By Jim Wilde, Executive Director
Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership
Becky wanted to buy a house for a very long time. She first took MVHP’s home buyer training course in 2007 after her mother had seen an advertisement about the program. Unfortunately, she had to step back from her dream for a while when she enrolled in nursing school. She was ready to finally get her dream home for her daughter and her son, so she retook the course ten years later in 2017.
“The road to buying our new home was very long and challenging for us. I had some credit issues that needed to be addressed.” Becky sat with Ed Alcantara, our home buyer counselor, to assess her finances and showed her what she needed to do to raise her credit scores. It was a painfully slow process but Becky stayed focused. “After months, my credit slowly started to get higher, but it still just wasn’t enough. I started to have doubts and was thinking about stepping back, but Ed kept me encouraged. My scores finally met the threshold to quality for an excellent mortgage program.”
As soon as she received her mortgage approval, she started looking for her ideal home. She qualified for an affordable townhouse in Tyngsboro built by Dennis Page. “I would’ve never gotten this place without such a great team. They helped me with everything, showed me how to reduce my monthly spending budget, to track my spending every day. It was a pain in the beginning, but in the end, it made it possible for me to become a homeowner.”
Becky now pays $100 more per month to own than what she was paying to rent. “I love my new home. The feeling that this is truly mine gives me and my family more stability. My son serves in the military and is stationed in California. When he comes home, he can be truly at ease.” Becky’s advice to people searching for a new home is to take the class, assemble the best team possible so as not to have surprises during the process.
“My daughter is so proud of me. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
Congratulations, Becky.
