Читать книгу Building Your Custom Home For Dummies - Peter Economy - Страница 32

Chances are, your lender will heavily influence your budget by determining an amount to lend you. But just because the lender says you can afford a million dollars doesn’t mean you’ll be comfortable spending that much money or making those payments. The best way to create a budget you can live with is to work with your certified public accountant (CPA), financial adviser, and loan officer to assess how all factors will impact your finances. Make sure you discuss and take into account the following:

 Cash on hand

 Capital gains issues

 Current tax bracket

 Diversification of assets

 Intended length of time owning the home

 Long-term investment strategy

 Property appreciation

 Tax deductions for interest and points

Armed with this information, you need to arrive at a comfortable payment that a loan officer or loan calculator can translate into a loan amount. You can find a variety of these calculators at Bankrate (www.bankrate.com/calculators) among other places.

The mortgage information set out by these calculation sites is basic information and doesn’t totally apply to construction loan qualification. These sites can give you a rough estimate to work with in preliminary stages, but you need to speak to a loan officer who is a qualified construction loan specialist to be assured you qualify for a construction loan. (You can find specific information on construction loan underwriting and on finding a loan officer in Chapters 9 and 10.)

Many people who claim to be loan specialists may have only arranged one or two construction loans in their careers. Educate yourself, and be prepared to be flexible, because circumstances may be unusual and guidelines may change throughout the course of your project.

After you have a loan amount, you need to account for the cash available. As we discuss in Chapter 8, you need a good amount of cash to run this project. You may not want to spend it all, but cash is your surest way of keeping a custom-home project running smoothly. Don’t forget to include money you can take out of your existing house through a credit line or refinance. After you’ve decided how much of your cash you want to spend without being reimbursed by the construction loan on your project, add it to your loan amount estimate for the total estimate of your custom-home budget.

Just because you can afford a large budget doesn’t mean that the property will support the amount you want to spend. Many other factors can impact your budget later in the process, such as the requirements of your property and sales in your neighborhood. (We discuss these elements extensively in Chapters 3 and 5.)