Let the Construction Begin!
After several months, we are excited to share that we are finally ready to begin construction on our new home. It’s been a long process to get started so we are thrilled that the time has finally come to get going on this. If you’re like us and love the home building process, farmhouses, home design and such, we hope you’ll follow along on our journey. We hope to share each step of our new build with the hope it’ll help others who want to build a home or at least offer some information and inspiration. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you have. We’re happy to share what we know.
We began this whole process with searching for our land. It took daily searches on the Georgia MLS website, reaching out to realtors, friends and family, cold calling landowners of properties we liked, and even driving the country roads for hours looking for “for sale by owner” signs. During the land search, we were also searching for a home to buy because we honestly thought it might take us a year or more to find the right land for us. The market has very little to offer and we wanted at least 5 acres so we could possibly have a mini farm of sorts one day. During these searches, we found a house we were interested in and knew the listing agent well so we gave her call. On our drive to have a look at the house, we passed by the property that is now ours. Coincidentally, our realtor friend was the same listing agent for the land. I still don’t know how the property slipped through the cracks of my MLS searches, but I’m so thankful we found the land and that Aimee was the listing agent for the seller. It also just so happened that we knew the seller. My husband actually worked for him when he was a teenager at his local furniture store. We walked the property and loved it. It has two huge, gorgeous oak trees in the front of the property and plenty of space for all of our future plans. We made our offer and went under contract.
While searching for land, we were also searching for our house plan. This was definitely one of the most difficult steps in the process. We have built homes before and love picking our own plans. However, it’s very hard for us to find a perfect plan. I’m not sure there is a stock plan out there that will work for us. We’re just too picky I guess. We ended up finding a plan we love that is very close to exactly what we want and just had it modified a bit. Thankfully we have a wonderful builder we trust who can assist us in all of our changes, design ideas and help us stay on budget. Finding the right builder is essential if you want the building process to go smoothly and be an enjoyable experience for you. We highly recommend Joe Cook Homes and Joe’s right hand man, our friend Brandon Croft.
The land and construction loan closing process was frustrating—going back and forth with paperwork and delays. But we now own our land and have our permits to begin building our beautiful home. Next up is meeting our builder at the property to pick the perfect spot for the house. We’ll stake the corners and decide on what needs to be cleared. So exciting—stay tuned for more!