Tales From First-Time Home buyers

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Now is a great time to buy a home. At Southeast Mortgage, we recently had several team members buy their first home. The current market provided each of them a unique and affordable opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

One member of the Southeast Mortgage team bought after renting a home, a concept I discussed the benefits of in a previous post.
“I was a renter for 20 plus years,” the buyer said. “I have always thought about buying a house over the years but just never felt that I could afford the home prices in the area I wanted to be. I wanted to purchase in the same area I was renting in, but the market prices were always higher than other areas in Atlanta. Recently, I noticed a house listed in my area for a price that surprised me. That got me going on the home search and I decided the timing was perfect for me and I got a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.125 percent.”
This is a common scenario for many first-time home buyers. Renters may fall in love with their location but often find the homes in that area are out of their price range. But with the current market, they may be pleasantly surprised to find a home they can afford in their area.

The other Southeast Mortgage team members took advantage of the market’s low interest rates and home prices as well, but they weren’t so much focused on location as they were focused on getting “the most bang for the buck.”

“Because we chose to buy at this time, we were able to find a larger home for a lower price. My wife and I felt that this move would be a great starting point for our future,” one Southeast Mortgage new homeowner said.
“The reason why I waited so long to buy a property is because I am always looking for the best deal I can possibly get on anything I purchase. I took the same approach to the home-buying process. Like most economical home buyers, I wanted to wait to make sure the housing market was at its lowest point before purchasing. I wanted the most bang for my buck,” said our third team member to recently buy a home.
“I waited and waited until not only had the prices bottomed, but prices of homes in the areas I wanted to live in were starting to rise,” this home buyer continued. “Once I saw home prices rising, I knew my opportunity to capture a great deal was limited. I found a home that is certainly bigger than any starter home, however, my payments correlate with the payments of a starter home. This was a steal and the best economical move I could make to secure my future.”
Buying a home is a large investment and it is important to treat it as such. However, as first-time home buyers on the Southeast Mortgage team knew, the current market makes it a much easier decision to invest in a home.
Because of the normal hesitations of first-time home buyers — like those on the Southeast Mortgage team — the average first-time home buyer purchases conservatively to get their toes wet first. However, members of our team were able to buy homes at much higher values because of their confidence in the current market with its low interest rates and home prices.

- Kathy Gyselinck, Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Legal Compliance at Southeast Mortgage

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