interest rate locked
We were very pleased to find out that one side effect of our delaying for so long is a lower interest rate on our loan. I know interest rates aren’t terribly exciting to most people, but it was a big deal for us.
We are working with a local bank that offers a package that looks like a construction loan that converts to a first mortgage at the same rate once the project is finished. There’s no additional closing fee at that time either, and the overall fees are very modest. And the best part is, we had locked in for 120 days at 6.0% late last year, but that recently expired. So when we renewed, they offered us the 120 day lock at 5.75% as long as we would pay the fee again. The fee will pay for itself in 6 months, so it was a no-brainer really. Plus my purchasing power went up a fair amount.
Another nice feature of the package is that I can take advantage of a lower rate if one is available when I close on the first mortgage. And we’ve worked with this lender before, they held the mortgage on our last house (and they don’t tend to sell the paper off like a lot of lenders). Overall we’re pretty happy with the package we’re getting when you factor in all the fees etc.