First-Time Homebuyer

James and Lawson Little saved for a home in a variety of ways after they got married in 2009, from renting a small apartment to not using credit cards. James, 26, and Lawson, 25, ended up getting more space than they expected, in Buford, for themselves and their dogs, Puddy and Lola.

Lawson, who works at Starbucks, where she met their real estate agent, Bill Traylor with the Buckhead North office of Harry Norman, Realtors, chatted about their Super Bowl Sunday 2012 decision to purchase a short sale in Gwinnett County.

Q: Where were you living previously?

A: A one-bedroom apartment in Norcross. It was 800 square feet, but we wanted to save money so we could buy our dream house. We didn’t want to have to buy our starter home. We wanted to have somewhere to live for a long time. We ended up only paying $650 a month (in rent). We were able to put a big chunk away.

Q: How did your price range change?

A: We definitely started at least $15,000 or $20,000 less than we ended up buying. My mom and I were supposed to look at another house. They ended up having an offer put on it. The backup plan was, “We’ll look at this house. It’s not in our price range (asking price was $136,000), but it will be fun.” We walked in. The first thing I said was, “This is the one.” We were looking at three bedrooms; this is four. We have two dogs, and there’s a fenced-in yard. There were a lot of bonuses we didn’t think we could get.

Q: Had the home been on the market long?

A: It was only on the market for two days. I looked at one other house in this neighborhood before we put an offer on this one. They were selling by owner (at the other house). They had it on the market for 10 days, and they said they had five offers. So when we came to look at this house, I knew that we had to act fast. It was Super Bowl Sunday (in 2012). My mom and I came before the game and looked at the house. I called James, who was at work at Publix and said, “Babe, this is the one.” We came back that night to look at it and signed the papers that day. They had other offers on it. I knew it was the one we wanted, so we offered asking price.

Q: What did you learn in buying the house?

A: Neither of us have credit cards. We thought, “We are doing so good. We don’t have to use credit cards.” Most banks didn’t really want to work with us. We had very limited credit. We thought, “Oh, what are we going to do?”

Q: How did buying the home work out?

A: Since we didn’t have the credit, we had to push the closing back maybe twice because we had to get letters of credit from the gas, electric and cable company (Buford Financial Services assisted them with the FHA loan). Then AT&T sent us our letter of credit. It was not put on the (correct) letterhead. The only thing that was frustrating was waiting for those to come in.

Q: Were there any surprises buying a short sale?

A: The day after we closed, the bank put the house into foreclosure. The bank didn’t tell itself they had sold the house. But they mowed the lawn. Our agent contacted the seller’s agent. She was able to contact the bank.

Q: What’s something special about the home?

A: The old owners measured the kids’ heights on the wall. The last height measurement was the day they moved out. They wrote, “Please take care of our house.” It was sad, but you could tell it was a house that they loved. We’ve painted, but we’ve left that. We didn’t want to take away that history.