Hanging on out of ego – yes. But also I suspect that someone told him once what the house “should” sell for and he’s holding out for that amount.
Right now I might just be sitting on a big asset that is completely torn apart and unsellable if I don’t find a construction loan to finish soon!!
Uh oh…
I didn’t want to go out for the final construction loan until I knew for sure that my plans were going to get approved and there were no surprises (such as sprinkler requirements, which was a total surprise to me). I wanted to be as accurate as possible on what was needed to finish the property. And, I didn’t want to start paying interest until I absolutely had to.
Right now I am sitting on 45% loan to value on purchase price. Value of property As Is has risen to $1,050,000 since I purchased it so I think my total loan to value will only be about 60% LTV which is very conservative compared to competitors. A lot of competitors do 100% funding. My LTV against the appraised After Value will only be 43%
cb, I’m confused. So basically you have available to you something like 45% of $950,000? Or, 60% of $1,050,000? Just trying to understand.
Also, those funds are available to you, but you haven’t yet borrowed them so you don’t yet owe interest – like a HELOC?
^ I think what she is saying is that she will have no trouble borrowing whatever she needs because the LTV is so low. And in fact can probably get a better rate because the risk to the lender is so much less than if she was doing 100% financing. If it turns into a disaster, the lenders will easily get their money back because CB has invested so much of her own money.
I do not have the funds available right now to build the addition. When I went to make my final decision a couple of weeks ago (before submitting plans and paying thousands of dollars) I discussed everything with my agent. We agreed that there were 2 key issues. I needed to know with some assurance that the future value was there. That’s why I hired the bank appraiser to do an independent appraisal as a confirmation against my agent’s analysis.
Then I told her I was going to need a loan to proceed. She guaranteed she could drum up an investor. I set the date when loan needed at July 1 to July 15. The fluctuation is due to the sliding permit approval date.
So far she is striking out and I’m starting to panic, although I have identified a back up investor offering a slightly higher interest rate than I have calculated in my budget
I currently have loans used for purchase and a bridge to this point at 45% loan to value against original purchase price. After the new loan I will be at about 65% loan to value against original purchase price (even though current As Is value has risen $100,000 in last 3 months)
CB- I’m worried that word may get out re the financial pickle you find yourself in -in the small community you deal with- san diego. you are posting a LOT of financial info on the internet, and someone could easily put 2+2 together and figure out who you are and try to take advantage of your predicament…
I suggest you go silent until you have your construction loan secured.
Or loan will be crowdsourced on CC!
Both @notrichenough and @menloparkmom are correct. My LTV is very low compared to other investors. But, I need to stay silent for now
Meanwhile, we are really making a ton of progress at the property. It might have something to do with the fact that there are 3 different crews working simultaneously!! At a huge daily cost 
My regular crew is focusing on digging and forming the posts for the new deck addition. These posts are on the plans and need to have a lot of forming and rebar ready for the foundation inspection.
My new framing crew is busy working with me to specifically identify all the new footings that have to be marked, cut and dug out in the existing basement and garage. These footings will support giant posts for structure above. I may have mentioned this earlier, but it just wasn’t working trying to measure these out based on the walls down below. So, we are building the staircase base on first floor, some other new walls and drilling a hole down to accurately mark our footings. The staircase structure was finalized yesterday. I think we may have an issue with the first set of stairs going up to 2nd floor where our heads might hit the existing roof. We need to do a little more math there and figure everything out, but at least we know where the support needs to be.
The concrete demolition and grading of the new garage and driveway are complete. The foundation concrete crew are all ready now. We are carefully waiting for permit approval and/or 99% confidence before we do the final parts of the foundation. We need to rent a trencher and trench out the deep sides for the stem walls and then do a lot of forming and rebar. We don’t want to start trenching yet in case permits get held up and dirt starts falling back into the trenches while we are waiting. But, we are very close!
I loaded a couple of pictures but my cell phone kept shutting off. I’ll try to get more pics today.
The Planning Department has signed off on the permit with no further comments. This is one of the departments where they made a couple of notes on plans and then insisted a whole new set of plans had to be re-submitted for review. I am only waiting for Zoning sign off at this point. They are the ones who may say that I cannot have a bathroom in the basement. I submitted a bunch of pictures that I took when I first purchased the property to try to prove that it has been there forever. For example, we can tell that the cast iron plumbing has been running under the concrete slab since Day 1.
I have loaded more photos of our progress.
One of the things we did this week is clear out all the old ice plant and stumps out of the entry area outside the new front gate. It looks 100 times better now. I just cannot decide whether to just leave it (and weeds might come back), mulch it, gravel or try to do some landscaping. This area is technically outside of the property line, but in an area that would normally have a sidewalk and a curb easement that owner can plant. If I put landscaping out there I will probably have to figure out some way to dig pipes and irrigation out there.
That’s encouraging! Hope you have more good news soon.
The good news about the Planning sign off is that they are the department that checks for height in the Coastal Zone and percent demolished. In the Coastal Zone you cannot build higher than 30ft without going to the Coastal Commission and, if you demolish more than 50% of the exterior you have to go to Coastal Commission. People do anything they can to avoid Coastal Commission because it takes over a year to go through Coastal Commission review. You should see some of the hilarious things people do to keep 50% of old walls intact.
That is a big pile of old pipes in that photo!
For the landscaping, can you plant something low along the new concrete path leading to the green gate? Since you’ll be around for a few more months, you and your guys could hand water it until it gets established. Something drought tolerant, of course.
Now that the plants are gone, the eye is immediately drawn to the rotting landscape timbers. 
Weeds will grow there if you don’t mulch it. I don’t like gravel because the weeds will grow through the gravel no matter what you do, and the gravel winds up looking shoddy.
That old railroad tie bothered me too.
I don’t know if I can do anything about the railroad ties because it looks like there was a little cul de sac community effort to lay down those railroad ties. They are all over the cul de sac area. And, technically, that area with the railroad ties on the sides of the gravel path is outside the neighbor’s property. It’s their ‘easement’. I’ll talk to the neighbors and see if they mind if I remove them.
Even if I remove them I will have to do something to carve out a ‘path’ to my concrete walkway.
I wasn’t thinking “remove” so much as “replace”.
I don’t think there’s any real need to replace the railroad ties because, as you say, they surround the entire cul-de-sac. They’re a minor blip compared to the guard rail, trash can, and red warning signs at the end of the road.
I do think it would be a good idea to put some kind of planting or low curb along the concrete path at a minimum to keep people from accidentally stepping off and maybe slipping on the slight slope, and to define the path on both sides. But I wouldn’t put in anything too expensive because of the possibility of plants walking off with some of the multitude of drivers who show up for the view.
http://northparknursery.com/2015/05/drought-tolerant-full-sun-ground-covers-for-san-diego/