Just bought a lot....

[Zach Sikes]

I just put a vacant lot under contract, and I'm going to be contracting our next house myself. Any tips for reducing costs or mistakes not to make?

[Zach Sikes]

Sorry for the long post, but it's been a few months so I have some updates after lots of planning, working with lenders, and HOA.

Our first issue was the bank doing the construction loan. They denied it after 60 days, so we went to a different bank and had the loan closed in literally a week. We talked to them on a Friday, and by the following Friday we were sitting a closing table. I saw a few "red flags" with the first bank, which taught me the lesson to heed the warning signs! Don't give someone the benefit of the doubt, go find someone that knows what they are doing. I'm glad that this lesson was learned and the only thing it cost was time.

The new lender is fantastic, closed in a week, and is loaning 80% of appraised value regardless of my budget. These guys are out there, you just have to find them.

Getting approval from the HOA architectural board took a little longer than I anticipated, but we received that last night after a couple of plot plan adjustments and a good reference list (of which they called everyone on).

That leads me to today - we finally started pushing some dirt around:

It's not a great picture, but the dirt is now getting moved!