Months into the mortgage application process, Sarah Burns of Savannah received a call from the underwriter, looking for a document she didn’t have and didn’t know how to get. Crying, she drove out to the beach at Tybee Island and sat desolately watching the waves as her tears flowed. Meanwhile, her phone kept ringing. Finally, she answered it.
It was a CHSA staff member, calling to encourage her. “I thought I was done,” remembered Ms. Burns. “But I wasn’t. I just had to wait a little longer, and I got those papers in order.” Ms. Burns closed on her home very soon after that.
Burns took advantage of home buyer education courses at the outset of her homeownership journey, but found the process of cleaning up her credit to be a huge emotional and logistical hurdle. Regular encouragement from CHSA staff helped. “Putting in the time and effort to do it was hard,” she recalls. “I had to decide that I could do it, and to fight for it!”
Her turning point on the beach at Tybee points up a cultural difference. Although her parents inherited their home from her grandparents, none of her siblings owned a home. Few of her friends or neighbors, all of whom had modest wages, had experience applying for a mortgage. She is now a volunteer with CHSA, helping others like her to achieve the dream of owning a home.
Buying a home is more complex than renting. But for persons with modest wages, that rent is a lost opportunity to build wealth and housing stability.
