You've always dreamt of a log home. You've attended the log home shows, read the log home magazines, picked out your floor plan design and you're doing things to save money. 

Now all you need is the log home financing. Should be simple, right? 

Well, considering today's mortgage crisis... wrong! 

Below, I summarize our personal experience with log home financing, as well as provide information and tips that will hopefully help you finance your log home.

Here's how Round One of trying to secure financing for our log home went...

Some of you are probably wondering exactly where we are now in this process of building our first log home.

Well, we're held up at the financing stage of the game.

We learned quickly that getting a loan for a log home is quite different than getting a loan for a traditional "stick-built" home. Odds are, even if you qualify for a traditional home mortgage, you might not qualify right away for a loan to build a log home.

The reason?

Mostly, it has to do with the fact that the majority of lenders do their property appraisals (which ultimately determine the amount of money they're willing to loan you) based on existing log home sales in the area, as opposed to looking at all custom home sales in the area. Particularly in rural areas, it may be hard to find log homes of the size and type that you are interested in building.

For the record, those in the log home industry encourage you to find a lender who is familiar with Marshall & Swift's Log Home Appraisal Training Guide.