Michael and Karley Piercy dreamed of owning a home but figured it was out of their reach.
Living on the second floor of an apartment building and lugging groceries and laundry up the stairs was beginning to wear on them.
“The apartment started feeling really small and I couldn’t do anything with it. I couldn’t make it my own. You’re afraid to put nails into the walls and you can’t replace anything,” Karley said.
Michael, a design engineer, works for a small firm in Chandler. Karley is a home-healthcare aide.
“My wife wanted to start looking at houses and I didn’t think it was possible. That down payment is a killer,” Michael said.
Karley figured they’d find a way and began hunting for a house. She ended up finding one she really liked in the Twelve Oaks neighborhood in West Chandler. The Realtor set up a meeting with a mortgage broker.
“I was telling him the same thing: I don’t think I’m going to be able to buy a house because of the down payment issue. He said, let’s just run through it and see what we’ve got,” Michael said.
That’s when the broker told them about the Home Plus program.
Michael found out that, based on his credit score and income, the couple could get down-payment assistance. That was the game changer, because they didn’t have a home to sell that would have generated funds. The down payment for a home loan is sometimes as much as 20 percent.
Through the Home Plus program, they discovered they only needed to put five percent down, and four percent of that would be provided by the program. The other one percent came from the couple’s earnest money.
Suddenly home ownership was in reach for the Piercys.
They moved into their home in January and say they love the area. “It’s way better than being in that apartment,” Michael said. “It’s nice just knowing that my money is going toward something that’s pretty much mine. If I don’t like something I can change it to how I like it to be.”
“I just really wanted to be in a house. Haven’t decided on painting yet but I have a lot of samples,” Karley said.
“Home Plus gave us a way so we could make our own dream home.”
