Читать книгу Building Your Custom Home For Dummies - Peter Economy - Страница 15

Most people don’t have all the money for a custom home sitting in their bank accounts. Even if they did, putting it all into the project wouldn’t be a good idea, as we explain in Chapter 8. Like it or not, you’ll probably have a financial partner in this project in the form of a construction lender or bank. The good news is, construction lenders have the same objectives you do:

 They want to make loans for custom-home projects. (That’s how they make money.)

 They want the house to be completed on time.

 They want the house to be completed on budget.

 They want the house to be completed in a workmanlike manner.

Furthermore, the following tidbits can save you some arguments and frustrations when working with construction lenders:

 They don’t believe a house is worth exactly what it costs.

 A larger loan makes you a riskier borrower, not a better customer.

 You aren’t entitled to any loan.

 They aren’t required by law to loan you any money.

 They dictate how the money is handled throughout the process.

Accept the fact that if you want to use a lender’s money, you have to play by their rules. Most of these rules weren’t made arbitrarily. They’re designed to protect the financial viability of the project and protect the lender in the unlikely event of a foreclosure, which is the act of taking back the home in case you default on the payments or the construction contract. The banks don’t want to foreclose on your home — they’re not in the house-selling business. Worst of all, they don’t want to foreclose on an unfinished construction project, when the property is neither an empty lot nor a finished home, but something in the dreaded middle. The guidelines and procedures are based upon statistical and anecdotal problems and failures that occurred with the lender in the past. Unfortunately, sometimes you pay for the sins of those who’ve gone before you.

Put yourself in the lender’s shoes. If you were loaning a friend 80 percent of the money to build his home, you’d want a few protections in place and a little control over the money as well, right? If you get to know how lenders see the project, which we explain in detail in Chapters 9 and 10, you can easily navigate the approval process, as well as the funding process (see Chapter 11). This approach can make for a smoother, happier custom-home project.