Janet, I see you are in zone 5, so I'll recommend a few northern growers/venders. (Just click on any of the links to browse.) Olallie Daylily Gardens Northern Grown Perennials Northern Lights Daylilies Solaris Farms Klehm's Song Sparrow Perennial Farms Valley of the Daylilies Walnut Hill Gardens Plum Hill Farm Daylilies Betty's Country Garden North country Daylilies I've bought from all of these places, and received healthy fans from all. I'm sure other northern gardeners will chime in here and recommend other great places. Have fun browsing! Julie

First thanks every one for their advice it is very helpful to hear the naysayers as well as the yay sayers. If I can't come up with a solution to the problem you present, then I have a problem. vhehn- time will be somewhat short but as long as we get a loan money shouldn't be too short. I do know it will take us a long time to build and we are prepared for that and OK with it. A lot of people express concerns with SB I am OK with that too. Please don't feel like I am dismissing your comments out of hand. Some of them I have heard many times before and some of them I am keeping in mind as I go along. We are working on deciding how we will deal with the long build time. The whole financing situation is something we are just starting to address and well aware that financing for a SB house is difficult to get. So if we can't get it, then we can't and we will decide on a different building envelope. frog - I personally have not investigated logging however we are building next door to the ILs who are timber farmers with 60 years of experience and a mill. The lumber would be stored where they can keep an eye on it so I am not too worried. It is a lovely area and property prices or sky high so 20 acres for the cost of power/water/septic is a steal. ajpl - thanks for you thoughts, I sent you an message via flickr. We are doing a timber frame rather than structural SB so there will be a roof up before the bales ever arrive on site so there isn't the usual worries about getting them up super quick and finished off before it rains. You posted your house plan on another thread I started and I really liked them except that there wasn't a bedroom on the ground floor for when we get old :). Otherwise it was just what we were looking for. flgargoyle - I will look into the grading of lumber requirements. We plan on being careful about permitting and such as well. The ILs weren't and haven't had a problem but we don't want to take the risk. We do have concerns about living in an RV with two small children. Our first choice would be a habitable workshop but we are not sure what the zoning permitting situation would be for that. Terry_t - We will only have two kids when we are building, one that is 2-3 and another that is 5-6. But two small children isn't really much better than 3, we are banking on babysitting help from the ILs. Thanks for your suggestions on advance prep work we have been wondering what we can do before we get the ball really rolling. Luckily our site is flat and pretty clear for a large area. A log home is actually something we would consider if a SB became impossible. FIL has already built two log houses so we have some one with experience handy to help. We are aware of the YDKWYDK principle and have plans to get consultants when possible. We have one recommendation already from some one who has already built a TF SB house in the area. We also have close family members with various construction experience (electric installation, plumbing, framing, roofing, finish carpentry). We are also working on making the most of the years leading up the build, learning all we can. This will all take a lot more planning and thought so if you think of hurdles please post them so I can figure out how to jump over them :).

Hi rivkadr, Okay, so some clarifying questions, then. I expect I will sound very stupid, but please recognize that I generally don't deal with money matters too much myself, so a lot of this is over my head. PUHLEAZE!!!! You deserve (and GET) my sincere respect for so MANY reasons!!!! A) You're willing to OPEN your MIND to serious financial topics (and not just swallow the emotional poop passed down from those who've never tried to understand!) B) You're willing to be completely OPEN WITH YOUR DETAILS (even if anonymously... you have no idea how many people are afraid of simply being real, even when nobody can know who they really are!!!) C) You are SO GENEROUS to do so out in the open on a public message board, where your learnings can be silently read and absorbed by others who WISH they had your guts!!!!!!!!! I cannot emphasize enough THE HONOR YOU DESERVE for taking this on, step by step, out in the open!!! TRUST me when I say, there are MANY folks who feel much "dumber" about their questions... and hate the fact they haven't had the courage to step out like you are. Your COURAGE trumps all... and it is the ONLY way anyone gets "smart!" OK, with your questions; 1) Itemize your current liabilities, and for each; Liabilities, I assume you mean things like student loans, mortgages, etc? i.e. stuff we owe money on. Exactly... make a laundry list for us here. If you have a recent credit report it will show much of what we are asking about... otherwise gather up your monthly bills. Example; $461,356 1st mortgage, (pull out your NOTE to check on the following,) 5 yr ARM in 3rd year, (amortized, or interest-only?) Start date was July X, 2005 Initial Fixed rate is X% Margin is 2.25 (or it is 2.75, or other?) Index is 1 month LIBOR (or 6 mo LIBOR? 1 yr LIBOR? Treasury index?) $45,356 Student Loan, consolidated from multiple loans, Interest rate is X%, minimum payment required is $YYY (or a % factor, if you know,) $12,486 Provident Visa card, 8.9% rate, 2% of principal minm payment (By the way... the 2% of principal is the standard minimum payment for revolving credit.) $8,594 Ford auto financing, 3.5% rate until 1/1/2010, then 8.9%. 8 year loan, minm req'd payment $x,xxx You get the idea... 2) Itemize your appreciating assets, and for each; What would an appreciating asset be? Are these like stocks? We don't own anything like that anymore. We have my husband's 401k -- does that count? Appreciating assets are real estate, stocks, mutual funds, bonds, cash-value life policies, pensions, annuities, securities held INSIDE your 401(k), IRA and ROTH accounts, and similar. Non-appreciating assets are your non-cash-value (term) insurance policies of all types, anticipated inheritances, business ownership, personal effects (tools, furs, jewelry, etc.) 3) What is your personal realistic exepected growth situation for your home over the next 10 years? Expected average annual rate of growth, 10 years? Total growth in dollars? I have no idea how I would estimate things like that :( I have no clue on most of your growth rate questions (except maybe our expected income -- I can hazard a guess on that). That is really *OK*!!!!!! When the answer is "I have no idea" it triggers some follow-on questions; (And its perfectly acceptable to "cheat" by asking realtor friends, checking Zillow, or Googling your local negihborhood name along with the keywords of "appreciation rates in Irvine" (or wherever.) Are you familiar with the past longterm trend of real estate in your area? If so, what was it? Do you believe that the future longterm trend will be significantly different? If so, in what way? 4) What is your estimated current NET Worth? Can you have a negative net worth? Unfortunately, yes... in fact the MAJORITY of the general public has a negative net worth. That happens when the total cash value of everything you own (and could sell,) is less than the total repayment balance of all the debts that you owe. I just reran our budget; due to my husband's job changes and a raise on my part, we're actually making an extra $3500 a month. Does that change your little form up above at all? That doesn't change the questions (especially the "divvy up your 1st and 2nd extra $1,000,) but it does give you some extra growth power, which is ALWAYS a good thing when you know how to employ it most effectively. ONCE AGAIN... I HONOR YOU FOR YOUR UP-FRONT COURAGE!!!! (I suspect you are "giving" people a great deal in this exchange!!!) Cheers, Dave Donhoff Strategic Equity & Leverage Planner

Hi Eosinophil, FIRST of we need to back away from the minutiea... up, up, up to get some bigger picture perspective, like an architect starting with very simple pencil sketches on a blank piece of paper... so that we can THEN come back down to the nitty-gritty and micro-fit the situation to your specifics. What is more important to you; Eliminating your outstanding leverage balances on an accelerating basis, or stopping the monthly bleeding? (These are at counter-points for you currently.) Are you more concerned about the balances on one property versus the other... or about your overall family position on balance? How much accrued liquid cash reserves do you have socked away? How much is your gross family monthly revenue? How much is your current gross (including minimum payments for all debt and homes) family cost of living? You are paying to rent the money you are using for retaining the ownership of the old home (the interest costs.) This interest is a "sunk cost" each month you pay it, if you have no tenants paying you for its useage. Is your continuing ownership giving you *any* appreciation currently? (Keeping in mind that market appreciation is a VERY tentative guess, at best, in the current environment... and if it is negative, you need to honestly figure it that way as well.) IF so, how much is the appreciation when calculated into monthly dollars? How much of your sunk interest costs are being ofset by your potential monthly appreciation gained? Whatever your sunk costs of interest, minus your dollars from appreciation (or plus the dollar costs, if depreciating currently,) is what you can call your "monthly burn." This is the consumption of your net worth you are incurring to continue carrying this property. NOW... this home CAN be sold (gotten under contract with a 30 day escrow period, or less) within a 2-6 week marketing time, AT SOME LEVEL OF PRICE, AND ADVERTISED EXPOSURE. This "price level" is what we call the "quick-sale price value." If your agent were to (honestly) determine the realistic quick-sale price level in that local market... it would likely be lower (perhaps much lower) than where you are holding out right now... and the agent would likely need to ramp up some significant marketing costs... which they might only be comfortable doing with some funding (or guarantees) from you. All of this, naturally, is going to be a revenue burden off of what you were previously hoping to sell your home for. NONETHELESS... this is a numeric exercise that is CRITICAL to do... RIGHT NOW... because it will give you the numerical difference between where you are right now in realistic net worth, were you to do this immediately..... VERSUS how much you are "burning through" on your monthly burn rate if you simply close your eyes, cover your ears, pray really really hard, and just keep waiting it out. KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS IS POWER... and you can't make an objective financial decision unless/until you have the actual facts in front of your face to review and think about. ========================================================= OK... soapbox aside..... *IF* you decide that you have reason to believe that simply waiting longer will actually be worth your while in a higher sale price... then there *is* investment property financing available in the range of 3.5% to 4.5% APR, on an interest-only basis, up to 70-75% LTV, strictly on a fully documented (income, employment, assets) basis... which could very significantly reduce your monthly burn overall. Its something I have at my firm... but not to be 'spammy' there may be other brokers (perhaps your regular loan broker) who have it as well. Its not a retail program, so you'd definitely need to connect with your broker for it. ========================================================= ALL THINGS CONSIDERED... (And in truth, we haven't seen enough details to truly consider all things...) I would *PROBABLY* be leaning toward advising you to take a deep breath, swallow hard, plug your nose... and have your agent re-price the home to the local quick-sale price... and get it over with while we're in the summertime "moving & home-buying season." All the best! Dave Donhoff Leverage Planner