New Projects

As you know Jean the Kids and I headed back to the States to see Family and build our Kitty as we cruisers say. Though we do not expect to be cruising for some years we will be improving the Omarsea and sailing her on the Bay. But not for a couple of summers yet.
In the meantime we are preparing to rebuild this old house from the ground floor up. Over the past three months we have involved ourselves in the 203K FHA loan system. I can tell you this is not for the feignt of heart. Unlike a coventional mortgage this involves federal government rules and regulations. We started the process by hiring a 203K consultant for ~$1000. Tom put together an exhaustive list or repairs and a scope of work for us. He is basically the eyes and ears for the bank making sure the work gets done. Next we began the more difficult task of finding a general contractor to work with. You would think in these economic times this would be easy. keep in mind though these professionals are used to making well over $100/hr and people paying what ever they asked just to get the job done. Spoiled is not even close to the target here. These tradesman were like Charron and his boat on the river styx for several years and the wages got way out of proportion to the work. The reality of the situation is hitting home now and ther eis quite a good deal of resentment toward the homeowner who is seeking fair pay for fair work.
So our first contractor decided that in order to accomodate us and our little project he needed to make $60,000 profit at a minimum. His mantra was "This is just a guestimate it may gow much higher". Got rid of him.
Second contractor we signed an agreement with and everything seemed to be flowing along well and then he leaves town for West Virginia over the 9 day period he is supposed to sign the contracts with the bank and get the project funded. No cell phone or email in West Virginia he told me. Fired him.
Now we are down to the deadline where the bank holding the property wants us to close and we do not have a general contractor for the 203K loan. Crunch time!
In speaking with several GC's I ran across a man that was really on the ball. He had never done the 203K paperwork so together we are working through the hoops. Will has been a tremendous help. He and I put a contract together in the 11th hour. I went over the numbers for the scope and we faxed the line item report to the finance company. He has agreed to work closely with us on this project and get us through the 203K loan process as our GC to closing hopefully the 20th of November.
But dont believe we are out of the storm yet. No No! This is a historic property on the National register. The next hurdle is getting our plans approved by the Historic Society. Stay Tuned Omarsea fans this is where it gets interesting.