When my husband and I married in 2014, we lived in a 650 square-foot two bedroom, one bathroom home with our young son and two dogs. It was a tight fit, but we loved our little rental with all its warmth and charm. It was not long after that we started thinking about purchasing our first home. We met with a mortgage lender friend who pulled our credit and let us know that we were ready—if we wanted—but could do a little more to earn a lower interest rate and some flexibility with the down payment. So, we waited; we always take a LONG time to make big decisions. We lived in two more rent houses before we finally felt ready to take a swing at touring homes.
It took three years after marriage to finally take the leap. I was in the final stages of pregnancy with our second child when we decided we needed to just go ahead and do it already. We weren’t really sure who we should finance with (we were with a big bank at the time and knew they wouldn’t have the best rates), so we relied on the recommendation of our realtor. The process was easy. Everything was online and we never even met our lender. Immediately after we closed on our house, the bank sold our loan and that was that. We had a house and a mortgage payment with a company we had never heard of before.
In 2018, I made a big career change. After years of working as a Digital Marketing Consultant, I needed a new challenge. When I heard that ALLIANCE Credit Union was hiring a Marketing Manager, I could just feel it in my bones: this was the job for me. As I’ve learned more about the credit union movement and all that ALLIANCE has to offer its members, I began to wonder if I should take another look at our mortgage. I began asking Tracy, ALLIANCE’s VP of Mortgage Lending, A LOT of questions. She thought ALLIANCE could save us some money.
Remember, it takes my husband and I a LONG time to make big decisions. So here we are, a year and a half into my career at ALLIANCE, and two years into owning our first home. I filled out a questionnaire (that, coincidentally, I had designed) at the 2020 Business Expo in January and almost immediately received a call from a coworker who wanted to save us money on our mortgage. Candice walked us through every step of the process and answered every single one of my many questions. She helped us find a better insurance company that would provide better coverage at a lower rate and figured out that not only could we save an entire percentage point on our mortgage interest, we could knock ten years off of our term while still saving money each month!!!
The entire refinancing process took about thirty days. We finalized the refinance of our home and are saving a total of $250 per month on our mortgage and insurance while also reducing our term from thirty to twenty years. Over the course of our loan, this refinance will save us tens of thousands of dollars. With two young children at home, what family wouldn’t LOVE to do the same. Oh, and ALLIANCE is going to KEEP our loan, so I'll always have someone I know to bug with my many, many questions.
I have worked at ALLIANCE long enough now to know that everyone here truly, passionately cares about helping our members. It was one thing to know it and another thing to experience it personally.
If you or someone you know is currently in the process of purchasing or thinking about refinancing a home, I am writing this to say CHOOSE ALLIANCE! You’ll be glad you did. If you’d like to take the leap today, just go ahead and do it already! All you have to do is fill out the application found HERE, and a money-saving mortgage expert will hold your hand every step of the way.
