I know everyone is anxiously awaiting our initial round of selections. Let me clarify how the process will work and attempt to dispel some of the rumors that appear to be floating around. This should answer most of the questions we have been receiving.
1. We have not made any selections yet, but hope to make some initial selections by the end of this week. The County has recently changed the median household income amounts for 2014 (it went down), which has resulted in having to go over our entire list of buyers to see what income category each family goes into. We have a very specific number of families in each of our four pricing categories. Since we have almost 800 families who’ve applied thus far, it is a large task updating our list and putting everyone into the appropriate pricing category.
2. We have been updating incomes with various buyers and they may have received an email or phone call from our sales office. PLEASE NOTE: If you have received an email or phone call from our sales office getting updated information from you, this does not mean that you have been selected. If you have not received a phone call or email from our sales office, it doesn’t mean that you haven’t been selected. In other words, there is no significance to receiving such a communication from us, other than we need updated information so as to know what category to put each family into before we make any selection. Please don’t tell your friends, family, and neighbors that you have been selected just because you were requested to provide updated information. This just creates confusion out there and results in people calling our office when they hear such false rumors.
3. Once the initial selections are made, those families selected will receive a communication from our sales office by either email or U.S. mail. You will receive a Reservation Agreement and Affordable Housing Application, both of which will need to be completed and returned to our sales office. We will post an entry on this blog when those communications are sent out. Until you see a notification on this site that the initial selections have been made, don’t believe any rumors to the contrary.
4. Those families who receive notice of being selected still must be qualified through the County of Maui Department of Housing and Human Concerns. We will be taking the information provided in the Affordable Housing Application and working with the County in getting the buyers qualified. This is a different process than getting qualified through your lender. Getting your loan approved is something you will need to do independent of Spencer Development getting you qualified through the County of Maui.
5. It is our hope that all those families selected will be qualified as an affordable home buyer by the County of Maui and will be able to get their loans approved by their lender. It has been our experience however, that some families will not be able to either get approved by the County of Maui or may have problems getting their loans approved. In that case, we will be selecting another family to take their place if that happens. We won’t know this though, until we start the process and see what happens.
6. Once all the County and loan qualifications and approvals are in place, and we receive final subdivision approval from the County of Maui, we will be converting the reservations into an actual Sales Contract.
7. We recently met with several representatives of the County Departments involved in this project (e.g. Housing, Public Works, and Planning) in order to see what can be done to streamline the permitting process for house construction. All the Departments were very willing to do what they can to expedite our building permits; so a big MAHALO goes out to them for their help. It is our hope to begin construction of the first houses by beginning of November.
8. As we’ve stated in the past, we have a closed jobsite and the general public is not allowed on our site without being escorted by a representative of Spencer Development. This is for safety reasons. Waikapu Gardens Phase 2 is very small jobsite and we have numerous workers there operating equipment that poses a danger to those who are not supposed to be there. At some point in time in the future, our sales office will arrange site inspection for each selected buyer to show them exactly where their home will be located.
We hope that this answers most of the questions that our potential buyers have and dispels some of the rumors that have been floating around out there. This process takes much longer than all of us would like it to, and we appreciate your patience as we do everything within our power to get things done.
Please stand by later this week or next week when we hope to have some news regarding our initial buyer selections.
Waikapu Gardens Phase II 