If you must finance the pool then ask your loan officer to add the cost of the pool in your loan, but the project has to appraise for the total cost of construction.

Got it , I will speak to them

With current and ongoing rates financing within a 30 year is a good choice. Shop if necessary.

Having gone through this recently, our loan office recommended using cash for the pool because they never appraise. He was the guy that handled appraisals. Not the appraiser of course.

Now our house appraised in the end with the pool costs. But the construction loan did not have any draws to the pool company.

I would not be relying on appraising to cover your construction costs without a buffer. I am one of those housing market pessimists as a slow motion economic disaster unfolds. When the housing market takes a hit, the appraisals will follow. And they may be designed to lead nowadays after the issues in 2008.

So, you absolutely should not be building custom + pool without the cash for several pools available. That is just my opinion of course.

Using "Cheers" is of course not a super common American expression. So I would clarify if you are not in the US or if your citizen status effects the mortgage process.

We wrapped the pool into our construction loan without any issues. We paid the deposit out of pocket.

Hi Trish - If you dont mind me asking, how did the construction loan appraise for the pool? I assume the bank just wanted estimated costs for the pool and plans etc.. Jw. Thanks for your time and input

@Tom A.we included the pool bid with all our other bids. it's wrapped in the final draw which we haven't received yet so I'll post an update if there's an issue. Our last appraisal came back over what we've spent so far so we're looking good.

David Thank you - great question, I'm in the states here in GA. I travel often and I guess Ive been hanging too close to my European friends =)

I do know that our house has been appraised for 850k and i'm only taking out a 600k construction loan. I guess I;ll have to talk to the bank and understand that once I convert to mortgage, what I can borrow . I have to assume I can borrow up to 80% of the house appraisal which seems to be the market standard

Again appreciate the insight, Ill do more hw on my end too. Have a wonderful weekend all.

Hey Tom! I would actually talk to your accountant/financial planner about this. Obviously, you want to pick an option with the lowest interest rate, but different financial solutions will have different tax implications, too. Probably worth a phone call to discuss.

Good luck.

@Trish Walter - Got it, I guess that's wheres where we kind of messed up. We didn't think of it from the beginning. The construction loan has already been set.

It went from... don't think we want a pool to , hey lets get a pool ! This is my 3rd pool and I was dreading it but looks like the wife and kids really want one, and here we are. =)

Best of luck to you and thank you again. Ill def share what I end up doing and finding out , in terms of best options to all

Thanks !

@Tom A. I can't wait for a pool but do dread the maintenance. But I am so looking forward to it. We are semi empty nesters too but thought this would be a good draw for kids to keep visiting etc. Plus I plan on many days swimming and floating.

While you can include all costs of the pool and landscape into a construction loan, pool and landscape may have little effect on the appraisal. That translates into a higher down payment or cash out of pocket up front.

For example: Land+Design+Permits+Construction for a project that appraises at around $1.2 mil also appraises around $1.2 mil. At 80% LTV (loan to value) the client can borrow $960K. (75% = $900K). When we add solar (a CA requirement Jan 1), pool and landscape for about $150K more, the appraisal if we're lucky, increases $50-100K, increasing the loan $40-80K at 80% LTV. The effective loan on the solar/pool/landscape is 25-50%. If the market is less robust, the appraisal won't be affected creating a higher cash out of pocket requirement for loan recording. If you can wait until completion of the home, you can often get an updated higher appraisal and fund these with less cash out of pocket.

More cash solves it all.

^^^ If you had read through the thread you'd see that he already built the house and pool and told us how he financed it.