slowpoke general contractor got us $6,000!!! (home tax credit)

 

   Well, since a couple of you mentioned it on here recently, I thought
I would give everyone an update on our house situation.  I think I
posted something on here a couple of months back about how we were going
to use  a credit union financed home equity loan to purchase a house.
That fell through.  At the last second, the credit union notified us
that, since we would no longer be living in our present property, the
loan would be considered a "business loan", and not a home equity loan.
  The interest rate they wanted to charge was then more than 8%, so we
said no. (it was all annoying, because I notified them from the start
that we were purchasing a house to move into, not as an investment - so
they knew from the start that we would not be staying here)

   Anyway, after that fell through as a source of financing, we looked
into getting an FHA rehab loan.  We got set up through Wells Fargo for
one of those, and then unexpectedly found a HUD home listed for auction.
  We looked at it, were impressed, and we won the auction for $60k.
(house previously sold for $117k 3 years ago)  We will be putting about
$25k in repairs into it, which will be rolled into the loan.  So our
total loan will be about $85k.  It will have new appliances, new roof,
new water heater, new heat pump & heating system, new vinyl flooring in
kitchen & 1 bathroom, new doors - plus many other things too numerous to
mention as part of the rehab.

   Anyway, we signed the documents, and have been in the process of
getting bids for the work.  We got an early bid for all the work, but
then a family friend highly recommended someone, so we allowed him to
come out, look the place over, and then I waited and waited.  Finally
got a bid from him, and then we prepared to sign the documents so that
he could do the work.  At the last second, he called and said there was
a problem, that his work crew had joined the Navy. (yes, that is
seriously what he said)  After speaking to someone else, I found out
that the real issue was related to insurance for the project.

   Supposedly, he felt really bad about ditching at the last second, so
he called a friend who lives closer, and told him to take care of us.
This guy called me early this week, and I told him I was done messing
around, but that the fellow from the 1st large company we had gotten a
bid from was out of town this week, so if he could inspect the place,
look over my list of necessary work, and get us a bid by today
(Saturday), I would consider him for the work.

   He seemed very gung-ho about the project at first, but after I
emailed him a complete list of the needed repairs, he never followed
through on contacting the real estate agent to look things over.

   Anyway, I ended up feeling like I wasted nearly 3 weeks, partly
because I wanted to support a smaller, family business, and partly
because of my nature to want to keep hunting for a better deal.  I was
pretty annoyed, because due to this delay, we will probably have to file
for an extension on closing, which will cost us a few hundred.

   However, the upside from the delay is tremendous: I just heard that
congress passed a $6,500 housing tax credit, which we can take advantage
of!  If we had picked a general contractor 3 weeks ago, and closed on
the loan already, we would not have been eligible.

   What is great about this is that it is a REFUNDABLE tax credit.  This
means that even if we already get our taxes down to zero with the child
tax credit, we can have up to a $6,500 check issued to us at tax time
next year.  Yippee!

 

Thanks for the progress report, always interesting and too rare IMO.

Ohioguy wrote:

that even if we already get our taxes