On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:01:47 -0500, BAR wrote:

Boater wrote:
BAR wrote:
Boater wrote:
BAR wrote:
Boater wrote:
BAR wrote:
Boater wrote:
Gene wrote:
On Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:03:49 -0500, "Reginald P. Smithers III,
Esq."
wrote:

We are thinking about using this downturn in the housing market
to build a new home, and acting as our own General Contractor.
Has anyone in the group done this and do they have any words of
advice?

Yes, with three houses and two workshops. Not only was I General
Contractor, I was also 50% of the labor.

Your only real savings, in this market, will be sweat equity.
You can
buy cheaper than you can build.... you just have to find an equally
desperate mortgagee and mortgagor.... or you could do it the seat
equity route, if you have the cash, tools, and a desire to make it
happen.

No bank is going to let *you* (as their mortgagor) serve as General
Contractor unless you hold a contractor's license.

Advice? You're crazy to even attempt it...... uh, but wasn't I
thinking about adding on to the workshop.....

.... Oh, never mind......


It's an incredible burner of time. I had to do it because the
general I hired to build a custom home in Northern Virginia
turned out to be way overextended financially from previous
projects, and could not line up the subs I wanted, and was
teetering.

Took the builder to court, had a civil jury trial, and won a
settlement of more than $100,000. Never collected anything but
the builder's license bond from the state.

With the help of the lumberyard (who issued the construction
bond) and my bank, I took over when the foundation had been laid
and the slabs poured, hired a project manager to oversee the subs
on salary and bonus, and completed the house just a hair over
budget. I had to be on the site for about an hour at 6:30 AM just
about every morning.

It was a huge house, ultra modern, with four full brick
fireplaces, nearly 4000 square feet on the main level, and
another 3,000 square feet finished in the basement. I looked it
up on Zillow early last year and it was valued at more than $1.5
million. The "crash" of the real estate market apparently hit
Northern Virginia hard, because when I looked it up on Zillow
earlier this evening, it was valued at about $1.1 million.

Just checked the second house I owned in Northern Virgina...it
was the one we sold to build the custom house. I paid $87k for it
- nice builder's subdivision house - and sold it about five years
later for $160,000, I think. Zillow has it at $600,000 and
change. Not bad, and the blue spruce trees I planted there in the
mid-1970s are at least 40 feet tall and full triple wides.

Again, you are telling lies. You can't prove either home was owned
by you and that the "big house" was built for or by you.


Awww, I'm supposed to be concerned about proving things to
right-wing trash like you?

Please.

You are seeking acceptance from some here in the group.

Nope. I don't give a **** what you or your enablers here think. Not a
whit. Nada. Zip. You, Herring, DK, Loogy, Ruptured Pontoon, Reggie,
et cetera, are nothing more than the dog**** one must step over when
out for a walk. There are fewer than a half dozen posters here I
consider decent human beings, but I doubt I'll ever meet more than
one or two of them in person because of distances.

Tom, Richard and Gene are who you seek approval and acceptance from
and who have all shunned you for your abhorrent behavior.

Wrong again, schitt-for-brains.

Harry, you know I am right.

You probably should have added Gunner to that last list.
--
** Good Day! **

John H