First-Time Homebuyer

Julius and Erin Marshall were living in apartments in Roswell and Sandy Springs leading up to their September 2011 wedding. With two dogs, the couple needed more space than either of their apartments provided.

So amid wedding planning, they looked for homes. As the big date approached and a short sale deal fell through, they quickly found a foreclosure and closed two weeks before saying “I do.” Erin, 28, a meeting and event manager at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center, and Julius, 26, an outside technician for AT&T, chatted about their purchase in Marietta.

Q: Besides the space issue, why did you want to buy a place now?

Erin: We thought that along with the responsibility of marriage, it was better to have a house and our own space. This is definitely a buyer’s market right now. It was something that we went ahead and planned for.

Q: What type of space did you want to have?

Erin: We definitely wanted four bedrooms. I love makeup and things like that, and I wanted a room that I could dedicate to specifically being a beauty-type room. Then you have the extra guest bedroom and another whole bedroom. We wanted something of a backyard that we could fence for our dogs [Kane, a pit bull, and Theo, a miniature schnauzer/shih tzu mix]. Julius definitely wanted a two-car garage, and a basement was a big thing, too.

Q: What appealed to you about the home you purchased?

A: We liked the size [2,700 square feet]. It was a house we could grow into. The previous homeowner had taken really good care of it, and that was important. It felt like home when I walked in.

Julius: It was more upgraded … in the basement and the master bathroom.

Erin: It’s completely like a 2011 bathroom. It has glass bowl sinks and a ceramic tiles. It has a finished full basement. The basement has this really cool paneling on the ceiling with recessed lighting.

Q: How quickly did you put in an offer?

Julius: We put it in the same night.

Erin: Somebody else had an offer in on it. We had to come in and put in our very best offer, which reminded me of HGTV. We went in a little bit over the asking price, but we got full closing costs [paid by the seller], so it kind of balanced out.

Q: Speaking of HGTV, what did you learn about buying a home from watching those shows?

Erin: It prepared me for some of the challenges that could come along and understanding what the terminology throughout the homebuying process meant.

Q: But how did you see that it can be different from reality?

Erin: Sometimes they have the same job descriptions that Julius and I have, but sometimes they’re buying two-and-a-half times the house, and I don’t know how they got approved. That’s why the housing market crashed, because people can’t afford these houses. We knew what we could afford.

At a Glance

Julius and Erin Marshall’s home, built in 1996 in Marietta’s Milford Woods neighborhood, has four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and about 2,400 square feet. They purchased it in September, assisted by Marla Morris with Keller Williams Realty, First Atlanta. Home prices in the neighborhood range from the $130,000s-$150,000s.