Are DOME HOMES practical? If so, what is the best kit out there to buy? I'm a contractor who wants to build...
Question:
If your answer is YES, would you buy the wooden kits or the cement or fiberglas shells? Which are better?
Last, would you buy the kits or just buy the materials locally and cut the pieces yourself to save on expense? Looking for some people out there with some good knowledge on Dome Homes. Thanks for any and all advice!
Answer:
Speaking from a mortgage banking standpoint, dome homes are NOT treated favorably. Nor are Log homes, earth homes, etc...
They are considered unique, or different, and are treated differently when it comes to financing.
Few people want to purchase a "different" style of home. Therefore, you are eliminating 90+% of the possible buying pool for your homes. This causes banks to lose money when the loans go bad, since if they aren't as easily marketable, they don't get as high a price at auction. Instead of being willing to lend 95% of the value of a conventional home, banks might restrict you to 65-70% of the value of a dome home.
Unless you've got a couple other dome homes in your area that have sold in the last year or two, it will be tough to get any financing done. Same thing with a log or berm/earth home. Problem is, there aren't very many. And they are scattered around. And they don't sell very often. So getting an appraisal that's actually meaningful (normal requirements are 3 homes sold within 6 months, within 1 mile of your home. Impossible with unique properties, especially lakefront!).
Find a couple high profile loan officers at banks or mortgage companies in your area, and discuss financing capabilities. They'll be happy to talk to you, if they know you'll send your buyers their way when the time comes.
There's lots of other things to think about, of course, but for my sake, I wanted to bring up the one thing you probably hadn't even considered, the difficulty of financing "unique" properties.
Good luck.
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