A few days after my walk through with the 203k Consultant, he emailed me his Narrative and a Specifications of Repairs.
The narrative was a room by room write up of the work needed on the property. It was written out in paragraph form. Its for the lender and buyer to be on the same page of the work to be done and why.
The Specification of Repairs is a 14 page Word document detailing the work. I had one copy that the 203k consultant put his estimates in and a blank copy for my GC (General Contractor) to fill out.
I know most of the people who ever see this blog will know me personally and know my GC as well. My GC is a very good friend. His wife is a one of my besties... we are practically family. (Okay, I show up at meal time like a sitcom neighbor so they treat me like family! :) But I usually bring wine!) So I am fortunate to have a GC that I can get an honest opinion from... and who I can call/text and get an immediate response. I called him when I got the writeup and we were able to get back into the house that night to do a walk through. My plumber is also a friend and I was able to also get him into the house and get his assessment of the work we'll need to do for the heating and broken pipes.
After our walk-through I went to my GCs house. We opened a bottle of wine, my bestie, his wife, gave me dinner and we went page by page through the Specifications of Repairs. (I doubt others will have that experience but hey I am spoiled!) I had gone to Lowes and Home Depot to do a walk through on my own so I could get my head around pricing of materials. But as we went through the SoR, its amazing to me how he had all of the prices in his brain. 'Six panel wood doors cost $375 each plus the frame and installation... so if we need four doors...' There were some things we'd noticed on our walk through that the Consultant missed on his list so we added those in.
While we were working through the SoR, my friend was working on the Contractor Package from the mortgage company. It was 10 pages or so of information about the GC... his license info, insurance info, references... paper paper paper. She was able to crank through that package. I imagine if you have to pass that on to your GC it might take them a few days to get it back to you.
I am fortunate for my friendship with my GC since this process alone was time consuming. It was 40 minutes or so walking through the house and determining what exactly we'd be doing. Then an hour or so going through the SoR step-by-step. I could see a lot of contractors not wanting to get involved in this process... and this is just the writeup. I was also fortunate that I could get back into the house several times. Its vacant and the sellers side had no problem with us going back in. I imagine it would be a more difficult process if we were able to spend time going room by room, item by item determining the scope of work.
I sent the completed paperwork off to the mortgage brokers. I was missing some initials and had one change to make. I had to go back to my GC and have him initial. A few weeks later there was another change so I was able to pop by and get his initials. So again, I am not sure how easy that sort of thing is with a GC who is not as accessible. I imagine too if you are getting bids from multiple GCs, this step could take longer in your process. The speed we were able to get this paperwork turned around definitely helped the mortgage team get the loan moving along quickly so we can hit the 45 day deadline.
I like having the SoR written up so I can get a
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