Hanging in there

I would guess when a person builds a home and uses a General Contractor, when someone asks, "How is your home coming along?" it wouldn't cause much negative internal feelings. If there were delays maybe they would be upset with the permitting agency, the GC, or whoever else.

When we decided to build own home, again, and someone asks, "How is the house coming along?" I feel further overwhelmed and not adequate to the task at hand.

We have had delays outside our control, sure. We choose a designer that has been going through a tough patch with his marriage. When checking his references I didn't think to ask how the guy's home life was. We have had our own medium level crisis or three since moving into my wife's parents' home. Not that they aren't great people, sharing space is tough no matter how great the occupants are. Back on point.

This week we received redlines from the county. Nothing major, mostly wanting more details spelled out on the plans. The civil and structural engineer and the designer all have a little bit of work and we should be able to submit again.

I have been getting bids that have been coming back higher than we were anticipating. This has added stress because going back and simplifying the house or reducing the square footage will require more time and money in design.

One bid for instance was for the Wall Company to do the basement walls, excavation, slabs, and pads. It was fully a quarter of our budget. I called my contact to see what we could do. He suggested there was a lot of rebar in the walls and the footings were very large. He asked if I had a soils report and I said no. Then he speculated that because I didn't have a soils report the structural engineer may have erred on the side of caution and designed stronger walls, not knowing the conditions in the ground. He felt fairly positive that we would come out ahead if we got a soils report for $1,000 and would likely be able to reduce the rebar and footings. So I ordered the soils report and hopefully the results will allow the structural engineer to make the walls match the conditions in the soil.

While all this is going on, and we have cash in our bank from the sale of our last home, my dear wife wants to start flipping homes. I am not opposed to the idea but resisted because we have a lot going on right now, and some days I feel I am barely holding it together. We bid on our first property online but didn't win. The same property is back up for auction now and ends on Monday I believe. We may still get it yet.

This changes our plans in that if we decide to continue this, we'll have to not put in that cash into our home and have a higher mortgage. In a way we are still paying interest on this cash (our mortgage interest) but we wouldn't need to get a new loan for each property which would save on the fees.

I have never been able to juggle but I feel like to have a lot of balls in the air.

Welcome to the circus!