On this home page, we keep our friends and family updated on the construction progress. We will send out an email when the site is updated. (BTW the house to the right in just what the house looks like on the Internet.)

When Deb and I moved to Columbia in 2006 and found the house we are leasing we asked the owner to sell the house to us. We keep asking, but to no avail. We then decided in May 2007 to take the plunge and build our dream house. Most of you know that Deb works for a homebuilder and I know how to hold the hammer; but we have no experience in building a home.

After searching the Internet we found two companies that assist people like us in building their dream home. We decided to partner with UBuildIt® of Greenville, South Carolina. UBuildIt has a unique plan to build your dream home. They offer a one-time close on the land, construction and permanent loan, with little or no money down. Your down payment is the sweat equity from doing some of the work yourself and the appraised value of the home is usually more than the original loan amount.

We met with Robert Raditz  in June 2007 and began the process. We had originally planed to build in the neighborhood we now live, but that didn’t work out. (That is another whole story). We thought it would take a couple of months to get started, boy were we wrong. The planning took 3 months and the Sub-Prime Melt Down has affected the lending industry drastically. Through out the entire process Robert has been there to help. We purchased the plans from AmazingPlans.Com  and had the designing architect make a few changes. We send out bids for the various trades and choose the sub-contractors. We are using some local contractors and some that Robert uses. I must admit that it has taken a lot longer to get started then I thought it would; but, from the beginning, Robert said the planning process take a while.  We finally closed on December 13, 2007.

Our mortgage and construction lender is National City Mortgage. Our Loan Originator Louise Lowman worked tirelessly throughout the entire process to help us. Her due diligence and careful guidance is what makes her the outstanding person she is. We cannot possibly thank her enough. I asked her for a photo to put on this web site. (Still waiting!!!!!) The one time close makes it so much easier as you only pay closing costs once and just a little paperwork converts the construction loan to a permanent mortgage.

The links on the left will take you to the various stages of construction. Hopefully I will have video soon, so you can see as we build. Check back often to see the progress and don’t forget to bookmark this page.

 Dave and Deb Gaston