You're Approved!

We've finally gotten our Approval letter from NVR...apparently they were perfectly confident that there wouldn't be any problems, because Ryan Homes got the go-ahead quite awhile ago!  There aren't any real surprises in the letter, but I thought I'd point out a couple of things that might help someone down the road.

The cover letter has some frequently asked questions, and rather than paraphrase I'm just going to copy a couple of them verbatim:

This letter states my approval expires on a certain date, and I must close by that same date.  My closing is scheduled after that date, will this be a problem?
No.  The date that is listed on your approval is the day that your previously provided asset, income, and/or credit documents will expire.  We will just need updated documents from you at that point.

Why do you need coinciding bank statements for the Earnest Money that I give to Ryan Homes?
We use your bank statements to prove that the money you have used to purchase this loan is your own.  We review the statements to make sure that you have not borrowed money or obtained additional debt.

The letter is asking us to do a couple of things, one of which is documenting the Earnest Money.  Another is "consecutive monthly bank statements showing deposits in accordance with budget letter."  This is something that I haven't seen mentioned in any of the blogs, so let me esplain. (no no, there is too much, let me sum up - ha!).  Part of the documentation that we were asked for was a Budget Letter.

The LO sent the form to my husband, and gave him the very bad advice that "You only need to fill out the income and expenses section. You don’t need to fill out the assets available section. In the expense section you don’t need to make an entry for each expense. You just need to input costs that apply to you."  My husband followed those instructions, only to have the LP send it back to him asking for the rest of it to be filled out.  At this point he asked me to finish it off and send it back, as he was swamped with work stuff and couldn't spend more time on it.  I take a look at it, and the way he had it filled out makes it look like we should be able to save $4000 a month.  Um, NO!  Not likely!  But down at the bottom, where he must not have read, is the fine print:  "I/We understand that I/We are saving the balance of the down payment, closing costs and reserves.  I/We agree to deposit the amount indicated on a weekly basis.  A condition of our loan will be to provide verification of the systematic savings plan as outlined above."  So, conceivably, our loan could get un-approved down the road if we weren't saving that imaginary $4000 every month, because we sign our names at the bottom.  Something to take note of if they ask for this form!

Needless to say, this bad advice is going to get a mention on that coveted Survey.  Not that NVR cares much about those!

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In other news, I've added more panorama pics to those pages.  Mostly I just added (the other three bedrooms, the bathrooms, hallways, the loft), but there are a couple that I replaced because the newer ones were better.  And it's funny...I told a couple people that both the models down here are decorated pretty much identically...which is 98% true, but where it's different is that the same item will be rotated.  So a frame that's oriented as a diamond in one model is oriented as a square at the other, things of that nature.  It felt like a "find the differences" game!

Also, if you're at all confused about the differences in the floorplans of the various elevations, check out the last picture on the Elevations tab.  Hopefully that will help esplain.  :)