All right. Are you sitting down while you read this post? Because I don’t want to inadvertently make your blood pressure spike or cause you to break out in a cold sweat. Both of those things used to happen to me often when others mentioned my most fret over topic of conversation: home-buying.
My husband and I bought our first Duluth home about five years ago. As prepared and researched as I usually like to be–especially with big life changes–I have to admit that we sort of bumbled our way through the process, blindly putting faith into both the market and our finances. It’s a small miracle that we didn’t trip over any major hurdles along the way.
Our sweet Lakeside home has been our own little haven near the lake–a place we’ve filled with love and babies and dance parties and surrounded with flower beds and friendly chats with neighbors–but it’s time to make another move.
Stack the Odds in Your Favor
Much to our shock, the current market has exploded. Buyers are scrambling to put in offers for every available house that goes up for sale. Every time a new notification chimes on my phone, my heart races. Are we going to be able to get in to look at the house in time? How many families will we be up against? How can we make our offer competitive?
Members Cooperative Credit Union can help buyers with that last–and arguably most important–component of home-buying. Sitting down with a friendly mortgage team member from MCCU will start us off on the right foot. The credit union, local to Northern Minnesota, has been helping Northlanders buy their homes since 1936. With several regional offices, they’re the right size to be experts on the area market and offer competitive interest rates, but not so big that they bog down buyers with lengthy wait times and tons of big bank red tape.
They’ll help us go over our finances, decide which type of loan will work best for our needs, walk us through the application process, and get us set up with a pre-approval so that we can move on to showings and open houses knowing that we won’t have to scramble to talk to the bank if we find something we like; we’ll be ready to make a confident offer.
Let Someone Else Shoulder the Stress
Are you thinking of jumping into the home-buying market for the first time this spring? It can feel completely overwhelming. There are so many buzz words and things to look for, tons of people you need to talk to, interview… the research and work feels like a full time job. So approach it the same way: head to training! Or, in this case, register for a free first-time home buyer seminar at any of MCCU’s branches this spring. The seminar at MCCU’s Spirit Valley location will be on Tuesday, March 20th and their Cloquet and Miller Hill locations will host seminars on Wednesday, March 21st.
Learn about what you may need for a down payment, the difference between the types of mortgage loans programs offered, how much you can afford to spend and more. The mortgage experts at Members Cooperative Credit Union will ease your mind; you’ve got this. You can start your search armed with all the knowledge you need to make a sound decision.
When MCCU lifts the stress of all the details, you can concentrate on the fun part of house hunting: finding the perfect place where you and your family can call home.
