Hurray! I just received the commitment letter from our lender - The Bancorp Bank. The Vice President of Commercial Lending, Edward Dixon, got all of the necessary signatures to approve us for the loan and move us to the next level. Our closing on the land is scheduled for February 22nd and we simply need to have the appraisal done before that date. Let’s hope we get an appraiser that takes our modern and green design into consideration!
Thanks for all of the encouragement after our first bank fell through!
13 comments ↓
Congrats, this is fantastic news!
Yessssss!!! Kudos to you. All you need now is the appraisal, which shouldn’t be too tough since you’re building withing an existing model. Make sure you get a good appraiser who understands and appreciates what you are doing.
Kudos!
Great!!!
Is the weather durability of for the UK?
Congrats Chad on clearing the financing hurdle! I look foward to seeing you break ground.
Thanks for all of the encouragement. We are all excited about the next steps.
Congrats on clearing that hurdle.
Hi, I just found your blog through aparmenttherapy.com. Congrats on getting your financing! We’re in the process of building a green house in VT, and unfortunately had trouble with an appraiser who didn’t see the value of geothermal heating and HRVs. But we persevered, and got our loan in the end. The more attention and awareness we can bring to green building, the better… these features aren’t common in the market yet, but hopefully they will be soon!
Rae,
If you don’t mind me asking - how did you get around the appraiser issue? I’m having a somewhat similar situation here…the appraiser claims there are no comps, so he can’t show value.
Congratulations on your success!
Shawn,
If there are no comps in the immediate area maybe you can ask him to expand his search or provide regional and national data yourself that shows that green homes command higher values.
Most likely it will be easier to find another appraiser or design a home that can be built with a loan based on traditional comps…
Shawn, we basically got an exception from the bank to build even though the appraisal amount was lower than our requested loan. Of course, the story’s not over, since our construction period is almost done, and so the appraiser is about to come back out and review the finished product. Yikes! I think a few more green homes have sold in our area in the meantime, so that may help too. We would have switched appraisers if we could, but the bank won’t allow that, which makes sense I guess.
Chad: Thanks for the advice. I’m already moving on to the next appraiser; hopefully I can avoid the mistake I made the first time around
Rae: Sounds like you’re working with a good bank, if they are willing to be flexible. Keep us updated and best of luck!
Good luck Shawn. We learn more from our mistakes than successes. At least I know I do…
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