Cha-Ching: How These Homebuyers are Saving $13K with a Local Lender
20 Apr 2021
Michael and his wife Marina attended a first-time homebuyer seminar led by Own Up in 2017. A year later when they decided they were ready to buy a home they reached back out to Own Up to get pre-approved for a mortgage. In addition to helping them find a local bank and securing a rate that saved them approximately $13K over the life of their loan, Own Up served as their personal concierge from start to finish.
Here’s their story.
Michael and his wife were living and working in the Greater Boston area when they started to think about buying a home. They were on the hunt for information that could help them navigate the homebuying process as first-time homebuyers when they happened upon a seminar lead by Own Up.
“We were looking for ways to become more educated about the home buying process and serendipitously the building I was working in had advertisements for a first time homebuyers course held by Own Up. My wife joined me for the seminar with Mike Tassone (Own Up Co-Founder & COO). We had learned a lot on our own but it was super helpful to have a seasoned expert calmly explaining different pieces of the process to us, answering our questions, and confirming the information we had found on our own.”
More than a year later they were ready to jump into the process by getting pre-approved for a loan and, remembering how helpful the home buying seminar was, reached back out to Own Up.
“I kept a business card from the presentation somewhere near my desk and fished it out when we were ready to do a pre-approval. Initially I pulled up Own Up’s website and used their online tool to apply for a pre-approval. It was really easy to use and I hadn’t realized that we could use the pre-approval process as a way to figure out how much we could afford. We had built out our own spreadsheet but with the Own Up online tool we didn’t have to just bust the numbers on our own.”
Michael and Marina knew they wanted to work with a local bank and an Own Up home advisor worked with them to find a competitive loan with a New England lender.
“All of the rates Mike pulled for us were much better than what we had expected based on the publicly available tools. And not only that, but he was able to restrict our search to local lenders which was really important to us.”
Beyond finding them a number of competitive rates with local lenders, Mike helped Michael and Mariana understand the various mortgage options out on the market and continued to advise them throughout their home search.
“We give a lot of credit to the Own Up team for getting us started and keeping us on task throughout the process. Mike walked us through the different mortgage options – traditional 30-year, the different types of ARMs, and helped us understand how the new tax law would affect our numbers. He was so knowledgeable about the local market and even referred us to a realtor that worked out really well as we started to actually look at homes.
There are so many players out there in the industry - so many attorneys, so many agents – it’s bewildering to find the right place or person to start with. With Own Up there was this human touch there and it almost felt like a concierge at times. Our work with them went as well as we could have hoped. It felt like we were getting way more than our value’s worth.”
Michael and Mariana have moved into their new condo in Belmont and thanks to Own Up locked in a fantastic mortgage rate that will save them approximately $13K over the life of their loan.
“We ended up getting an offer accepted on a two-bedroom condo in Belmont and we’re so happy with it. The rate savings makes a huge difference. We just made our first mortgage payment in December and we’re able to put more towards the down payments versus interest rates. I’ve already recommended Own Up to others and am trying to get my company to host a first-time home buyer session with them like the one I attended because I found it so helpful.”
Ready to see how much you can save on your homebuying journey?