My 2017: Achievements and Failures Exciting but a Stressful Year Building a House

This year has been exciting, we started off the year how we ended last year House Hunting. We were getting pretty depressed on the inventory around here. At the top of our price range the homes still needed $30K-$40K worth of work. The houses that didn't need a lot of work had no yard for our dogs to play in. So we were starting to get bummed out. We have been looking for the right home for us for a few years now and it was getting pretty sad.

That is when I came across a listing I had saw a few times for a piece of land. When I first saw it listed a few years ago it was selling for $75K the value of the land, it sold at that price. But not even a year later I saw it again up for sale for $50K it once again sold for that price, then about 6 months later it was listed again for $25K then 5 months after it was sold for the $25K it was listed again for $10,900. I started to get curious about why the price drops and through some research I discovered the sell of the parcel when it sold for $75K a corporation owned it. So it was being taxed at a corporation tax rate. Once it was sold to an individual they didn't go downtown to fix the taxes. The taxes being charged on a vacant piece of land was over $4K.

I knew from my business classes that it would not take much to get the taxes fixed. And when 1/4 of a acre of land sells for $22K in your area, when you find a 1.53 acre lot for $10,900 that you know you can fix the tax issue you move on it. And that was the first exciting thing that happened to us this year. We bought the land and once it was our, we went to three offices downtown to fix the taxes on the property. Now for the vacant land instead of over $4K it was $432 for the entire year.

Then we decided because our daughter was graduating and about to leave for college that we were going to wait till the Spring of 2018 to start building a home on the land and continue renting the house we are living in till then. And everything was on track, till the middle of August when we got a call from our landlord. Her bank sent her a letter informing her that she has a restrictive FHA and she is not allowed to rent out her house. She had 30 days to put it on the market for sale or move back into it. They are not moving back to Indiana from Florida so they decided to sell the house.

We were going to go ahead and try to find some place to rent. Then we got sticker shocked, yes we have been living in the same rental for 4 years, but seriously the increase in rent prices around here I don't understand. We currently pay $675 a month in rent for a decent neighborhood. When we moved here rent in bad neighborhoods was $550 now the bad neighborhood rental prices are starting out at $850. WHAT? I am not paying that much to live in a bad neighborhood where you can't go outside without being armed. So we decided to see if it was possible to get a house on our land in a short time frame.

Modular building was the only solution we could find that might work. So on August 28, 2017 I drove 2 hours to the modular home companies office and put down a down payment for our house. And we started the process. We we bought the land we were told all the utilities were at the street. WRONG. Most of them are, but there in one mile of that road that isn't connected to the sewer system and they are all on Septic Tanks. Ouch that is $18K we didn't except to spend. Thankfully the rest of the utilities are at the road.

We were told our home would be done by November. I give you one guess what happened? Nope it wasn't done by November. Site work was delayed because of the sales company calling my contractors telling them to stop and do it the wrong way, then having to argue with them till they agreed that the way it was being done was the correct way. Then I was told we would take possession on November 13th, once again nope, as the house hadn't been delivered to the site. Then we were told delivery would happen on the 20th. Did it happen? No, it did not. So then they said the 27th it would be here and once again it did not arrive. I called and was told it would be here for sure on the 30th.

So when the 1st arrived and my home was still not here, I called the company to ask them where it was at, and they didn't know and acted like they couldn't find out. I told them all you have to do is call the trucking company and ask their dispatch where the house is, they are in 24/7 GPS communication with their trucks all major trucking companies use GPS. Finally after a bunch of back and forth we discovered the house was on it's way but the company that sold us he house pulled the wrong permits for Indiana and our house was stuck in Ohio. But finally half of it did arrive later that day. The other half was still in Ohio, the other driver had an emergency and had to rush home. So the driver who delivered the first half was going back to pick up the second half.

He expected to be back with the load the next day, but I got a call there was another permit issue in Ohio. And they likely wouldn't be able to fix it till Monday but they would have my house here. What they didn't tell me is the Ohio State Police impounded half of my house because of the permit issue. The sales company pulled the permits. (There is another story in this that I can't fully tell yet, check back in a week or two and hopefully I will be able to fully tell all by then) The trucking companies owner knows what I can't post yet and felt bad for us. Told his driver to go to the unsecured impound lot and hook up our house and get it delivered. That he would pay the fine. So Surprise the whole house was here by the 3rd of December. Sitting in two halves on our land.

On the 5th the set crew came out and put the house on our foundation. That was really fun to watch.

Then we got to really looking at our house. We had paid for some structural upgrades, not needed but we thought we would make our house stronger, but upgrading a few things. We discovered that the upgrades like the 2x6 framing didn't happen. Wait we paid an extra $5K for 2x6 walls, they will be taking those upgrades we paid for off, since we don't have them and if they don't we will sue them over it if they don't make it right. At this point I don't have much confidence in them.

The finish crew didn't show up on two days they were suppose to show up on. They did show up this morning, I am told they will be done today but I don't have much faith in it because they told me they would be done last week too. Oh did I mention we are about to be homeless. We technically officially are, thankfully we have a temporary solution but if our house isn't done by Friday I could lose my son. So I am extremely stressed out. I would never recommend someone build a house under a tight deadline. If I would have known this was going to be like this, we would have rented even if it meant being in a bad neighborhood for a year and having to be armed at all times.

But if it actually gets done in the next day or two like I am told it will be then I guess it will be all worth it. But talk about up and downs for a year, I don't think I have ever had so many stressful things happen in one year like this year has been. I know soon it will be done, I just hope it happens by the end of the week. I don't want to lose my son even temporarily.

I created this post for the my 2017 contest which you can find more details about here at this link https://steemit.com/my2017/@anomadsoul/my-2017-contest-inviting-everyone-to-do-a-2017-recap-every-week-until-the-year-ends-100-sbd-weekly-reward