Part 1: Credit Union Mortgage Loans

Low Mortgage Interest Rates in North Carolina

“Do you own your own home? Do you want to?”

This was the question posed to me by the first real estate agent I ever met. I had been saving money with my spouse, and we had a few thousand dollars tucked away. Our credit score wasn’t great, and we’d both had some trouble with money and banking in our early 20’s. We had been in the rental market for our entire adult lives, and we considered ourselves perpetual tenants -- never to own our own little slice of the American dream. As it turns out, we were wrong. 

Credit Unions Near Me in North Carolina

I grew up in an old-school household. Our family motto might as well have been “never a lender nor a borrower be.” My parents instilled a lot of great 20th-century values in me, most notably, that a penny saved is a penny earned, and that credit cards are the devil’s playground. My sister had gotten herself into an insurmountable debt going to a private college and graduating with a liberal arts degree, and her monthly payments are still the subject of chilling family ghost stories:

“bewaaaaare of the savings account that couldn’t grow! AAAHHHH!!!!!” 

Scary stuff indeed. Suffice to say, when it was time for me to grow up and move out, I had already started my rainy day fund and I always had good jobs, even when I was living in a dorm and eating cafeteria pizza 3 meals a day. I paid my way through college and graduated with almost no student debt, but I had picked up a bad habit of applying for credit cards and auto loans that were out of my range, and the repeated rejected credit applications left a bad dent in my credit score. My spouse had a similar story, but that credit score was tarnished by chain store credit cards and a closet full of clothes that have never been worn outside the house. 

Credit Union Mortgage Rates in North Carolina

The monetary indiscretions of our 20’s led to us being very careful and responsible with our finances in the subsequent years. So much so, in fact, that by our early 30’s we had amassed a combined savings of over $10,000. Not bad for a couple kids who couldn’t get their credit scores over the 600 mark. By being prudent and pinching a few pennies here and there, we soon found that nothing feels better than money in the bank. 

We got married a couple years ago and it’s been good for both of us. We eat dinner in, carpool to work, we take inexpensive vacations and only splurge when we’re both around to enjoy it. When we drive, we do it in modest sedans with four-figure price tags. We’re hoping to start a family soon, so we’ve been saving. But saving means planning for the future, so it doesn’t make sense to throw the next 20 years of earnings into rentals. That’s when we decided to start shopping around for a house -- and a mortgage loan.

Mortgage Loans for North Carolina Residents

The biggest challenge in buying our first home was navigating all of the different people and companies that wanted a piece of the action. Agencies, agents, brokers, banks, firms, websites, lawyers, and more, all of them trying to convince us that their services were the right ones for us. The funny thing is, all these entities vied for our attention, but none of them ever made me feel like they wanted what was best for my spouse and me. We shopped around for a while, interviewing real estate agents and mortgage brokers and going to banks to plead our case and get a quote on an interest rate. Finally, after more than a couple meetings with bankers, someone suggested that we go talk to a credit union. 

I had never banked with a credit union before, but I was curious, and I wanted to know more about credit unions and what makes them different from traditional banks. Well, after our first meeting with our local credit union, we could see the difference, and we liked it. 

Part 2 coming soon!

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