Hello all, these forums have been amazingly helpful and informative to me over the years, from rebuilding my credit, dealing with student loans, and helping my spouse and I succeed in buying our first home a few years ago. I don't comment much, if at all but now I am in a pickle and reaching out for advice.
A few months ago, we decided that we were in the position financially to begin the process of buidling our dream home in the community we live in. It is a subdivision, but semi-custom on a huge lot. We were pre approved and began the process. The builder had to wait for permits and what not, and finally began construction on March 2. We picked a few builder upgrades we wanted, went to the design center and kept things reasonable, and tried out best not to get too distracted. I work full time from home as we have two foster kids that we are in the process of adopting. I make about 42k a year. My spouse makes about 67k a year. All went well. We are not using the income we get from the kids (approx. 1k each per month, so 2k total). Anyways, the construction time of the home is 6 months, give or take, weather dependant. We are in Northern California, so we have had quite a few weather delays (was supposed to start before Thanksgiving). Estimated date of completion is September 29. Out scores for both of us is 750-775 across all 3.
So the problem is, on Friday, March 31, my spouse was laid off along with a handful of other emplyees. He worked for a county school district doing graphic design/multimedia. Devastating, but pretty confident he will be able to get a job pretty quick in the same field, but definitley leaves us unsure with the whole building the house thing, not to mentioned stressed and a bit depressed at being laid off.
So the question is, do we continue on with the process, hoping that he will land a new job that is similar and soon, and hope that in 5-6 months time all will be good (ask for forgiveness after) or tell lender and realtor/builder now, risk them cancelling and losing the house now, only to have him land a new job right away and watch them sell our house to someone else? We have until month 4ish to cancel and get our deposits back.
Thanks for any insight. We are new to the whole building a new house and new to dealing with a lay off as well. Added stress with kids too.
