A Gated Mess - 02/24

Success call

We met with Dru Mims (ACTs success coordinator) on a conference call on Feb 1, 2024, to discuss verifying our contact info and submitting proof of funds.

Lender discussions

We worked with our financial advisor to increase our monthly distribution in preparation for loan applications. When applying for home loans, you need to show a good debt/income ratio, so we adjusted our draw to put us where we needed to be.

We started working with a number of lenders, including some with whom we had worked before as well as new ones who had been recommended. We learned that many of the lending companies (banks) only wanted to do standard mortgages and would not do land or construction loans. Some of the ones that did offer construction and land loans had (in our opinion) unreasonable terms and interest rates. My best advice here is to do your own research and pursue the best deals. My research of lenders would continue into March and beyond.

Prepping the house and loading the POD

We needed to put our house up for sale in February to obtain equity to buy our acreage. Prepping the house for sale meant getting most things out and into storage. We have bought and sold many houses over the years, and to get top dollar and a quick sale, you need to stage your house. Because we knew we would be putting our belongings into storage for over 6 months, we chose PODS. They delivered a large container to our driveway, which allowed us to load it over time. When you are done loading, they pick it up and store it in a climate-controlled warehouse. They also give good prices for storage they will be holding for over 6 months.

Home building and solar

I began my research of building off-grid also during February of 2024. At this point, we were leaning towards building a Barndominium, but we were open to other ideas. We looked at a number of different building methods. Spoiler alert, we did not go with any of these in the end.

Some of the companies I started to research are as follows:

• Worldwide Steel Buildings: worldwidesteelbuildings.com
• Unbound Solar: unboundsolar.com
• Outdoor fireplaces (Empire Distributing): empiredistributing.net
• Barndominium Life: barndominiumlife.com
• The Barndominium Zone: barndominiumzone.com
• Northstar Homes (bullet/fireproof): northstartgi.com
• BuildMax Homes (pre-fab custom homes): buildmax.com
• Walz Construction (local builder): walzco.com

Panoplia site visit & 1st closing

We received the Feb 2024 update email from ACTs where we learned that the land closing was to take place on Feb 15th and another site visit was scheduled. We signed up for the visit as we love to take time on the property whenever we are able.

We sold our house and moved out

As I said earlier, we know how to prep a house. We put our house on the market and it sold within the first weekend. We had everything moved out and either in the POD, sold, or given away. We were fully moved out by Feb. 27th and closed on the 28th. We moved in with my daughter and her family; she had graciously moved out of her office to provide a room for us. We thought we would be living there for 9 months while our house was built.

February 16th

As you might have guessed (as I am writing this Feb 15, 2026), we stayed with my daughter longer than 9 months and we did not close on the land in February. On Feb 16th we joined a group call with ACTs and learned that their financing for the FL Panoplia property deal had fallen through. It was a sad and honest call, but we and many other families resolved to continue.

Spoiler alert: It all works out, we are currently living in a travel trailer on our property and the house is about 75% done.

Follow along the journey by reading the next post about March 2024.

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• ranch