Sherry Yates had been renting for years before finally becoming a homeowner at the age of 77, achieving her lifelong dream. She told ABC15 that she wouldn’t change anything about her Coolidge house.
Purchasing her own home a year ago, she overcame the statistics showing how tough it can be to be a homeowner and has been content ever since.
According to a study by the National Realtors Association, Black Americans have the highest denial rates for purchase and refinance loans. The outlet noted that per the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, 20% of Black and 15% of Hispanic loan applicants were denied mortgages, compared with about 11% of White and 10% of Asian applicants.
RELATED STORIES
The septuagenarian narrated how she relocated to Glendale, Arizona, in 2007 and rented a home there, sharing that home with sometimes twelve different generations of family.
When the landlord sold the house, she found herself in a new rental home in Avondale for several hundred dollars more. Yates rented an apartment in Central Phoenix once more when that house also went into foreclosure a few years later. She was sick of all the moving around.
She recounted, “It’s hard to stay in an apartment, plus when you got kids and they got kids, it’s very hard.”
She also struggled with not understanding how to start the process of becoming a homeowner until she met Beckah Stiasny, a new counselor at Oakwood Homes.
Yates was able to obtain the loan she required thanks to the team’s assistance in navigating the system and even avoiding a credit score barrier.
She soon figured out how much she needed to save to make a $12,000 down payment on a $300,000 home.
Yates, who claims that her current age of 78 feels more like 35, is a proud first-time homeowner of a 1,700-square-foot house with four bedrooms, a two-car garage, and ample space to care for her 90-year-old mother, her husband, their two children, and more.
She noted, ”I would pay my mortgage before I pay anything,” as she considers her mortgage a privilege.
