They can't Slow down in the Louisiana area.. because if you do you will be back in Tornado/Hurricane season again. When one of those hits the price of the Building Materials in the AFTERMATH usually shoots up 10-20% at the local retailers for materials. I know the feeling about the loans... I used a credit union & got a Home Equity loan for my build at 6.75 % because they don't issue Construction Loans. It was a Owner Build house with Architect Assistance from my uncle who is Licensed in Virginia. The house turned out great & now I am getting a Refi for a 4.5% 15 year Note to pay off the loan & pay off my CC for items necessary to the build but not counted during the construction. Trust me..whatever your budget is ADD 20%-25% to the Cost!You will not get the same discounts that the Builder's gets. The Inspectors will cite all kinds of arcane CODE stipulations that MUST be fixed BEFORE you can proceed to the next step. Plus some of these contractors have 1 price for YOU to do your job (generally MORE) then what they will charge builder Bob to do the job. Your only building one house; builder Bob may be building 10, 20 or more... Now with my appraisal I did go up in Value but because rates in my area have depressed its not as worth as much as the "actual Cash" we have put into this project! However this is a 'permanent investment' for us (and possibly our parents) ; we thought about this home long and hard & plan on being here the rest of our lives. This is not a 'flipper' for us.. In the end we did get enough Value to exceed the equivalent of a 35% DP on our Final Appraised value once the improvements were made. But we told our Credit Union about the Cash reserves we had to make the loan work from the beginning..and we put off doing certain things like putting the Steam room/ Steam door in.A Tiled Shower will get you past your final inspection. All Paint & Trim work was done after the final inspection too. We learned a lot about building from this experience and we got a lot of sweat equity from doing things ourselves!

You can get either death or disability insurance on your mortgage, or both. There's about four times the possibility of disability for an extended period that there is of death ... and, while a funeral is expensive, dead people don't eat, but disabled people do ... and may need medical/rehabilitative costs, as well. Some prefer to buy a term policy for one or both, themselves, for if the bank sets it up, they are the payee, not the person(s) purchasing the home, whle if the homeowner purchases it, they are the payee and it will be their responsibility to pay the lender. Some prefer to have coverage at a specific level throughout, rather than the decreasing value as the principal gets paid off, as usually there is little difference in premium, and as the debt is reduced through regular payment down of principal, there is some extra available to support the family in a difficult time. When paying student loan, usually one knows what portion of the payent goes for interest and which goes to pay down principal owing. But the level of mortgage payment remains level throughout, which means that in the early days of the loan, when the balance owing is high, the amount that goes to interest each year must be high, meaning that little of each payment goes to pay off principal. Many people pay little attention to the amount of principal that is paid off annually through the first few years, though many of them received a schedule showing what the ratios were at the time of each payment, throughout. They are greatly surprised when they find out how little of the principal has actually been paid, at the end of each year. They are suprised to learn that, in those early years, if they made an additional payment of an amount equal to one of the month's payment, designating it as to reduce principal only, it would reduce the balance owing by a larger amount than did all of the other 12 monthly payments. With student loans, the amount allocated to principal and to interest is more easily identifiable, I think. Good wishes. ole joyful

I would go to graduateleverage.com and see what they say. I don't know if you are aware that our illustrious Congress has allowed student loan rates to rise to almost 7%. You may already have a lower rate. There are calculators and assessment tools on their website to help you decide if you already have a better loan package. Good luck. I'll be in the same boat next year, only my loans will be almost $90k! Here is a link that might be useful: Graduate Leverage

The GC will be required to build the garage if it is in the original loan documents that were bank approved. It would not be allowed to be built by a third party not under the control and supervision of the bank approved GC. If you or the Amish gentleman have a contractors license and insurance, the GC can certainly subcontract that portion to you, and you can build it. If the GC agrees to that. I would not plan on that happening. If the GC would take on the liability of hiring you as a laborer under his workman’s comp, then he could do so, and instruct you as an employee to build the garage. I would not plan on that happening either. Free liability is a hard no thanks. In all situations, it is the GC that will need to be paid by you via bank disbursements for building the garage, as that is the professional that the bank approved to be responsible for the build. The bank has not approved you to be involved as a co GC, or to work on their investment, or to hire whomever third part. All job responsibility goes through your GC. You are the funding conduit between the bank and the GC as the owner only. You don't ”recoup” cost overruns. Those are expenses that add to the COST of the build, but not the VALUE of the build result. They are spent and gone. Your savings account is permanently depleted until such time as you add to it again. If the bank agrees to reimburse you for the documented overruns, then you will just have to pay it out all over again when the specific loan amount runs out, and the project still needs that money to reach completion. If you do manage to cut build costs somewhere , that does nothing for your savings account. It does affect the loan amount. Cutting things also affects the value of the house, which will likely require a reappraisal and redo of the loan. That will require you to bring more cash to the table to cover the value shortfall. This is a shell game that only the bank wins. You always end up out the extra costs.