Another success story....Treat vs. a Trick on Halloween

On Halloween I got a treat instead of a trick at work. Yes, I am going all the way back to Oct. 31^st. I wish I had a chance to write since then, but this last week has been very busy. I have received 3 purchase contacts for Nov!!!! Not too bad for this market and it only being the start of the second week of the month.

Sorry, I digressed there for a moment. Let me get on topic here. As I mentioned, the 31^st was a great day for me, one of my clients and one of my Realtor referral partners. We all got a treat instead of a trick. On this day we would go to the closing table to finalize a 7 month home shopping extravaganza. That is right, I said 7 MONTHS! My client was referred to me way back in March of this year. He is a first time buyer and a very cautious one at that. Needless to say we are all like family now, and that is how I prefer to do business. Too often I think lenders and realtors can get too deep into the machine of our industry and loose sight of the human factor.

After many, many GFE's and many, many loan structure options over the 7 months my client and I agreed that an FHA loan would be best. This loan would minimize is out of pocket expense for the down payment and would allow him to get a great interest rate with reduced mortgage insurance. I must admit there was a very scary few days about half way though the loan process. My client was very payment sensitive and every dollar counted. When we got the office insurance and tax figures they were about $27 higher than what I estimated initially. This $27 threw my client into a frantic mess, not good! I asked him to come in and go over the hard figures and see where we may be able to save him some money. One of the things that I recommended was to group his home and auto insurance together. I think this saved him $15 when he did. We still had $12 to overcome. By this time my Realtor partner and I were getting nervous. We had worked with him for 7 months and $12 could make our break us. When we drilled down even further into his personal financial situation I found out that he was spending about $48 a week in gas commuting to and from work. His new house was only about 3 miles from his work vs. the 28 mile commute he was used to. I showed him how the savings in mileage and gas money on a weekly and monthly basis would be way more than the $12 he was worded about he found his happy place so to speak. We got the green light to finish the purchase transaction and closing.

After 7 months of hard work I was not going to let my client walk away from this great house, which by the way appraised for $15,000 over the sales price, even if it meant talking about gas and mileage. After all, I feel it is my job to look at all costs and financial obligations that my clients have. Their mortgage product, structure, and payment has to integrate with their overall monthly debt. Needless to say this closing was a very exciting one for all parties involved. Trick or Treat.....I will take a Treat thank you!