Full Transcript is Below:
Gene DiPaula:
Welcome to Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. I’m your host Gene DiPaula. And with us today is happy client Kayla Maynor, as well as loan originator, Christy Strickland out of the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Welcome Kayla and Christy. Thank you for joining us. So Kayla, let’s get into your story a little bit. It actually has kind of an amazing ending, which I’m going to hold off. Just do a little teaser there. I’d like to start out a little bit about your background. So tell us where you’re from, what you do. I know you’re a school teacher. Tell me a little bit about how you came to meet Christy, how you got into looking for a home.
Kayla Maynor:
I’m originally from California, but I came to North Carolina and played softball and then just fell in love with the East Coast. I met my husband here. We know Christy because our husbands used to work together and we like to camp together sometimes and go camping. And so when I was starting- we were starting to look for a home. She was definitely the first person I reached out to.
Gene DiPaula:
You owned your home right in Fayetteville. And you were thinking about moving. Tell me why you were, what was the impetus behind that?
Kayla Maynor:
Yeah, so my husband and I had bought our first home, just a fixer upper. And since then we’ve had- we have two little boys, a four year old and a 20 month old and they are busy and growing and have lots of toys. So we were just needing more room. We wanted to take advantage of low interest rates and just the timing of- we just felt like it was the right time to find a bigger house, needed a garage for all the toys. So that’s why we decided to start looking.
Gene DiPaula:
And this is kind of a crazy time to be looking for a home there’s limited inventory. A lot of houses are selling quickly and in some cases, even over the asking price. So tell us a little bit about your process. I understand that maybe the first home or two that you really liked, you lost, but tell me about that and how it was dealing with that emotionally, and then how you came to find the house eventually that you moved into.
Kayla Maynor:
So we went and saw a few houses and we- one was another fixer upper, but larger, like on a golf course. We kind of talked ourselves into it. And by the time we called our realtor to say, okay, we want to put an offer, she called them and said, “They’re just signing a contract now. It’s already taken.” So we were kind of heartbroken about that. Maybe we should just wait. And then I think it was two or three days later, I remember it was a Saturday night. We were just staying up late, watching TV on Zillow again. And my husband showed us, showed me our current home. And I was like, well, it’s already been on the market four days. There’s no way it’s not – it’s still available. Zillow probably didn’t update or something. So we texted our realtor, which we’re friends with as well, but she’ll take texts at any time. She’s amazing. Jennifer Fought.
So we text her, I think it was 11:30 at night, because I almost said don’t send that text, but it was fine. And she said, absolutely, we’ll book it in the morning. So we went Sunday morning around 11 o’clock. Fell in love with it. She contacted the seller’s agent and they were accepting offers, I think until 7:00 PM that night. So we only had a few hours to decide if we were ready to make an offer. And then I had to call Christy and make sure everything was set up on her end. So that’s how we found our house.
Gene DiPaula:
So Christy, tell me about when you got the call from Kayla that she found a house. You knew her situation where maybe she had missed out on a couple of houses before. You’ve got only six hours to submit everything. What was your approach?
Christy Strickland:
Well, I had been working with Kayla already a couple of weeks prior to her finding this particular home. So already having her paperwork in hand, all the documentation needed to get the loan from prequalification, preapproval was already in place. So it was just a matter of just rerunning numbers at the new sales price, what she qualified for, giving her payments, closing costs. So she kind of knew what to expect going into this home and sending out that preapproval letter to her and her agent, Jennifer, and then just really just crossing our fingers and praying that our offer got accepted.
Gene DiPaula:
So a lot of winning the bid was all the preparation beforehand, right? So Kayla and her husband had already gone through the pre-approval process. You knew the top amount that she could qualify for. And then it was just a matter of customizing the preapproval letter to that particular house, right?
Christy Strickland:
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I really believe that’s the best way to go about getting qualified and finding your home is finding out what you qualify for, where your price limits are, especially in our market today in being able to negotiate, people are offering obviously more than what homes are listing for, going above that, knowing you have the wiggle room to do that or not. So having them already pre-qualified giving me pay stubs, bank statements, knowing exactly where down payment was coming from, just really made it easy when they found the house that they were ready to make offers on.
Gene DiPaula:
Now, Kayla, you told me that originally you were going to use an FHA loan, but decided that maybe it might be a little bit better to try and get a conventional loan and to make sure that the offer wasn’t contingent on selling the house that you were currently living in. So you had to sell something maybe that was a kind of near and dear to your heart. Tell us about that.
Kayla Maynor:
Yes. Christy was really good about telling- talking me through the different loan options, FHA and the perks with that, and then conventional as well. And ultimately we decided that even though we love camping and Christy and I enjoy camping to go- going camping together, we knew that this was more important at the moment to get a bigger house and enjoy that. So we decided to sell our camper so that we didn’t have to have our pre-approval and our loan contingent on selling our current house. Because although we fell in love with this house, it was kind of like, oh, this was quicker than we realized. We still had some things we wanted to fix up in our old house to get our money’s worth. So selling the camper was just a good overall decision for us. And we know we can get another one later, but Christy was really good about talking us through what was our best options.
Gene DiPaula:
One of the reasons we love doing this podcast is because everybody’s situation is different and yet they’re probably parts of people’s situations that they can relate to as they look for a home. And one of the things that I thought was very interesting that I’m sure a lot of people have questions on is the use of gift money. And I know, Kayla, you told me that that was part of your transaction. And one of the best things in dealing with Christy was that she was so knowledgeable about how it worked and how to apply it. Christy, this question is actually for you. Can you tell us a little bit about Kayla’s situation and how you kind of walked her through the process of using that gift money?
Christy Strickland:
Yes, absolutely. So when Kayla first started with her documentation to me, getting pre qualified, her mother had actually already gifted her some money from a grandfather’s inheritance that she had received. So that was already taken place before I stepped in to kind of let them know what direction, how to handle it. So it was really just a matter- and let me back up just a second. So first we were thinking FHA, because that was kind of the direction we were going and different loan types treat gift funds a little different.
So FHA requires if gift funds are given, the donor has to provide where the gifts came from and they require that through a bank statement. Conventional, actually will only- will allow you to use just the canceled check if it was written as a check. So knowing that upfront, knew what we needed documentation for when we were originally thinking FHA. So we already knew what direction we needed to go, but then when we flipped script to go conventional because of the sale of the camper, to get the debt to income ratio down below the conventional financing guidelines. It just made it easier. So when mom, I think ended up giving more gift money to kind of do away with the mortgage insurance, which helped Kayla and Paul out.
Gene DiPaula:
Now, Kayla, you were telling me that just one of the best things about working with Christy was just the whole communication process about how easy it was. And the ability to upload documents.
Kayla Maynor:
I was really impressed, overall. Obviously, Christy was quick to answer any phone calls or texts I had, but she was also great about emailing what she needed from the get go. As soon as we had talked, she emailed the list. This is what I need, bank statements, tax information, copies of driver’s license, just, she had a list for me to send back. And that was really nice. Like I could just check off here’s everything that she needed. And then it was also really easy to either email that information to her or you guys- NFM has a great website where you just upload all the documentation. And so I could get that all done quickly. And then I was also throughout the process impressed with emails. As I moved along each step of the process, I got an email and said congratulations here you are. Here’s what’s going on now. So I was constantly updated and kept informed about how my loan mortgage was progressing.
Gene DiPaula:
And I mentioned at the beginning, there’s kind of a surprise ending here to this whole story. We did not know each other before I originally called you and contacted you and said, would you be willing to do this podcast? I understand you had a great experience in working with one of our loan originators. You said yes, but it turns out that you actually got your loan originator license and tell us about that and then where you ended up
Kayla Maynor:
That’s right. Well, I have been interested in the mortgage industry for the past year or two. And in the fall and in the early parts of winter, I did my 20 hour course and took my test. And I was trying to decide when I wanted to jump in and get started. I was looking at a couple of different companies, but I- when I decided to go with NFM as a customer and was so impressed and just really impressed with NFM, but then Christy and Hannah as well, I decided to apply and have joined the NFM team as a mortgage loan originator. So I am excited to be on the other end and to provide the wonderful experience to my customers as I had. So I’m very excited about the new opportunity.
Gene DiPaula:
Wow. So you were so impressed with your experience at NFM that- and you had just happened to get your loan originator license around that time. You were so impressed that you actually decided to join the company. So that’s pretty incredible. So how are you enjoying your new home? Tell us about it.
Kayla Maynor:
Oh, it’s outstanding. We are so glad that we made the move. We talk about it all the time from the pool in the backyard. We’re so excited that it’s going to be really warm this weekend. We’ve been jumping in that, to organizing the garage. The boys love their playroom upstairs. I mean, the extra room has just been amazing. So we are looking forward to that. We just signed our son up for pre-K and we’re in a good school district. So we’re crossing our fingers that he gets in there. So everything has just gone really well. And we’re thankful for NFM.
Gene DiPaula:
Well, great. All right, well, thank you both again for joining us. If you are looking for wonderful loan originators, we have again, Kayla Maynor, who is now with NFM lending at KMaynor@nfmlending.com (910) 703-6316. And of course, Christy Strickland, (910) 574-2105 and that’s CStrickland@nfmlending.com. Thanks again, both of you for joining us. We appreciate it.
Christy Strickland:
You’re welcome Thank you.
Kayla Maynor:
Thank you
Gene DiPaula:
This has been Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next time.