To protect yourself you should educate yourself *before* you make any big decision. It would be a good idea for you to know the market value of your home-based on the 'sold' prices of homes like yours in your neighborhood. The situation you are talking about - with homes selling after a long time on the market, way below their asking price reflects sellers/agents not pricing the homes correctly for the current market. The builder you are meeting with sounds like a large one, they may have their own agents who will do a market analysis on your home to find out what they could likely get out of it. For them to take the risk of owning your home and the hassle of re-selling it they need to make some money. If they do not make 'much' on the sale of the homes they take in trade then you have to look at other areas where they are making their profit. Some builders will offer you financing-they may make a great deal of their profit from this avenue of income. You really need to shop other loans and compare fees, interest rates, loan structure etc. We had some problems in our area with builders offering financing packages to buyers with their 'preferred lenders'. The loans were above market interest, had higher fees and prepayment penalties. The builders in question offered incentives to their buyers to go with the preferred lenders-they would knock several thousand dollars off of their asking price, which of course was not a 'real' savings just a way to get a buyer to go with their loan program. When such loans are sold to larger banks the originator of the loans gets 'back end' money in addition to their up front charges because the terms favor the lender vs the buyer. Finally, even if the house trade in and the builder financing checks out, you still need to be comfortable with the builder's ability to build you the house you want with the level of quality you desire. To be honest it would surprise me if a large builder that offers these services and is building subdivisions would also build a single custom home on acreage or lot that you found. Perhaps I am overstepping here and should just stick to the original question but I'm reading between the lines a little bit... I feel a little concerned for you because it seems as if the convenience of having a builder buy your home and provide financing might be so attractive that you would jump on that opportunity without shopping around or really examining your options or the builder in question. Perhaps that would work out ok for you if you 'lucked' into the right builder and if the security and convenience of having some of the steps handled for you and not having to move twice is worth the higher cost you will pay. But then again you might choose the wrong builder for the wrong reasons. While the sale of your current home and financing your new construction are definately key to the success of the entire project, remember that the most important qualification of a builder is that they can provide you with a well built home. Perhaps you should get together with a good lender and learn about different ways you can make this work beyond the ones you have thought of so far. I hope that helps, and if I've misread the situation I'm sorry. :) Good Luck!

I would work on improving your credit scores. There are many forums on the internet where they talk about things you can do to build your scores back up. You can also learn how to remove stuff from your credit report that should not be on there. We used to recommend a credit monitoring service I think was called Credit Karma. There was a lot of information on their site about maintaining a good credit score. There are one-close construction loans out there, where you close once instead of twice. But I believe you would need better credit for those. Don't try to rush into something and think you can fix it all later. You don't want to get yourself into a situation where you are paying outrageous rates for your home. It wont be worth it in the long run. Good luck to you!

We're in the same situation - DH in construction but we're in a new location so everything/everyone is new and we're also building with county not city ordinances. What he has found most useful is a file folder system for categories, not specific subs, and then a large folder with sides to keep the most current things handy at the site. An expansion folder with dividers would probably also work for him and I may have to look into that because his files are growing. Things are in and out of folders constantly so a binder would probably be restrictive but it all depends on how you like to work. For my part, I have pocket folders by category that I keep inside a type of portfolio with a legal pad, place for business cards (ours and subs/businesses), and pen. Our dining room table with both leaves and a vinyl cloth is command central with folder racks for both of us and all the usual desk accouterments.

We "built" the house we live in now, tract home in new neighborhood, with some customization. House conversations with friends and neighbors always have regrets in there. Bump-outs, boneheaded designs we should have caught, upgrades that should have been made, upgrades that aren't worth it... the list goes on. Based on our experiences here, I already know there will be design / decor issues that will have D'oh! moments. It's impossible to think about EVERYthing. I think we've hit all the major points, and have enough flexibility to change in the future. Our lives changed quite a bit in the 6 years since building (the once large pantry is now crammed because I now do the majority of grocery shopping at Costco and that not change for at least 15 years for example). I can't see into the future, but we learned from this build, and kept the evolution of our family in mind with our design. 1) The architect/draftsman is only as good as the information provided. They don't know us, or live our lives, ( I wonder if there'd be a benefit to having separate design consultations with the clients, much like relationship counseling, to get a really clear picture, lol), which is why we rely on their education and expertise. 2) The reason copy editors exist: to catch the technical mistakes writers make, and can no longer "see" due to closeness to the project. Same reason med errors occur. I think when we originally like a design, then look at it, dream about it, obsess over it, we can't "see" the flaws or potential problems that others might. Hence all the floor plan critique posts here. I think too, that online and builder plans lull us into a false sense of security- "they design and build houses all the time, they're experts, hundreds of people have bought the design, what could go wrong?!" We found that customizing our builders plan threw them for a loop, and didn't realize it would do so, until after the house was built, and weird things weren't right; towel bar location, depth o linen closet, outlets, etc. 3) We are often playing on tilt. We're all living SOMEwhere, right now, and designing a new place to live, with many features that we love (or would love to have) or without the ones we loathe, those HTOD, that we obsess over in our current or past homes. Finally, the same way any artist of any medium does, we aren't always satisfied with the end result of a project. Sometimes you just have to be DONE, even if to your artists eye, you could have kept going. Having said all that, I know there's going to be some regrets, but hopefully -I believe- the joy will outweigh them!