Construction Financing in Charlottesville/Albemarle

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Sidd

So you want to build your own house? Not a single large bank and no online banks that I contacted (and I contacted lots) offer construction financing. I called almost every bank that I tried to refinance my existing mortgage with and none of them offered construction loans. I called up Wells Fargo, Bank of America and larger local banks and none of those offered construction financing either. The only larger banks that did offer construction financing, like SunTrust, wanted a 25% down payment.

Then I started calling all the smaller local banks and mortgage companies and found that almost everybody wanted at least 20% down except these three:

1. Fulton Bank (80/10/10 conventional without PMI, One time Close 5/1 ARM convertible to 30 yr fixed, Interest only during construction)

2. Union Mortgage (10% down conventional mortgage with PMI, Prime + 0.25, minimum 6% during construction, refinance to 30yr fixed when complete)

3. Stellar One (3.5% down FHA with PMI or 80/10/10 conventional without PMI, Construction-Perm, Prime -? 0.25 currently 3.75% interest only during construction, refinance to 30 yr fixed when complete)

The UVA Credit Union was another one that does offer construction financing on a case by case basis but their criteria are very strict and I have no idea what their loan terms are.

We started out with Stellar One but after the loan officer we were working with left the company, everything was downhill. Our loan was transferred to the Harrisonburg office and after that nobody had any idea what was going on. No one was able to answer any questions or give me any timelines, even approximate, because of the multiple approval processes that needed to take place and some were outsourced. Nobody would even bother to contact any underwriters to speed things up until we literally called the director of Mortgages. From the end of October as an approximate closing period we went all the way to the end of December and at every point we were frustrated. Incorrect paperwork, general lack of caring about accuracy or customer satisfaction and persistent denial of responsibility for mistakes eventually made us really fed up and switch to somebody else.

We tried Union Mortgage next and I felt a world of difference, paperwork was more professionally done. There was a proper checklist of all required documentation and they knew exactly what happens and the process was fairly simple. However they wouldn’t approve our builder who is a relatively new small builder in Harrisonburg.

At this point after almost giving up on building a house, we were recommended Fulton Bank and not only was their loan the best offering of the three they were excellent to work with. The process was smooth and they worked with us and the builder to get everything approved quickly. I would highly recommend them. Contact Cleve Brannock – (434) 975-2319

Finding Land in Charlottesville – Part 1

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Sidd

Let me start by saying that the title is misleading. By Charlottesville I mean Charlottesville and the parts of Albemarle that are just outside Charlottesville (parts of Rio Rd, Pantops, Barracks Rd, Hydraulic etc.). If you’ve looked at the MLS to try and find land you’ll find that there is almost none available. The land that is available is probably not big enough or not desirable enough or too far out of Charlottesville to be really called Charlottesville.

But there are many pieces of land in the city and county that might be available if you are willing to look hard enough (or contact me and we can work something out). With this and some following blog posts, I’ll go through the steps you need to find the land you want. This works and that is how we found the land for our house.

In Part 1, I’ll cover finding land in the county that is close to Charlottesville. Part 2 will be about land in the city.

Step 1: Find neighborhoods

A good way to find neighborhoods is by going to the Nest Realty Group website. They have a very nice interface to the MLS by neighborhoos and they talk about the pros about each neighborhood. Once you have decided on the neighborhood, begins the search for land. I would like to warn you in advance that there are neighborhoods with no land at all so pick more than one and dont get too attached to any one neighborhood.

Step 2: The GIS

Once you have picked your Albemarle county neighborhood, it is time to go the the Albemarle County GIS to find empty land. Just follow these easy steps.

1. Search for the Neighborhood:

Neighborhood gis

2. House # Sort – Most empty land doesnt have assigned addresses. So you need to sort the search result by House #. That’s it! Here is your list of all empty land.

gisresults

3. Value Sort – Sometimes empty land can have an address assigned to it. These can be found by sorting by total value. You will have to actually click on the item to see the value of the land and the improvements. This is rare for the county but I’ve seen it a couple of times.

Step 3: Contacting Owners

A good place to find owner phone numbers is Whitepages. Often times empty land will have owners who are not local or PO Boxes. You have to get creative, google the name of the owner, do reverse address lookups but eventually you will generally be able to find a way to contact them.

Tips and Tricks

Google Maps shows plat boundaries for Albemarle county. A combination of looking at the plats and the satellite map is an easy way to eyeball for empty space and to verify if the land you are looking at is desirable or not.

Have Me Find Land For You

If you don’t want to go through this effort, I can help you find land. Contact me for more details. You land budget must be at least about $100,000

Photoshopped Real Estate Photos

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Sidd

Here goes my rant. As we have been passively looking for a new house we have found multiple occasions where real estate photos have been severly photoshopped. The photos were overly bright, very saturated and the photoshopping is plainly visible. We have even visited a couple of houses about a year ago just to see how reality compares. And I can tell you it was absolutely shocking. The houses were in bad shape with dark rooms.

I’m making this post for the real estate agents who think that buyers are suckers and can’t tell super enhanced photos. I think their real estate licences should be revoked. I guess they will learn the hard way when nobody shows up to see the houses. Generally I’ve found that photoshopping was only done in case of older houses that are probably in bad shape and once buyers see a few of those they will probably avoid all photoshopped houses. Photoshopping agents should probably take a photography class instead of just using some software to turn up brightness, contrast and saturation to make fake looking photos.

Yesterday I found this example of extreme photoshopping. I thought the photo was an awesome rendering for a proposed house. But the house looked very dated. It turned out that the photo is of an existing house built in the 50s
photoshopping real estate

If you would like to look at the rest of the super enhanced photos click here.

Albemarle Baking Company Cake Review

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Sidd

We tried a cake from the Albemarle Baking Company for the first time on Ahan’s first birthday. The cake was really good. It not only looked great, it tasted even better. Almost everyone who came to the party was asking where we got the cake from. The cake we picked was The Albemarle – “Chocolate cake on the bottom, then THREE mousse layers—dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate. Covered with a milk chocolate glaze.”

We liked the cake so much that for my birthday we tried our second cake from Albemarle Baking Co – The Chocolate Praline Crunch Cake, which was also excellent, especially if you like dark chocolate.

Taste of China – Review (Awesome) – (See Updates)

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Sidd

IMAG0084 IMAG0083 We tried Taste of China near ACAC in Albemarle Square a few weeks back and really loved the food. We made a second trip this weekend and the food was awesome again.

I ate the Tofu Casserole Sichuan Spicy (left) and Parchayi ate the Spicy Scallions and Chili hotpot (or something like that, right).

Both dishes were fantastic. Taste of China is not a regular American Chinese restaurant (though they do serve up some American Chinese too). This according to them is the real Chinese food. Why O why then are we subject to the same old Chinese food everywhere?

I would call taste of China expensive for a Chinese place but then they don’t serve the tired old Chinese and the portions are generous. The food is closer to Indian Chinese than American Chinese.

Here is a link to the Vegetarian Options on the Menu, and for a good laugh see the last item. I wasn’t brave enough to try it. Maybe you are

Update: On our third or fourth visit here, Parchayi got the wrong dish after about an hour of waiting and the wait staff basically told us to either cancel our order and leave or order something else. They claimed it is because they are afraid of chef Chang. Anyway after creating a scene there, the chef himself came out and apologized and gave us a free sample of some awesome red bean dumplings. It seemed form talking to owner that the restaurant was not capable of handling the number of customers and chef Chang was very overworked and stressed. A few weeks after the incident we read in both Cville and Hook that chef Chang has left. I’ve heard from other friends at work too that the wait staff was really rude. Anyway now that the chef is gone, there is no point visiting. After all, the long lines and the extra wait all were just to eat his famous Sichuan cooking.

Here is to hope that he remains in Charlottesville. We will miss the food.

New Indian Store

Posted on February 4, 2009 by Sidd

Charlottesville now has a new Indian store on Westfield Rd. near the Comcast office called Taste of India.

We’ve been to the new store twice and as compared to Indian Bazaar on Rio, the store is more neatly organized. There are more Frozen options and most of the basics are the same. The store owner has promised to order some stuff that he didn’t have and I’ll find out soon if he did. I’m not sure we really needed another store but if he does deliver on his promise of ordering stuff that the other one doesn’t carry we might end up going there more often.

Tara Thai Charlottesville Review

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Sidd

We tried the new Tara Thai at Barracks Rd this weekend and were completely disappointed with the food. The soup we ordered was lukewarm (not even close to hot). When we complained, they heated it up for us in a microwave for a few minutes. After that it was ok and decent tasting.

The food we ordered was all cold too. We could hear them cooking it and we were sitting about 10 feet from the kitchen so it can’t have become cold in transit. Maybe they just stir fry stuff and dump in cold readymade sauce? and maybe they don’t stir fry long enough for the vegetables to become hot? After complaining again and being served microwave heated food, the temperature was ok. Still not hot but tolerable. Even the fried Tofu was cold. I’ve never had fried tofu cold in a dish before. Taste wise the food was mediocre and the dish I ordered was overly fishy. I threw away the leftovers because when I heated them up later at home they smelled bad. All in all a bad experience. I’ll stick with Thai 99 on JPA and Lemongrass at the corner for good Thai food.

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