When first-time homebuyers Angel Collins and her husband, Keith Brophy, moved with their two daughters to Alexandria from New Orleans after Katrina in 2006, they didn’t have the savings for a down payment to buy a new house. People told them they didn’t need a down payment — but they didn’t believe it.
“We didn’t see how that was a good thing,” Collins said.
At the time, just as the housing bubble was reaching its peak, the houses they were looking at were also prohibitively expensive.
“We’d just survived a flood,” Collins said, “and we saw houses on floodplains for $450,000.”
They moved into the Montebello condominiums off Route 1 and settled into the area.
“They’d lost nearly everything in the storm,” said Prudential Carruthers agent Sharon Jordan, who helped them find a place to rent when they arrived.
Brophy’s employer in New Orleans, Kimpton Hotels, relocated him to Washington after his hotel in New Orleans closed down. Collins found a job working at an association in Old Town, and the girls enrolled in a new school. By the time the real estate bubble burst, they’d managed to rebuild enough savings to get back on their feet.
“A lot of things happened at the right time,” Collins said. “The $8,000 [federal tax credit] was phenomenal — especially when you need $11,000 to close. We wanted to rebuild our lives the right way.”
In January of this year, they fell in love with one of the first houses they looked at in Springfield, a three-bedroom split level with plenty of space for Parker, 14, and Keller, 12, and a great back yard. There was only one hitch — it was a short sale.
“We’d seen enough of HGTV to know we had to wait a while for the sale to go through,” Collins said. “But we saw it in January and then didn’t see it again for six months.”
The longer they waited, the more anxious they got. Rates began to creep up and they started to wonder if they were still going to get that bargain interest rate.
“The one they wanted was one of the first ones they saw,” Jordan said. “In the meantime, we looked at 50 other houses together. All of my short sales have lasted six months.”
Part of the delay lay at the feet of Freddie Mac, which wanted $35,00 from the seller to recoup some of its loss. The seller didn’t want to pay.
“The last few months were tough because we knew we had this great thing,” Brophy said. “You can’t speak with the seller and tell them that it’s in their best interest to sign or things are going to get a lot worse.”
In late June, unable to wait any longer, they put down an offer on another house. On the same day, they were notified that the deal on the original property had finally gone through.
They closed in a week, just after the girls finished school, and they had a four-day weekend to start moving. Collins and Brophy have refinished the hardwood floors and painted all of the walls. Everyone can be in the same place and not on top of one another in their new home.
“We love it, it’s awesome, and we’re amazed how convenient Springfield is,” Collins said.
“There was a wonderful ending to a lousy beginning,” Jordan said.
