Back In the Saddle Again

I'm so excited that I can't sleep, so what's a fella to do? I know... Blog! TODAY I meet the builder and his excavator at the site to review the pin placement (location of the surveyor's marks of the building's corners). We could be digging tomorrow if the building permit is issued today too. I feel like singing the Gene Autry classic.... "I'm back in the saddle again..."





From my last post you might have concluded that we would be well under way with construction by now. "Not so fast" the man said! We never imagined that an allegedly qualified appraiser would look at an appraisal by an even more qualified appraiser and discount his work so much. First National Bank's "Field Appraisal" remarkably came back exactly the same low low number as the previous one from that bank. This, despite the fact that the work they were "checking" yielded a result 26% higher. Unbelievable! Well... we went into mourning again for a few months and just couldn't talk (blog) about it.





When we finally picked ourselves up off the ground, I found yet another bank that had expressed interest. In fact, Bank East had first approached me several months ago expressing interest in the Energy efficient house they heard we planned to build. The lesson here must be something like: find a bank that already is doing "Green" or is at least is interested, rather than waste your time on banks that can't spell "green". I'm convinced that despite the alleged "arm's length" that is supposed to exist between banks and their appraisers, First National Bank must have directed the appraisers what number to come back with. They must not have wanted to loan more than $XXX. To top it off, when we finally saw a clear copy of the appraisal report, it looks like the guy appraised the wrong lot! The photo in the appraisal report bears no resemblance to our lot. It's pretty clear the guy had a result in mind so that when he got a photo of a lot with no view, there was no reason to question the direction he had been given. I've asked the bank for our money back (for the ridiculous, wrong lot appraisal fee). We'll see how they respond.





BUT, back to happier things.



Bank East has been a joy to work with! They, too, were concerned with the lack of "comparable sales" for a qualified appraisal and told me, straight up, that there were no guarantees. We just take our chances on the judgement of the appraiser. Still, since they had expressed interest in "green" building AND were nice to deal with, we decided to try our luck one more time. I'm glad we did! Bank East's appraiser made a serious attempt to understand the plans, specs, view, LEED (Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design) checklist and intangibles of our project. The result was an appraisal that, while still not covering the total cost of construction, was high enough that we can fund the shortfall with our savings. In fact, the appraisal report includes the LEED review checklist that we had submitted with the plans. For Blount County, this guy is a real renaissance man!