Naples Couple Calls Steel Building Home, Can’t Meet Florida Mortgage Payments
You might call it a hut.
Thomas and Ruta Vicker call it home.
The couple dared to be different when they built their small three-bedroom, two-bathroom country house on nearly six acres in Golden Gate Estates in 2005. It’s a standard steel building, with arched roof and walls of metal. It resembles a barn or shed.
In fact, the home is so different the couple could only get an adjustable rate mortgage with a floating interest rate. Now they face the threat of foreclosure because their interest rate has gone sky high.
They have been unable to Florida refinance.
The Vickers chose their home’s design for cost and safety. They didn’t have much to spend and they wanted a home that would stand up to hurricanes, fires and tornadoes. They say it’s built to withstand 150 mph winds and was cheap to build - but the same can’t be said for monthly payments.
Recently, their Florida mortgage rate jumped from 10.99 percent to 12.75 percent and their house payments went from $1,949 a month to more than $3,000, an mount the wife says “is going to kill us.”
“I’ve been trying since August of last year to refinance,” Thomas said. “I’ve dealt with 20 brokers. They all have said, ‘Yeah we will give you a loan,’ until the point they see what kind of house it is. When they see the type of house, they consider it a white elephant and they don’t want to do the loan.”
In April, Bank of America told the couple they qualified for a 6.375 percent, 30-year fixed Florida home loan, but then turned them down after a bank representative visited the house.
The bank gave two reasons for denying the loan:
- Insufficient income
- Unacceptable collateral.
The property “is not typical for the area” and “no comparables can be provided,” the rejection letter states.
Another Florida mortgage lender has turned them down since.
On top of their rising Florida mortgage payment, the Vickers have seen their yearly taxes go from $1,800 to more than $6,000.
They’ve had to pay appraisal fees a half-dozen times for banks that have denied them loans and every time they deal with a new financing company it generates another credit report, lowering their credit score, Ruta Vicker said.
Collier County property records put the market value of the Vickers’ property at $509,477. The land alone is estimated at $379,000. The couple wants a fixed-rate loan for $260,000.
The couple did everything they could to keep their building costs low, buying scratch-and-dent appliances, doors from a close-out sale, windows and wiring on eBay and blinds at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store.
They put the shell of the house up in about two weeks. Then they attached the walls and everything else inside. The home was their ticket out of Naples Manor, an East Naples neighborhood they say they couldn’t stand living in anymore because of the crime and the noise from car stereos that shook their house day and night.
They used the money from the sale of their last home to help them finance the new one. They also invested money they inherited after both of their mothers died, and they cashed in their stocks.
“We just hit every hole we could,” Ruta Vicker said.
The couple doesn’t regret putting up the odd-shaped metal building. It stood up well to Hurricane Wilma. The Category 3 storm left neighbors with leaky roofs and flooding, but the Vickers stayed dry.
Now, they just need to weather the Florida mortgage troubles in front of them.
SOURCE: The Naples News
