A House (not) In The Woods

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may be aware of the chaos that has been building our new farm house! Well, we finished! We are moved in! But it was not without drama (and lessons). Whether you are wanting to build and want to know what NOT to do or you just like drama and dirt, it’s a great story that’s going to take some time for me to finish!

Seven years ago or so I bought a horse farm near Denver, NC to get back to life as I like it, hard work, homesteading, and free range. It had a double wide mobile home on it that was old and deteriorating, but not in horrible condition. When we got married out here we decided to work toward building a new house in the woods and use the trailer as an investment property, a vacation rental that people could bring their horses or play on Mountain Island Lake. It was a great plan! Enter COVID…

I want to build houses the way I live the rest of my life, not creating brand new but repurposing and recycling.

We went from 2 people living here all the time and 2 children half the time, to 4 people living here, homeschooling, furloughed, working from home, and dealing with the construction market. We wanted to build ourselves, but banks will no longer make construction loans to owners. Counties will let you GC a project and permit it yourself if you own it, but you would have to pay cash or use a commercial loan. I tried to go the commercial loan route, but they were still pretty leary since none of my building experience was on paper. We searched for a builder that offered a particular kind of product. We wanted to be able to do as much on our own, and in cash, as possible. We also had a very specific design in mind. I had actually paid an architect to draw it out. Lastly, I was looking for a very specific price. I was not interested in “custom builds” or “custom home”. I found the biggest reason they were called “custom” was 4″ baseboards and crown molding. I just wanted a builder to give me the skeleton and I would go from there. Guess what…that doesn’t exist! We thought we had a builder friend that would do it for us, but he even backed out at the very last minute in the crazy COVID market, leaving us a bit in the lurch to find a builder in time to clear the loan and pay off the original mortgage. I can assure you that I investigated all the options…modular, mobile, stick built, local builder, national builder, custom builder. I poured through home designs and contracts, met with many builders, and stressed out a lot because our crappy little double-wide was falling down around us and time was running out. I learned enough to fill blog posts for weeks! I can tell you pros and cons for every builder out there, I think! Just Ask!

We signed a contract with Value Build Homes in March of 2021. Our sales experience was okay. We wanted to do a lot more ourselves than they would allow us, like cabinets and light fixtures. But we were able to add a side door and do the floors ourself. There business model forces the homeowner to do all the “site work” themselves, including well, septic, grading, driveway, landscaping, and a few others. My philosophy is that I can save a lot of money using reclaimed or salvaged things that are in great shape. I want to build houses the way I live the rest of my life, not creating brand new but repurposing and recycling. But that wasn’t going to work with these guys, so we decided to put that into practice when we upgrade. Get the basic-est house and upgrade as time goes on with the cabinet, countertops, light fixtures, etc. It’s a real waste of time, money, and stuff, in my opinion, but we had no other choice.

They wouldn’t let me use my own finance company, and that should have been my first sign. Let me start off by saying that is illegal! I had been preapproved with a guy already when we were looking at modular and wanted to stay with him. The crazy thing is the person they sent me to worked for the same company just in a different office, so unethical. Jackie Wampler with Intercoastal Mortgage was either very new or just not good at her job. In hindsight, I think they must have just created this “partnership” prior to my contract, because she definitely got better in the 16 months it took to build my house. Our biggest problem occured when she called in the appraisal. On new construction, they approve your construction loan at 80% loan to value of what the value will be when the house is built. In other words, they guess, putting the specs of the house you want to build on that lot. You either pay the other 20% in downpayment or you use the equity you may already have in the lot. Considering I had been paying on the property for 5 years, I was sure we would have enough equity to cover it.

Above are pictures of the farm prior to construction. Pictures 6 & 7 are where the house would eventually go, where the appraiser should have been placing the 2000+ sq. ft. new home.

The appraiser that showed up had no idea what he was doing because the lender didn’t give him the correct information (and maybe because he wasn’t good at his job either…there is a theme here). He appraised my 2000 sq.ft. new house on a horse farm with barn, arena, fences and 6 acres compared to the same size newly built house in a local neighborhood on .2 acres. He valued my property at $350K. I begged for a re-evaluation, a new person that had experience with equestrian properties. Jackie just kept telling me that they had no control over the appraisers. As a real estate agent, I knew there was some truth in that. But I also knew that she must not have provided him with any up front explanation. I personally reached out to him and convinced him to ad $25K for at least the barn while the lender did nothing to help and just kept claiming she had no control. Her negligence to provide the appraiser with the survey (I paid for) and comparable properties (I provided), a practice I do with every appraisal, cost me $30K in cash at closing! I had to pay a $30K downpayment just to get the construction loan started on a property I had owned and paid for for 5 years. That was all the money we had saved to do the site work for the home.

The most frustrating part was the lack of desire to help me from anyone involved in the process except for Greg, my salesman! Intercoastal Mortgage reminds me of those predatory lenders that just fills in the boxes and fills up their pipeline without caring how they affect the client. That kind of disregard is what got us in trouble in 2008. Many times Jackie would call my husband out of the blue at work and ask him where a random document was, when she had been working with me for the last week to get documents uploaded. The insistence of the builder to use them makes them equally at fault to the predatory nature. I work with builders all the time who offer incentives to use their in-house lenders, like no closing costs or free appliances, but I have never been told that I didn’t have another choice and HAD to use their lender. When Taryn Donahue, Start Coordinator for ValueBuild Homes, said that to me over the phone, conveniently not in writing, I should have walked away. That was opportunity #1. There would be many other opportunities to walk away or fire them that I should have taken, but I stuck it out and lived to tell the entire, disgusting, sordid, warped tale of how we built a house (not) in the woods.

This is part one of a four part series! Next post I’ll talk about land prep and what that means, how it works, and what ValueBuild failed to do to help us. Follow along as I relive the drama and lay out all the lessons I learned, but most importantly, identify the reasons why everyone needs a Construction Manager or Buyers Agent. The things that I did to get this house built no normal person could do and keep their day job or sanity. I want to help other people build the home they dream of! You shouldn’t be at the mercy of the builder. They are not looking out for your best interest. They are looking out for their companies bottom line. They work for their company, not you! Even if they are nice, which ValueBuild is not. Issues come up and contractors just don’t have the best interest of the client or best possible creative solutions in mind. Some of it is because they are likely building 7 other houses and you only care about 1, but most of it is about money. So, PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, hire someone to advocate and work for you!