Legal, Regal, War Damn Eagle: Construction Blogging! The backstory...

Well, here we are again. Five years later, and we're building another house. I guess I should say we're building pretty much the same house, just in a different place. It has been a struggle to get to this point. I never was really sure I wanted to sell our old house. When Ben first brought up the idea, I thought he was insane. Then, over time, I started to realize it really would make more sense for us to live closer to JeffCo, and I would enjoy not having to drive 45 minutes each way every time I wanted to see my family (which I was doing at least twice a week). But it was going to have to be THE PERFECT set of circumstances for me to leave the house I loved so much in Farragut. I mean, I really loved that house. It was 100% OURS and had been a labor of love for over 15 years. Leaving it was like abandoning a baby I had birthed.

So I pretty much put it in God's hands and said, "Lord, please let me know in no uncertain terms whether your plan is for me to stay here or to move back home." We half-heartedly looked at other houses and properties and couldn't find anything that remotely compared to our house (or our property on the lake), so I had kind of decided I was going to stay put. Then I found a house for sale that looked eerily similar to our house, but it was on the river in Mascot instead of on the lake in Farragut. So we went to look at that house, and we even spent a night in it (it was listed on AirBnB!). It was a nice house, but it wasn't "ours," so we decided to pass. But we loved the little neighborhood it was in, and we thought, "Man, we'd love to have one of the vacant lots in this neighborhood so we could build what we want here." Of course, none of those lots was for sale. Ben was undeterred and looked up the vacant lots in the property tax records and sent letters to the lot owners asking if they were interested in selling. A few weeks passed, and I honestly forgot about it. Then we got a response from the lady who owned the lot that was the one we really wanted, and she said she'd be willing to discuss a sale. She told Ben that she had gotten several letters over the years from people asking her to sell, but ours was the first she had responded to. Ben asked her why, and she said, "I don't know. Your story of wanting to move closer to family just struck a chord with me." Okay, God. I'm starting to hear you a little bit.

Long story short, we bought that lot and listed our house for sale. I still wasn't in the "we have to sell our house" mode, though, so it was going to take the right deal coming along before we would sell. We could always sell the river lot later if nothing worked out. We actually had one contract on our house fall through because the buyer wanted to renegotiate the price after they got their appraisal, but we were already at the minimum selling point that we had agreed it would take for us to be willing to sell, so we weren't willing to negotiate any further (I don't really care what your appraisal says; until you have a willing seller at that price, you don't have fair market value). I was perfectly happy living there, so no harm, no foul. We waited another couple of months and another contract came along that worked out pretty much perfectly (not that there weren't rocky spots along that path, but the deal itself was what we wanted). AND it all came together right before the pandemic craziness started (we closed that sale on March 31). If it hadn't, who knows what might have happened? I'm sure we'd still be living in Farragut, not that I would be upset about that. As I said, I've been very conflicted about the whole thing, but the way events have unfolded, I'm trusting that we're following God's plan.

Selling that house was one of my saddest days. I had been working at home there for two weeks before Closing, and I worked there right up until the Closing date (I worked at a sad, lone, little table in the living room after moving day while I also got the house cleaned for Closing). I was there in our big, beautiful, empty house, all alone, crying my eyes out for the most part. Soaking in our beautiful lake view for the last time; soaking in all the beautiful finishes we had picked out; just soaking in the beautiful, comfortable home we had created and being SO SAD to leave it.

Anyway, when all contingencies had been satisfied under the sale contract and we pretty much knew for sure we would be moving, I also started working on our construction loan for the new house. This process started in mid-March, and I worked with BB&T as we had done on our first construction loan. We had a great experience with the loan process back in 2015, but unfortunately the loan officer who helped us at that time no longer worked with BB&T. I learned during this process that a good loan officer really makes ALL the difference. This time around, BB&T was so slow (it took them two weeks to send us loan disclosures after we had filed our application!), and their communication was so terrible (we would go weeks without hearing a status update, and our follow-up emails would go unanswered for several days) that I eventually had to fire them in mid-July. FOUR MONTHS wasted (their initial estimate was that we would close within 45-60 days). I get that the pandemic really threw people for a loop and that it's more difficult to get some things done, but I'm sorry: "We're working from home" doesn't work as a good excuse for me when I'm also working from home and busting my butt to do not only my regular job but all the extra work that has come with the pandemic. I may be a little more behind than usual, but I'm not TWO MONTHS behind. I'd be fired!

There were several times throughout the process that I thought about firing BB&T, but then I'd convince myself (or they would convince me) that we were so close to Closing and that I just needed to stick it out. Then we just hit a final straw and I said I'm out. In my opinion, BB&T has the best construction loan product out there, but it's only the best product if you can actually MAKE IT TO CLOSING AND START BUILDING YOUR HOUSE. I tracked down our old loan officer, who is now at SmartBank, and she was thrilled to work with us again. We were actually the first construction loan she did at BB&T back in 2015. She was nervous then, but she did a GREAT job, and I knew she would work her butt off again to get our loan closed as quickly as possible.

Things initially moved along great. Communication several times a day; both of us exchanging required documents rapidly. She sent me loan disclosures two days (NOT TWO WEEKS) after I submitted our application! THEN we had to wait for an appraiser. And apparently appraisers are crazy backed up right now due to everyone trying to refinance while rates are so low. So, we had a three-week hiatus while waiting on an appraisal. BUT, we got the appraisal back last week; underwriting has already approved it and issued final approval on our loan; and we're set to Close on 9/3! Seriously, without having to wait on the appraiser, Amanda (our SmartBank loan officer) could've closed this loan in 30 days. I am so kicking myself for waiting so long to jump ship on BB&T. I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm bragging, which I'm not, but we are EXACTLY the kind of credit risk a bank should want. We're overly conservative with the amounts we're comfortable borrowing; we both have excellent credit ratings; and we're borrowing less than half of the value of the collateral we're offering. I don't need them to fawn over me like I'm a billionaire (which I'm definitely not), but I also don't want to feel like they're indifferent as to whether they get my business. BB&T totally had a "we don't give an F" attitude (when we finally contacted our loan officer's manager somewhere around the 10-week point, he was quite defensive and acted like our complaints were unfounded), and that perturbed me to the point that we also ended a 20+-year relationship with SunTrust (with whom BB&T recently merged to create "Truist," the dumbest bank name ever) and pull all of our accounts from there as well. SmartBank is the exact opposite. Amanda makes it very clear how much she appreciates our business, and the branch personnel were extremely kind and helpful when we went in to set up our construction draw account. Unfortunately, we can't move all of our accounts to SmartBank because they don't have an ATM close enough to our new home (an important consideration for me when I need to run out at 9PM to grab cash because I forgot Tigger's play pals are coming the next day, especially when I'm not driving into Knoxville for work every day), but if they did, I totally would.

Anyway, assuming all goes according to plan next week, we should be breaking ground hopefully by Thursday afternoon (or by Monday at the latest)! This house will literally be the same as our old house, with very few exceptions: (1) this house will have a crawlspace instead of a basement (we really didn't need a basement on the old house; but the lot lent itself to a basement, so we went with it); (2) the house will be "flipped" so that the garage/laundry/kitchen are on the opposite side of the main room as they were in the old house, and the master bedroom will be flipped to the other side of the main room (this is because the old house was set up to follow views to the front/left out of the main room, and the new property is better with the views set up towards the front/right); and (3) the garage will be a little bit bigger (because of course it will) and will include an indoor/outdoor kennel area for Tigger.

We can't wait to get started and hope you enjoy watching the progress (and inevitable frustrations). Should be a heck of a ride, but at least we've had a practice run!