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 When an INHP Mortgage and Credit Specialist told Marsha Simms she could get a house, Marsha laughed at her.
The only reason Marsha had attended the 2004 Home Fair was so she could get a free copy of her credit report. She wanted to know how bad it was. Turns out, it wasn’t quite as bad as she had thought, but purchasing and owning a home was still never something that had seriously crossed her mind.
One of Marsha’s hobbies was touring houses and condos that were for sale, but she had never taken the tours seriously. She would look around and know that she would never be able to buy a home. Even after finding INHP, it took some time before her skepticism faded.
“I kept thinking of that saying: ‘If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,’ so I kept looking for an angle. But there wasn’t one,” says Marsha.
But once she began to work with INHP, she learned how to correct mistakes on her credit report, how to get errors taken off and how to get positive things that were missing added. Marsha didn’t like talking about her credit, but the counselor made it easier.
Six months into the program, Marsha was told she was ready. Less than a year after beginning to work with INHP, she moved into her new condo. “It would have been sooner,” says Marsha, “but I had cold feet. I just couldn’t believe that I was ready.”
But Marsha worked hard and was ready. She entered the 2005 Home Fair essay contest and won $1,000 towards her closing costs. “I had never written a poem before, but when I heard there was a prize of $1,000, I thought ‘I can come up with something!”
Before she knew it, Marsha had found her home, closed on a mortgage and moved into her condo.
Not bad for someone who didn’t believe she was ready!
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