Samantha Dover is an affiliate broker with Poplar Hill Realty serving Nashville, TN and surrounding areas. Samantha and her husband, Kelby, moved to Nashville, TN from Raleigh, NC. Samantha’s dream was to start her career as a Realtor, and help others to pursue the dream of homeownership. This is her story:
Ever since my first “real job” at age 17, I dreamed of one day owning a home, so started saving for it as a teenager. To me, a big part of the “American Dream” is owning a home; I was determined to make it come true. I hate to disappoint, but I do not have some magic, never heard before secret. The quick answer is that my husband, Kelby and I scraped and saved, until finally, we hit our goal to be able to buy our first home.
Kelby and I married very young, I was 20 yrs old, and neither of us had any credit history. Before getting married, we both lived with our parents, and for the eight months leading up to marriage, we both worked full-time and attended college. We started a budget and determined how much we could spend, and how much to save.
Once married, we rented a cheap apartment, and continued to save, and pay our bills on-time. Sticking to a budget was hard, and we didn’t always follow it exactly. We found that using an app called Mint was helpful. Its a free online personal finance application from Intuit that tracks your spending by linking to your bank account.
Since we did not have any credit history, our best option for a mortgage was a FHA loan which required two years of on-time bill paying. That time gave us the opportunity to plan and look at many neighborhoods, in order to determine where we wanted to live. Finally, our two years of billing history was complete, and we began the house hunting process. We found the perfect house, and BAM, it was ours. At the time of closing, I had just turned 22 years old, and Kelby was 20.
In a nutshell, buying a home is like anything else. Realize a goal, find a strategy to get there, and stick to it. There are many paths to homeownership. Just because this way worked for me, doesn’t mean that you should follow it exactly. Contact me or a local lender for a personalized strategy. I look forward to working with you!
