheduled a meeting with the salesperson, Jeff.

Here is the house plan we decided on pricing with TK, it wasn't our original plan but it had all of the things on our checklist plus, it was bigger and had a two car garage!

We made a few changes: We took the wall down in the kitchen and made the island bigger.
We also removed the capped wall at the entry way and turned bedroom 4 into a den with a cased opening on the side of the great room, instead of a hallway door. In the owner's suite, we decided to put the entry to the closet in the bathroom. With a bathroom entry, Kyle is able to get dressed in the morning without waking me up ;) I also had a combo bath/shower put in because I HAVE to takes baths!

We were SUPER HAPPY with the price of this home! I did decide to upgrade the cabinets and carpet because the standard was not very impressive. The cabinet upgrade cost about $4000 and the one-level carpet upgrade was cost $1000.
In my opinion, it was cheaper to upgrade the cabinets now instead of having to remodel several years down the road. Kitchens are expensive!

Ideally, I wanted hardwood flooring throughout the house but it was not working with our budget. For now, we'll have carpet  and vinyl on the floors.

Once we signed the contract it was on to bank approval...Stay tuned!

UMMM...We sold our house, now what?

Well, if that isn't the question of the hour! I was a stalker of the MLS (multiple listing service), I looked every day, just waiting for our dream home to go on the market. When our dream home didn't show up, we decided that we would look into building. Kyle designs homes for a living so he began drawing, HOW EXCITING! 

We made an appointment with a builder and went for the meeting, I was ready to sign on the dotted line...until they smacked us in the face with the outrageous price! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, it wasn't like we wanted to build a mansion, just a small, simple (or at least what I thought was simple), cabin-esque house in the woods. I wanted to cry.

Apparently, custom homes with complicated truss systems are expensive..who knew! Actually, Kyle told me all along but I am stubborn.

In the meantime, we had to go somewhere so we moved to my parent's house while all of our worldly goods moved into two gigantic storage units. I snagged a genius moving and storage template here http://shannonbrown.typepad.com/life_in_general/2012/05/how-to-move-1000-miles.html

 

So, all of our stuff is in storage and we are homeless with no idea where we were going to move!

Welcome home...for now!

Where it all began!

 Our family standing on the porch for the last time.

This is where it all began. Our beautiful, old, home in the heart of Georgetown where we lived for 11 years. We bought this house right after I graduated from college, before children were even a glimmer in our eyes because I couldn't say no to its historic charm. So what if Kyle had to travel 40 miles to get to work and we didn't know a single person in this town...we were ready to begin a new journey!

After kids, we quickly found out that having neighbors on all sides was not fun, especially if those neighbors let their children climb out the windows while they slept on the couch :( The kids had no room to play and our dog hated everyone that passed by...it was time to say goodbye!

Selling a house is FOR THE BIRDS!!! It took us 3 long, agonizing years to sell that beauty and by the time we did...we practically gave it away. We were desperate to move on and move out. We decided the woods is where we needed to be. Kyle wanted to hunt from the back porch and I didn't want to see any neighbors from my kitchen window. The search was on but not before we said goodbye to our very first home :( 

I tried to get Kyle to hire house movers but he wasn't taking the bait...it was worth a try.

If you appreciate old homes, check out the floors we re-finished just before selling, they are gorgeous!!