Home Buying

Buying a home is a daunting task. It can be overwhelming, stressful, and quite a bit of work. However, it can also be a positive experience; the beginning of a new chapter. When my husband left military life and entered into the civilian world, we decided we were ready to buy our first home. For the prior five years we had been together we had rented apartments and didn’t have much of an idea of what the entire process would be like. We didn’t have a lot on our laundry list of must-haves for the house. We needed four bedrooms to accommodate us, our two kids, and any potential guests who wanted to come visit. We wanted a decent yard for the kids to run and play. Most importantly though, we wanted to be in a good school district that wouldn’t be a bad commute for my husband. 

      Through Mobility Empowered we were partnered with Quicken Homes. I was nervous about entering the process because I knew a lot of the legwork would be on me due to my husband’s work schedule, but my mind was quickly put to ease with how easy it was to get the ball rolling. In early January I received a call from Ashley, who was basically the angel of Rocket Mortgage. She was patient, kind, and was more than willing to return any phone calls with any questions and always did so in a timely manner. The first phone call we had she simply called to set up a time to discuss our finances and get more information so they could figure out what we were pre-approved for and what type of loan would work best for us. 

     When Ashley called us at our scheduled time, the information she needed was a lot less intense than I thought it was going to be. She needed basic information about both me and my husband, things like social security numbers and date of birth. She asked about any assets we had, such as cars or if we had any other houses we had purchased. She also needed to know about any debt we had, such as car loans, student loans, or credit card debt. Once she had all the information, she informed me that they would run our credit and that she would call me with what they could get our pre-approval for.

      Much to my surprise, she called me back that same afternoon. We were pre-approved for right around the price range we wanted to be in and had a pre-approval letter in my email inbox. They determined the best type of loan for us would be a VA loan, something we were already leaning towards. She set me up with an online portal where I could begin uploading any documents needed to help finalize the loan so that when we found a house there would not be any holdups. Before we got off the phone, she informed me that Rocket Homes would then be calling me to put me in contact with a highly-recommended realtor who specialized in the area we were looking in. In a matter of two days we were pre-approved and ready to find our first family home. 

    Stayed tuned next month as we dive into searching for our home, our realtor experience, and how Quicken Homes made buying a house one of the easiest experiences we have ever had.