My wife and I wanted to build our own home without a General Contractor and we needed a bank that would finance the land and construction with little money down. We have a home in Sav Ga that is currently on the market for sale and thought we would have to wait until it sold to build until we saw this Landmark ad. What a rip-off!
The ad states that with as little as $1,000.00 out of pocket and using your sweat equity, they will provide you with the materials to build and the financing needed for construction and the 0 financing of your land. All you have to do is fill out their pre-qualifying form and send a rough copy of your floor plans. Once pre-approved the company will then contact you and give you a rough budget and let you know if your plans are do able.
My wife and I did just that. We were pre-approved. We were told to contact our real-estate agent immediately to get a (contract to purchase) for the land we found. I asked the Landmark agent what about our home in Savannah that was not yet sold? I was reassured that this was not an issue! I had 12 months for the construction of our New home that was to be in Upstate NewYork and by then the house would surely be sold. Best of all there is No out of pocket fees (Except the $1,000 for appraisel and blue prints) and no payments during construction! Isn't this great!
I received a phone call from the Landmark agent 1 day later and he asked if I had the contract to purchase the land yet? I told Frank no, this was moving a bit fast and we did not want to jeopardise the purchase of the land we had found. We knew before we decided to try Landmark that we could get the land for a good price but did not want to make an offer until we were positive we had the money to follow through. Frank from Landmark all but called me stupid and reassured me that we are approved for the funds and what part of approved didn't I understand? So I got intouch with the Real-Estate agent and made a firm offer. After negotiating a few times, my wife and I got a contract to purchase for the land for less money than we expected. All is well up till now!
Frank from Landmark said the next step was to send the $1,000 to Landmark and Midcountry Bank will be setting up a closing date. We immediately started getting everything in line. Bids for the job, perk test for the land, negotiating deals on materials not supplied by LandMark. LandMark contacted me and congradulated my wife and I. We were assured a speedy and easy loan approval. Everything looked great including the budget for the project. Midcountry also noted our home in Savannah that was on the market and also reaasured us that this was not a problem.
One week from pre-approval we received a package from Midcountry Bank in the mail that had a Disk that explained their construction loan process and how people who currently own a home and are selling it may be asked to use the equity for a down payment? I immediately called my loan officer with MidCountry, I asked Tracy about what I heard on the disk and explained to Tracy that we planned to use the equity in our home to pay off credit card debt so that the only thing we would have to pay for is our new home. Tracy assured me yet once again, "this is required of some customers but not in your case". My sweat Equity was being used as our down payment.
Two weeks goes by, we were still waiting for a closing date and final approval from MidCountry. We finally receive a phone call from Tracy (MidCountry Bank). Tracy says that the underwriters were looking over everything and decided that we would need to provide %5 of the appraised value of our New Home at closing. We told Tracy that this is not what was advertised nor what we were told from the beginning but to let us know how much the appraised value on our New Home would be. Another week goes by still no appraisel has been done. Midcountry Bank wants me to give them a Market Value on our Savannah home? They want a drive by appraisel? My question is why? They would not do a bridge loan nor would they cross colaterlize so why would they need an appraisel of our Savannah home? They had no answer except that their underwriters required it?
Now we are going into the 3rd week of waiting on a closing date and the amount that will be required at closing? Tracy from Midcountry Bank e-mails me and says that the appraisel of our New Home was in but the underwriters have decided that instead of 5% of the appraised value down, they would require me to pay 20% of appraised value @ closing! Wow this just happens to work out to about $10,000 more than the equity in our home? I wonder how they come up with those figures? Of course we can't do this. I am now out of $1,000 and guess what, Frank from Landmark hasn't sent my final blue prints that I have paid for and he doesn't return my phone calls! Go figure. So if you are looking to build your own house I don't recommend LandMark! Because of the time I have lost with this Company misleading us I may end up losing the land my wife and I look so hard to find. It's going to be hard to explain to them what has happened. So people beware of this "Build your dream home" it is scam.
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