“She never really made us feel like she was in a hurry,” says Jess. “She was never going to let us buy a house we weren’t happy with.”
Jess works for an international non-profit, traveling often to Bangladesh, India and Nepal, while Geoff is a nurse’s assistant. Despite their combined incomes, sellers were asking more than they could afford.
“We knew going into our house purchase that we wouldn’t be able to buy something state-of-the-art,” says Jess. “We knew upgrades were a must in the near future. We were looking forward to doing it ourselves.”
They put in seven — yes, seven — offers on properties over the course of eight months before they bought a single-family home in Durham, NC, for $180,000. Their agent was patient.
“There were times we wanted to quit,” says Jess. “Our REALTOR® always says, ‘It doesn’t hurt to spend ten minutes to go look.’”
Sensitive to their needs and always sending them relevant industry information, their REALTOR ® also helped them focus on affordability.
“Our REALTOR® was really good about staying on top of mortgage rates and what home prices were going for.”
Delayed in Manhattan
Even Craig, a well-paid 26-year-old advertising executive with enough cash for a down payment on a Manhattan condominium, had to wait a year before he was approved for a loan.
Craig is a British citizen, so he lacked a credit history in the U.S. Despite using a mortgage broker supplied by his employer, banks told him to come back in 12 months.
“The hardest thing was securing the mortgage,” he says. “It was this Catch-22 where I couldn’t get a loan, because I never had a loan.”
To read how Craig’s REALTOR® made the sale, be sure to read our latest Clean Slate post, “Working with Millennial Homebuyers, Part 1.”
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