Show me the money!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

You know we only get one weekday off together each week, and that one day is typically filled with house business -- meeting with Joel, meeting with contractors, fencing. Our most recent venture was to one of the banks in Tullahoma that was recommended by Indy, American City Bank. Indy mentioned that local banks are much more customer-oriented than the bigger banks and are better choices for construction loans. And, boy, do we believe him now! Words of advice: Make an appointment and know what paperwork (tax returns, list of assets and debts, a budget, house plans) you have to bring (and have it in some semblance of an order). The bank will think you are the coolest thing since sliced bread. We are a pretty anal-retentive couple so we had our ducks in a row. I think some people just decide one day that they want to buy/build a house without any forethought. According to the banker, Lou, people prance into the bank without an appointment (forget even about the paperwork), say they want to buy a house, and then look at the bankers like they have three heads when words like down-payment, mortgage terms, and God-forbid closing costs are spoken. What? You need a job to be approved for a loan. To those clueless customers (who unfortunately are not readers of this blog) step aside. Noel and Hannah will show you how it's done.

Lou, the banker, was great! He answered all our questions before we could ask. He made this information meeting painless. He explained how a construction loan works at ACB and explained mortgage loan options if we choose to get our mortgage through them. We could easily choose a mortgage term based on the payments we would like to make each month, and there is no penalty for early repayment. He was so friendly, and...(wait for it)...he's very anal retentive, too!! Love it!! Funny thing is when we were wrapping up our meeting who should waltz into the bank...none other than Indy. He previously mentioned that he was always down there taking care of business. Well, we wasn't kidding. 

I think Noel's about got his mind made up about a contractor. He likes the idea of a local contractor who has a lot of local ties. Even though I agree with him, we need to follow through one more meeting with Pickle (who is at some training thing in Texas for two weeks). We owe it to ourselves to be thorough.

As for the final house plans, I emailed Joel the other day to tell him that we were ready for the final plans but that we wanted 2"x6" exterior walls. He said that thicker walls changed a few things on the plans that needed to be addressed. Now, Joel can be a little...umm...flighty...so we hope that his brain didn't omit the word 'exterior' before '2"x6"'. We can just see him making EVERY wall 2"x6". Talk about sound-proof rooms. So we are going to check in with him tomorrow, then meet with him on Friday and, hopefully, walk away with plans.