Jeff and Kelly Awtrey have been saving money for years to buy a home, and Monday they finally got the keys to their dream home after facing several challenges along the way.
Jeff and Kelly are disabled veterans, and while they have access to home loans through the V.A., they've been having trouble qualifying for loans. Still, when Kelly saw the house that they can now call home, she knew it was the one she wanted. After changing agents a couple times, she found Harcourts Reality, who pointed her in the direction of Doorway Home Loans. Together the two companies worked out an arrangement to get Jeff and Kelly in the new home.
"Because of [Bill Farrell's] perseverance, the seller accepted his word that we would come through and we would end up eventually getting qualified for a loan," Kelly says.
Bill Farrell, branch manager for Doorway Home Loans, says they did some digging on some of the recent credit score activity. They found the Awtrey's were reliable when it came to rent, but a recent debt payment for medical bills lowered the score too much.
"Unfortunately the credit system thinks that's a bad thing because they show up as new accounts," Farrell says. "So paying collections can often be a detriment to your credit score, which is what happened here putting them under the threshold. But in reality, it was a few hundred dollars of collection accounts; it wasn't a significant amount of money. And they have the affordability to be able to make payments here they pay rent on time every month."
"If it wasn't for their perseverance and their willingness to out on a limb for us, we wouldn't have our dream home," Kelly says. "We might not even have a home at all."
While the credit score was one hindrance, the couple faced another challenge when they learned their dog Baron had cancer in his left hind leg. Because it spread to the bone, they needed to amputate it.
"We don't have children so Baron was very important to us," Kelly says. "So we did talk about it if it came to getting a house or saving Baron, no doubt we're saving Baron."
"Surgery for Baron, him losing a leg in the process and that depleting their savings, most banks would run," Farrell says. "But we thought that this was more than just a credit score more than just a number these are real people, and we're happy to help."
Kelly says she's a little picky about certain aspects of the house, like not having an open kitchen, and not having brown around the house... especially cabinets. But this house has no brown, and the kitchen is her favorite part about it. Jeff's favorite part of the house is the backyard. This backyard is bigger, and that means better for Baron as he continues to recover from surgery.
Kelly says at the end of the day she gets that they're going above and beyond to help veterans, but she believes they would've helped her even if they weren't. She says the people working behind the scenes are the stars of this story
"It's not really about veterans it's about treating veterans."
The correct spelling is Awtrey, not Autrey. (Wrong in video)
