By Alyssa Isenstein Krueger, November 6, 2020
A little over 4 years ago a most fabulous lady named Claire contacted me to help her purchase her first home. At the time, she was working for a non-profit and while she didn’t have a lot of funds or a high paying job, she did have fierce determination to buy a home. It took a while, and included several grants and first time home buyer programs, but she wound up purchasing the most adorable condo ever that I was listing. My seller on the condo had purchased the condo a couple of years before, and then met the love of her life and they sold the condo to buy a bigger home. Claire wound up buying the condo after a break-up with a former partner. Fast forward 3 years and Claire contacted me again because she had met the love of her life Timothy. Claire had moved out of the condo into a larger apartment with Timothy, and she was ready to sell the condo. I listed the condo and within a couple of weeks got a great offer and a month later she closed on the condo and that chapter of her life. Timothy is a veteran and eligible for a VA loan. I hooked them up with Jennifer Leon over at Umpqua who is fabulous with VA loans and they got pre-approved for a nice sized loan. Off we went to go look at good sized detached houses with 3 and 4 bedrooms in great parts of town.
We spent a solid weekend looking at 10+ houses, and as often happens, they fell in love with the first house we saw. It’s a brand new 4 bedroom home with a legal ADU that sits on the edge of Mt Tabor and has a lovely west facing view. With both of them working from home, this house has plenty of space for a home office and future bedrooms for their hopefully expanded family. And with the ADU on the bottom floor, it provides a great space for a renter or as a space for family to come stay for longer visits once a baby comes on board. After they decided that this was the house they wanted to buy, they got back in touch with Jennifer for a pre-approval letter to go along with their offer, and found at that the interest rate was only 2.5%. TWO POINT FIVE PERCENT! Whut?!? Claire and Timothy had a monthly budget and at that low of a rate, it meant that they could do 100% financing and still pay several hundred less a month then what they had budgeted for. We all had to slap ourselves silly when we found out how low their monthly payments would be- even with zero down.
We wrote up the offer, had it accepted, went through inspections and with the exception of a very unexpected find of an abandoned oil tank on a property with new construction, (that thankfully had not leaked) sailed through the transaction. A little more then 3 years after I handed Claire her first set of keys to her very first home, I had the privilege of handing over the second set of keys to an even bigger and better home.
Alyssa Isenstein Krueger
Broker | OR
She/Her
I am living the dream. Working as a real estate broker in my home town brings this native Portland gal joy beyond measure. Check Out My Reviews! I took the round-about-road towards this career...
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