The money Zach and Brianna Martin saved for the down payment helped them buy a new home in Cumming’s Stonehaven Pointe and trim their monthly payments. The couple’s mortgage now is a couple of hundred dollars less than their previous rent for a two-bedroom ranch, but with twice as much space.
The builder, JEH Homes, also added in the appliances, blinds, fence and garage door opener. Zach, 25, an implementation manager at LiveVox, and Brianna, 24, a business analyst for Macy’s Systems and Technology, chatted about their purchase.
Q: How did you save the purchase the home?
Zach: We both went to Auburn University and graduated in May 2011. Both of our families are local to the area. Brianna works in Johns Creek, and I work in Roswell. We both moved back in with our parents for eight or nine months and saved all the money we would have been spending on rent elsewhere.
Brianna: We wanted to put a good down payment. We wanted to do at least 15 percent, which is what we ended up doing.
Q: Describe how you searched for your home.
Zach: We looked at such a wide variety of stuff, everything from homes built in the 1970s to brand new townhomes.
Brianna: We started looking in close to town, down by Perimeter and going north. We found that you can get so much more for your money up here. A lot of the homes for the same price point were a lot smaller … and they were very, very old. With that, we ended up here. We were able to buy something that was new construction.
Q: What else made the home stand out?
Zach: It had all the updates – the stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.
Brianna: Also there’s a lot of closet space. We have all hardwoods on the main floor and they’re that really dark wood, which we really like. There is a nice tile backsplash in the kitchen.
Zach: All the rooms upstairs have vaulted ceilings. It just added to making everything seem open and bigger.
Brianna: We didn’t see another house when we were looking that had the vaulting ceiling in all the bedrooms.
Q: Was there anything that caused frustration as you approached closing?
Zach: The money I wired for the down payment ended up being a few hundred dollars off from what actually ended up being owed. It was down to the last minute of getting the different amount wired over.
Q: What’s the favorite thing you’ve done to the house?
Zach: The best thing is, when we bought the house, there was just a 10-by-10 concrete slab on the back as a patio. We ended up extending that and turning into a 16-by-10 foot stone paver patio.
Brianna: Now that we have our privacy fence, the dogs (Kelso and Riley) have a yard. Then we have a patio. We like to go out there and relax. It’s just been nice to have that space.
Q: What’s a tip for buying a home?
Brianna: I would never go through this process without working with a real estate agent (they worked with Kathy Heetland with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty). She picked out places to take us and plotted the route we would take that day. When we were looking at homes, she pointed out certain things (such as damage). She knew what to look for that we didn’t know, especially as first-time homeowners.
At a Glance
Zach and Brianna Martin’s new home in Forsyth County’s Stonehaven Pointe has four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths and about 2,580 square feet. They purchased it in February. Homes in Stonehaven Pointe range from the $190,000s-$230,000s.
