Married Couple Hurt By Housing Market Returns to Homeownership
We love hearing back from our customers after they have settled into their new home. Today, Jessica Heslips talks about her journey to homeownership and shares how she and her husband triumphed together after losing their first home to become homeowners again.
Our first time buying a house was a fun, yet scary experience. Like many first-time homebuyers, we were afraid of “signing our life away.” But, we also didn’t want to waste our hard-earned money paying for rent each month. We wanted to make an investment. So, we decided to buy a “fixer upper” with the intention to stay there for a few years before selling it to make some money to buy a nicer house.
We finished the basement, remodeled the kitchen and bathroom and put in a beautiful pool and deck in the hopes that we would make our money back (plus some) once we sold it. Unfortunately, our plans didn’t work out that way.
We bought the house in 2004 when the housing market was at its prime and worked on the house nonstop for five years. Finally in 2009, we decided that it was time to move. Unfortunately, that is when the housing market took a massive crash. We listed the house for more than six months and not one person called.
At this point, we were just hoping to break even on our investment, which didn’t happen because of declining property values. Due to circumstances outside of our control, we found ourselves upside down on our mortgage.
We knew that our credit was going to be hit hard, so we ended up talking to Mark Wiedmann, our loan officer at Ross Mortgage, to see what options we had. He provided us with a plan to improve our financial situation and helped us get back on the right track.
We ended up finding a house we loved that was listed for sale or lease. So, we decided to lease it to improve our credit. Our goal was to own the house by 2013. If there was a way to get approved, we knew Mark and his assistant Katie would find it.
Mark and Katie did everything possible to help us. They followed up with us on a quarterly basis to talk about our progress and let us know if there were any programs we could use to obtain a mortgage loan. They said the best loan to get would be an FHA loan, which only required 3% down.
By the summer of 2013, it was crunch time. Mark and Katie worked their butts off to get us approved and because of them we were able to meet our goal. On October 18, 2013, we became homeowners again!
We never thought it would happen, but we never gave up! With the help of our team at Ross Mortgage we kept on working on our credit and did whatever it took to become homeowners again.
The advice I would give potential homeowners would be to call Ross Mortgage. They will guide you in the right direction and work with you throughout the entire process. Even if it seems like your dreams of homeownership won’t happen, don’t give up. It took us almost four years to become homeowners again, but we did it!
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jessica!
If you’re a homebuyer looking for help, our team of professional lenders can help you get into your dream home. To start your journey to homeownership, leave a comment below or give us a call at 800.521.5362.
