"We've got to get out of this house!" ~ the constant refrain from my DH, referring to the sweet little rambler where we have mostly raised our four children. Yes, four. Two was the plan, number three was a surprise and number four was a crazy promise from God Himself! (that is a story for another time...) To say that we were a bit crowded in under 1600 sq.ft. is an understatement. And we is no small peeps here either! DH is 6'4" and all three of the big girls have passed up Mama at 5'7". So, we decide to cut our losses, go ahead and list it with our agent. We had purchased the house with the intention of staying up to five years max, but the market crashed and we were upside down in our mortgage after just two years. Time to hang on and just keep plugging away at fixing it up, for about, actually, exactly Eleven Years. Keeping our eye on the market trends we decided in December 2015 to be prepared to list in March/April 2016. This also coincided with a prophetic word on the Elijah List I had read about two years previous. Also, our daughter who dreams true dreams had a dream that we were moving. Yes, we live our lives kinda crazy like that. No bad has ever come of it in 20+ years.
Not entirely sure which direction we would take for our next home we began the research in January. We had some specific desires: quiet! lol, no bus line in the back yard specifically, peaceful feeling, dead-end or limited traffic road, at least one acre, pretty trees and clearings, no excess water issues with the land/under house, 5 bedrooms, not too far from Downtown, and nice neighbors. Looking online at the MLS we were not seeing a whole lot that matched our wishes and was in our budget. We were hoping to keep it under $350K. For that price we could get another fixer-upper. I have seriously improved many skills and discovered new talents in our adventure of home improvement, but also, kind of tired of the complete renovation stuff. I was looking forward to just doing the pretty things. Have you heard of Magneto from the X-Men? Well, I am officially "Concreto" because concrete chunks and granite remnants come to me and I build things with them! lol
We kept hearing things on the radio and seeing signs for Coval Homes and Scott Homes. So, I looked into the custom home thing. Seemed sort of daunting weighing out the pros and cons of starting from scratch. Also, I get hung up on making new stuff to crowd the earth; I love to reuse and re-purpose items any time I can. If we did get a fixer home, we would waste stuff that needed replacing, and we'd use new stuff too. Silly arguments, I know. I got over it and we made appointments to talk with four on-your-lot builders.
The process for each company is basically the same. The differences are, of course, the people. I don't think I can say enough about how important quality character is to us. Our philosophy when selling our home was to get everything in the best working order and looking amazing to bless the next person to make memories in that space. We don't cut corners, hide scary stuff, or try to rip-off the buyer. All we're looking for is a business to do the same. One of the builders had made an appointment with us to speak on the phone for an hour about their product. We get the kids all set and prepare for the call. And wait, and wait, and wait...finally call them. "Oh he is with a customer who walked in...I'm sure he'll call you in five minutes." Never called. Buh-bye.
The other three were all very professional and nice. Even Scott Homes was kind enough to let me know with our budget and our desires they could not make it happen. If you can afford a bigger budget and are wanting the latest truly green and long-term energy efficiency, I would call them. Super Helpful! For us Adair Homes won out because they are the original and their prices are the best. Our salesman was not the best at making us feel special, he was just honest and straightforward. It didn't hurt that they have a sister company, Alliance Financial, that has a zero down program available. And, no I am not being reimbursed or paid to write any of this. This is just my story. If you're not familiar with the zero down thing it works like this: cost of land + cost of home + site prep costs = <70% of appraised market value by an independent appraiser. If your project total is less than 70% of the appraised value you can use that value as your "down payment" or equity. Considering our current house was looking like it was going to net us about $18K, we wanted to pay down debts and wouldn't have a whole lot to put down. Great solution for us! Also, by this time we were under contract on a piece of land that met ALL of our wish list for location, etc. In Steamboat Island home values are stable and the area is consistently sought after due to the great community and schools, so we felt pretty confident that our project would appraise.
There were several delays with the sale of our house, mostly appraiser related due to the new regulations on apprentice appraisers not being able to appraise by themselves. Really messing up things for people on both sides of real estate deals. Finally we closed, about 45 days after the first closing date. Then the appraisal on our Adair project took about 6 weeks instead of 2 to 3. Crazy long delays! We did get moved and settled in to the rental in that time of waiting, so not all bad. Good timing really, all settled before school started. I didn't even plan it that way! lol When we got our appraisal back it was fine for zero down, except the value of the land was $34K less than the asking price. We were mad and sad and didn't know what to do. Our agent said they need to Re-Value and she would submit comps to support a higher price. We thought the price was great from the beginning and didn't want to rip-off the seller so we waited another 2 weeks for the appraiser to decide. He stuck to his guns and said it was only worth $90K. Seriously, if that were true, why wasn't there any land for sale at that price?? Basically the sellers were like "no way." We didn't have cash to put down and the lender wouldn't loan more than the appraised value so we were losing the land.
Did I mention how many hours of work I'd already put into getting bids and researching this particular parcel? Not exactly transferable to the next piece of property out there. Remembering that God works all things for the good of those He loves, I decided to move on.
Cue the next frenzy of searching for that perfect property. DH is great at being supportive and leaves all the details things up to me. (hmmm...that doesn't sound so great in writing.) I thrive on finding things, whether information, inspiration, ideas, concrete...you name it! He is mired in a muddy bog, sinking to his death with too much information. We're a good team with opposite talents. Anyway, we went out to look at several parcels that checked out mostly ok with the county data I could find. We fell in love with a couple and then had to drive by the land we lost to see another parcel. I promptly and unexpectedly burst into tears!
Seriously, I did not have a feeling of attachment, I had already told myself that God had something else for us and I was fine. Such a surprise of emotion! I'm not one to cry at just anything either; okay, well those cutesy signs at Hobby Lobby get me if I'm pms-ing. Other than that, I am not a cry over anything girl. I felt a sense of "fight for it" or just a "hang in and don't walk away" thing, but I didn't understand it and just pushed past it. The next day when I was having our agent write up an offer on another parcel I happened to look again at our contract on the first land and noticed that the sellers had 10 days to respond to our Notice of Low Appraisal. It had only been 8 so I asked my agent if we were technically still under contract because the sellers had only verbalized their rejection and not put it in writing. She called their agent to see why they hadn't signed. He said they would come down from 105 to 98K and if he and our agent would each take less commission the deal would go through!! Now, it just so happens that we had $8K left after paying debts, but we were setting it aside for landscaping, fences, furniture, and a little vacation. Do we use it to get that first perfect land? We didn't have peace at first, and the back and forth really is brutal on emotions even if you try to stay logical and stick to the facts and numbers. Can we try to win some money at the casino? Where's that inheritance when ya need it? Lottery anyone? But ultimately we felt yes, use the cash for the land itself.
After that, it was pretty much smooth sailing! What awesome agents too, that they would take less money so we could have the land and the sellers could get the profit they need. While finalizing all the details of the loan I started to stress out majorly, and so did DH. This was A. Big. Deal. Lots of unknowns, money, plans, and trying to visualize something when nothing is there. After signing it started to sink in that we are actually having an amazing home built just for us, with our choice of everything! And Jesus is so patient and kind to give continual signs and encouragement. There are so many little things that spoke to the fears each of us were having.
My DH had a childhood with a lot of hardships related to home and moved all the time. The encouragement that came specifically regarding this was that one day he decided to look up the meaning of the word Creston. This is the name of the plan we chose. It means "One who is worthy." He felt Jesus saying to him, you are worthy of having a beautiful home. This gave him such hope and peace. Then he thought, randomly, not doing this sort of thing since about 15 years ago, "I wonder what the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance numbers mean from our address?" It's 4945 and in the Hebrew the word is Mashqeh- Vessels, Cup-Bearer, Butler-causing to drink, well watered, and fat pasture. The Greek is Sunomosia- swearing together, from sun-completeness, process and omuno-declare on, swear. These word pictures were so perfect! Our hearts are to be like a drink offering poured out for those around us He gives us to love. He provides all that we need to be this. We are like a fat pasture, well watered and He has completed us and declared that as we remain in Him we will bear much fruit. Truly, the feeling I got hearing this from DH is indescribable. Joy and relief, excitement, knowing, satisfied, questioning, and just plain happy! So, I got into looking up some numbers like the square feet of our floor plan. 2512- in the concordance those numbers refer to words meaning smooth among stones and purifying. More Joy! and while we're at it, what about the book of Numbers? Chapter 25:12 says, "So tell him that I am making a Covenant-Of-Peace with him." the Message bible. I did tell DH and we just smiled very happily at each other.
The other thing that had been going on for about 3 weeks was our littlest was always wanting to hear the story of Joseph in The Storybook Bible. Best little book ever! The theme is how even in the midst of all the bad, God was doing something good. Every night he wanted to hear that story before bed...for 3 weeks. I guess God was reminding us that He was working it out the whole time. And after we had looked up all the number things, DH was at a meeting for a group of friends who would be teaching some cool bible stuff at the military prison and he got a big surprise. One lady had gone to Israel about 2 years ago and through a series of awesome events ended up being in the land of Goshen, where Joseph in the bible brought his family, Israel during the famine, and where Moses was later born. She got several tiny jars of dirt. Goshen means fat pasture. Yeah, she felt like God wanted her to give a jar to Tim. No, she had no idea what we have been up to. None at all. She had also been praying for the people who were to have the dirt all this time. Praying blessing and increase and fat pastures all around! Is your heart not leaping in your chest?? God loves us soooo much. Each of us, every detail, He cares more than we do! Just look for Him and you will see Him.
Now you have a glimpse into how we operate in this life. Next post will be more nuts and bolts about how to look up land information in your county and how to determine a good excavator. Really, a lot of all this boils down to, what is Jesus saying? Can't go wrong with Him!
