Building a Florence with Ryan Homes 2013: January 2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Grrr…NVR you ANNOY me!!!

So I know a lot of you have probably heard horror stories about NVR or have a story of your own to tell. This isn’t necessarily a horror story but will be a post of me having had enough!

To make an extremely long story short, my husband has a son from a previous relationship (never married) and at first everything looked good with the mortgage. Welllll…the underwriter started giving us problems because of the fact that he has a child from a previous relationship. The underwriter requested a Divorce Decree or Legal Separation document and we explained that he was never married and those documents do not apply to him. After that the underwriter requested a letter from my husband’s son’s mother saying that he does not pay child support. My husband does not pay child support because we have him for more than 50% of the time and he pays for his entire medical, dental, sport activities etc…

I understand that it is a lot tougher to get a mortgage now and that mortgage companies are stricter with their rules and who they lend money to but really…a letter from his son’s mom? What does she have to do with anything? My husband was able to get a letter from the court system saying he doesn't owe/pay child support but that letter wasn't good enough. Excuse me???!! How does a letter from an ex-girlfriend hold more weight than an official court document? Our mortgage guy told us that I would be approved alone for the mortgage. He ran the numbers and between my salary and credit score it would be enough to carry the loan in my name. We thought about it and settled that it would be an absolute last resort for us. This is our first home and we want something that we are buying together as we start our own family.

Luckily for us this situation is starting to look up. After going back and forth with NVR about the letter (there’s no way we would be able to obtain that letter and I don’t see how it’s any of her business what we do just like it’s none of our business what she does) and telling them to figure it out, we finally caught a break. NVR went through a different investor and they approved us within a couple of hours! Our mortgage guy explained the situation and presented them with the court document and they were completely fine with it. Our mortgage will be with a company called New America Financial. I've never heard of them and most likely our mortgage will be sold to another bank after we close.

We received an approval letter through email and this is what they are asking for final approval on the loan:

30 day most recent paystub prior to closing

A valid appraisal

12 month chain of title

A ratified sales contract

All new construction disclosures (92451,92544, builder permit, BI, termite cert, U & O)

2011 & 2012 Taxes filed with the IRS

2012 Taxe returns & W2’s

Canceled EMD checks w/ bank statement showing checks clearing the account

Paper trail all non-payroll deposit over $500 on bank statements

Sufficient asset documentation for the remainder of the down payment for closing

WVOE s

Moral of the story: Definitely be prepared to deal with NVR if you choose to borrow from them. Every person will not have a problem but most will so be prepared just in case. NVR offers great incentives and it is convenient but definitely shop around and see what else is out there.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Breaking Ground and Pouring Foundation

It's hard for us to take a daily visit to see everything that goes on because we are a little over an hour away. Our SR does an awesome job of making sure we are up to date on the progress of the house by sending us pictures of the process.

We officially broke ground on January 16, 2013. Here is a picture of that:

Seems so small :-/ but I know once the framing is put up it will look bigger.

The foundation was poured on January 21st. Here are some photos of that:

So far we have been lucky enough to have been able to see these two occasions in person. Ground breaking day we were both off of work so we drove up there and saw the guy on his little machine thing digging our dirt. On the day they poured the foundation I was also off from work because it was MLK day so I drove up with my mom and we saw the finished product. I even met a neighbor of mine! How exciting :-)

In the next couple of days comes the framing. My SR told us that framing happens really quickly and I know I won't be able to see it all in person. Luckily he will keep us in the loop with pictures. That is very nice of him to do and we appreciate it.