Turn to experts to finance home construction
By Pat St. Germain
>> MOST OF US HAVE DREAMED about building our own home. It’s fun and easy, particularly since few of us incorporate pesky details like construction financing in those pie-in-the-sky plans.
Just like any other mortgage, a builder mortgage requires a down payment, and it’s paid off over a long amortization period. While your builder may require a substantial deposit, and is typically paid in stages as construction progresses, your payments are still affordable, and you may make interest-only payments during construction. Steinbach Credit Union (SCU) commits more time and resources to set up builder mortgages, and remains engaged in the process throughout the construction period, typically eight to 12 months. For that reason, it requires buyers to commit to a three- to five-year fixed mortgage or a five-year variable closed mortgage. “The expectation is that once we’ve gone through that process with someone that they’ve also committed to us for a minimum of three to five years,” Bart says. SCU offers five builder mortgage options: • Turn Key mortgages are designed for cases in which the builder finances construction. Typically, the builder requires a deposit upfront and transfers title on the possession date.
TURNING FANTASY INTO REALITY DOESN’T TAKE A STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. OFTEN, IT JUST TAKES A BUILDER MORTGAGE.
But turning fantasy into reality doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination. Often, it just takes a builder mortgage. “Sometimes it seems really daunting because if you don’t know the process you think, ‘Well, I can’t do that,’” says Charlene Bart, Steinbach Credit Union manager of consumer lending (Lagimodiere branch). The first step is to construct a team of experts — a lawyer, a builder and a lender — who do understand the process. “You want to find somebody who has a lot of expertise, and that’s where we come in. The volume of builds that we help finance means we have built substantial knowledge and expertise within our team,” Bart says. “We’re going to help you get there.”
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Building the Best for more than 25 years Doug Milne Milne Homes Ltd. P: 204-981-2681 E: MilneHomes@mymts.net www.milnehomes.ca
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