Providing Mortgage Help to First Responders & Teachers

Providing mortgage help to first responders and teachers is important to Fairway mortgage loan officers. These local heroes like police, teachers, firemen and nurses sometimes need help with buying a house. When Boston schools’ police officer Latisha Steele wanted to turn her dream of homeownership into a reality she leaned on Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation to guide her through the process and make it happen.

Steele spent most of her life in public housing, and after becoming a mother began exploring the possibility of homeownership. But living in Boston meant home shopping in a market she was largely priced out of. Boston is unique in that housing costs can price people out of their communities, and affordable housing is hard to come by. Finding mortgage help is key to homeownership. Through her research, Steele found a first-time buyer’s lottery program and entered for the chance to be eligible to purchase a home through a program called Section 8 that provides affordable housing. To her delight, she won the lottery and was able to qualify for an affordable home in Boston. The next step was securing a mortgage loan.

Finding Mortgage Help for First Responders and Teachers

Steele’s real estate agent introduced her to the Fairway senior mortgage loan officer Amy Wortzman and her team. Steele said,

“They got me. They understood me. They could relate to me through the whole process -- from start to finish. And it didn't matter what time of day, if I had any questions, even at midnight, I could text them and they would respond.”

The biggest mortgage hurdle for Steele to overcome was to understand the mortgage lending process. According to Wortzman, something that is so unfamiliar requires the lender to educate the borrower so that they are not afraid of the loan process. With the right guidance, first-time buyers like Steele can feel very in control.

“What was so incredible about her mortgage setup is we were able to do it with very little money from Latisha,” said Wortzman.

“We bought out the Private Mortgage Insurance on her loan and so she was able to actually get a cheaper payment than she even thought she would for that specific unit.”

Mortgage help from Fairway loan officer Amy Wortzman was key to success. Getting to that point means going through a daunting amount of paperwork, but with Fairway’s guidance, Steele was able to complete it. “We came up with a plan on how to structure the mortgage loan and taught her what we were doing,” Wortzman said. “Once she was knowledgeable, she was very much at ease with the process. At the end of it, there was such a sense of accomplishment and empowerment for her that it also reinforced our love for this segment of the market.”

Wortzman guided Steele to a first-time buyer product offered by The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency that targets low to moderate income homebuyers. The mission of the program is to help facilitate homeownership for those that may have some credit issues and/or may not have much money saved.

According to Wortzman, Latisha’s story echoes the overall mission of Fairway -- to serve and to help local heroes achieve the dream of homeownership. “We have such a wide range of heroes and unfortunately, not all are compensated the way that they should be,” Wortzman said. “What we do at Fairway is we look to help and bring them to homeownership opportunities, working with the right professionals and again, bringing it to that mission of servant leadership.”

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