What?!? Another problem?

The superstition that bad things come in threes must not apply to our house project.

First, Land Watch changed the land use laws on us after we applied for the CUP extension. That cost us 6 months, $8,000, and about a dozen gray hairs.

Then, our designer and engineer didn’t get their act together to get our plans finalized before the end of 2019, so new Oregon Building Codes came into effect. Luckily, that only cost us 2-3 weeks and a stress-eating dinner out.

Next came the fun surprise from the bank. We were ready to start the loan process and contacted Umpqua. We’d been working with Amber at Umpqua since the very beginning of the project. We started answering her questions to complete the application and, about 5 minutes into the call, Amber tells us Umpqua has changed their construction loan structure, fees, requirements, etc. Now, they were no long doing loans over $1 million. The phone call ended very quickly—with Mike not saying a word after her surprise—only for us to take a breath and realize we didn’t need a loan for over $1 million. I would have thought Amber would have figured that out faster than us. I called her back, just to be told that they didn’t know what the loan fees or interest or form would look like until January 24, about 2 weeks later. So, we scrambled, did a lot of research, made a lot of calls, created a big spreadsheet to compare banks, and landed on First Interstate. Phew - problem solved and their loan had better terms for us, including lower fees and considered the $60K+ in costs we already paid. It looks like we landed on our feet. That cost no time loss on our construction project and no cost to us but about a week’s worth of high stress, a bucket or two of tears, and probably half a dozen ulcers between the two of us.

It looked like...we dared to say it...smooth sailing because we already hit our 3 bad things. And all we needed was the appraisal and our loan would be completed.

And then February 10 came and Ryan at First Interstate told us the appraisal came in under the budget. Our heads exploded. More four-letter words and tears between the two of us (OK, only I cried) and more questions whether this project was really meant to be. More research and phone calls and, by the end of the day, we had a resolution. By cutting the construction contingency and playing with numbers (losing the benefit of the pre-paids), we dropped the loan amount. That cost us more gray hairs, an ulcer or two and our eating out budget for the next 9 months (we have to save for construction overruns, which we absolutely expect considering how the project’s gone already). The silver lining is that we will have lower monthly mortgage payments.

In all honestly, while Mike and I were expecting difficulties and heartache during this project, we were not expecting quite this much. But, we are an incredibly strong and resilient team, and we know that we will find a solution to any problem that comes along. We got this. And we’re excited for the actual construction phase.

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”