Gottfried Green

We closed on the construction loan today and the permit has been in review over the past week or so. There are a few specs we'll need to clarify on plans and some coordinating of a few preliminary inspections on site. Things are just about to officially begin on ground- we hope.

Labels: permits

We will be closing on the construction loan this Thursday. Over the past month, the bank caused one of my other worries to come into focus. Most of the home building in this area are model homes where you pick your own specific interior features or layouts etc. They all have the overall same look which is pictured above. Once you make your selections the contractor and the bank would build your house for you and you'd get keys once it passed inspection. The local bank I used described our project as "a bit unconventional". This comment was based on the fact that we wanted to do a small amount of the work ourselves. Also, we weren't going to have a concrete driveway and it will only have one bathroom and no pool. Well we certainly were never going to have a concrete driveway and other things could be decided down the road as space was left for them. Because of our experience renovating we had always imagined having someone build the shell of our home and we'd complete the rest. With the bank involved this wasn't possible because we aren't licensed contractors. OK, that was fine but then things got complicated based on doing our own interior painting and flooring?! In the end it was worked out but between Sarasota County's strict C of O requirements and the banks preferences we started to feel trapped into building a house for them vs. ourselves. Our house isn't going to be close to the green dream I'd hoped for but this was always going to be a learning experience. We even wanted to wait to get the AC installed so I could take my time and do more research into the systems available. Although the AC layout would have been in place, the bank said they wouldn't close the loan unless the AC was installed during the construction phase. Basically, I've been forced to get an AC installed. If I was paying out of pocket I'd have more freedom of course but what if I was really hardcore and never planned on adding an AC? I guess I couldn't stay here in FL.

Labels: cost

I somehow fell out of posting because a few of my potential worries came into fruition. One was the final budget from the contractor would come in above our 300k mark. It may seem unrealistic to expect things to stay within budget but at this point they have to... we've already spent/wasted money for 2 designs we couldn't use. As these things go, the budget did come in over and so I passed it over to Mr. Gottfried because if the budget couldn't be reduced I wasn't going to build the house. We are stuck in a bit of an issue with the market value of our total project- land and building. We have to stay in check with the current market down here to some degree. In order to do this we've cut out a lot of extras that we can do at anytime at our own expense and labor. We did oversee the gut renovation of a 150 year old townhouse in Brooklyn, NY. I think we can put up some shelves and also, we are going to do the interior painting. I picked up this book at the thrift store published in 1961 about how to build a high-quality house at low cost as some sort of validation about the process of getting all the ducks in a row. I think the most expensive house budget in the book was around 35k.

Labels: cost