See the Wall Street Journal article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...02938.html.  They mention cement houses having problems with getting mortgages.  Have any of you experienced this in today's market?

Thank you,
Bruce

I could not find anything in this ad to do with concrete houses. This was primarily made of tires using concrete as "chinking" between them. Full ICF houses have been around since the days of Frank Lloyd Wright, who pioneered them.

I'm with All-Sask, interesting article but it has nothing to do with building with ICF. About a year or two ago the Journal incorrectly reported on the structural failure of a CMU building in a tornado and referred to it as a concrete structure. ICF is not in the same category as add homes composed of tires and garbage -- it's the best way to build and a good appraiser knows the difference. REgards.

There's probably only two gotchas for ICF homes, one of them applicable only if you are planning on doing an owner-builder project. Banks haven't for years, and probably never will, look with kindness on an owner-builder project. You are pretty much forced to have a builder work with you, even if only as a backup and consultant, and be the one on the hook with the bank. If you're comfortable with the risk, when you get a construction loan get the mortgage commitment with it. That way you'll avoid the problem the article discusses, and the problem I faced, which leads me to the second gotcha. In the current home construction and sales market you very well may end up having to pay more to construct an ICF home than what it will appraise for when it's completed. In my case the appraiser dropped the pre-construction appraisal, Nov 2007, from $315,000 to $220,000 when I converted to a mortgage in March, 2009. That's a 30% drop in estimated market value. He dropped his cost of construction estimate by only 14%, which meant his appraised market value was only 75% of the the cost of construction. That hurt, big time!

I don't think you'll have any problem getting an appraisal for an ICF constructed house, but you may have difficulty getting credit for it's energy conservation features, especially if energy efficient homes aren't common in your area.

dmaceld, your gotchas appear to have more to with banks protecting themselves generally and market timing and not really so much about the ICF. Many (first edit i had 'most' instead of many) bankers can tell the difference between a yugo and a Lexus. The problem today is the banks don't want to risk loaning on either. The banks have gotten us twice -- once by being to loose and now by being too tight. Just an opinion. Regards.