I Failed At Buying a Home | But You Don’t Have To

Just last week my husband and I sold our first home. The past few months leading up to that moment were a roller coaster of emotions. At first I couldn’t believe we were leaving the home that we built for our family just three years before, then I didn’t have time for anything but getting it ready for potential buyers, and just when I thought I was past the sadness, we visited one last time and the tears rolled in. It’s amazing how many memories one place can hold.

Buying (and selling) a home is an impassioned time in most people’s lives. That’s why so many buyers have a hard time pinpointing exactly what they want in a home – because they just feel it when they walk in. But the heightened senses that come with the home buying process sometimes make us do crazy things.  Take our story for example …

When my family and I moved to Indiana, we decided to rent an apartment until we got to really know the area. We didn’t want to jump into buying something that we would later regret. After a year or so in our apartment, though, space was getting cramped and I was getting antsy. So we started dipping our toes in the home-buying waters. After much deliberation, we decided that building a home would be the best option for us. The builder was willing to cover the costs of breaking our lease, and cover all closing costs. Plus they threw in appliances for free – which was a pretty big price break for us.

At the time, we didn’t have educational websites like the Capital One Home Loans Online Neighborhood to help guide us through how much we could afford, and what we should be looking for in a mortgage. And since none of the big mortgage companies wanted to take on a young couple with less-than-stellar credit, we went another direction. We found a small broker who was going to “work with us” and give us a pre-approval with the assumption that the payments we had previously made (on credit cards and loans) would help improve our score before we closed on the house… Not fishy at all, right?

Fast-forward to about a week before closing. We weren’t able to reach our mortgage guy to finish up paper work – and this was crunch time! It turns out that he was a fraud. He had forged our pre-approval and several other documents. We had no way of paying for this beautiful house that we had just built for our family! Thank goodness we found a reputable company to give us a loan so we could move in.

To this day it scares me to think of what he could have done with the stacks of paperwork we filled out and checks we gave him. We were lucky, but it just goes to show how easy it is to let things slip through the cracks when you’re making emotional decisions. That terrible experience is having a huge impact on how we are currently going about purchasing a home here in Tennessee.

As I look back now, I realize how alone we were in the home buying process our first time around. It’s a big step, and I can’t stress how important it is to have someone knowledgeable on your side to help guide you and answer any questions you might have. In fact, this time we’re working with Capital One! Not only are they a name I know and trust, but their online resources are amazing. I’ve been looking into how much we can afford to spend on a house, what types of loans are available to us, and a ton more (I’m pretty sure I’ve worn their mortgage calculator out).

If you’re in the market for a new home – go check out the Capital One Home Loans Online Neighborhood! It’s a free online learning center where you can learn all about home buying. Capital One’s goal is to help first-time (or second-time) home buyers understand how the home loan process works. They want to give you the know-how you’ll need to become the savviest homeowners on the block!

If you’re interested in learning more about Capital One Home Loans and how they can help you get into the home of your dreams, visit “The Neighborhood” or give them a call at 855-900-8886.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.