August 27, 2017

Lauren DeSantis 

Hi, I’m Lauren.

John DeSantis 

And I’m John. And welcome to our newly renovated home.

Lauren

This house was on the market and was one of the first houses that we came and went through, and I fell in love. I just knew it had some good bones. I could just see the vision; I could see what I wanted to change.

John

We had met Brandon at his office and he had gone through the conventional loan with us and he had gone through this thing called an FHA 203k loan, which we had never heard of. We’ve heard of FHA loans before, but the FHA 203k renovation loan was something new. We had no idea what a renovation loan was.

Lauren 

We know that if we would went to a conventional loan, our nest egg and what we had been saving for the purchase of this home would have been completely wiped out. So, being able to bring only three-and-a-half percent down to the table was just a lot more doable.

John

That made this house even more appealing because we knew we were going to have to be renovating. The idea that we could actually do that right off the bat was a selling point for us for this house. The first thing we knew we were going to change was the main bathroom on the second level. It had a pink tub, pink toilet, pink sink, pink light fixture, pink tile and it didn’t have a shower; it was only a big Jacuzzi, pink tub. So, we knew that was going to be the first thing to be changed. The second thing, we knew we were going to be redoing the floors because there was just a lot of wear and tear. They were beautiful hardwood oak floors, but we wanted to make sure we really brought that out in the home.

Lauren

The kitchen had a wide planked, dark pergola floor…

John DeSantis 

It really clashed.

Lauren DeSantis 

…wine colored walls. We did a nice neutral tile. We put a pretty green, gray color on the walls; it just brightens up the oak. We changed out the hardware on the cabinetry. It just brought everything back to life. We gave everything a good wash, a good scrub, and it’s a beautiful room. The family room when you initially walked in had green walls with yellow trim. So, we came through and we took; it was just a lot of detail, the contractors painted and painted and painted. Every piece of trim that you’ll see in the pictures, everything was a dark, outdated, a little bit of some wear and tear of some of the darker wood, and everything got painted to that white trim. We took out all of the shoe mold and baseboard.

John

This house did not have air conditioning. That was part of our renovation loan; adding it and in the process, we also added a new furnace because the furnace was pretty old.

Lauren

We lived in the basement with no air for six months. Every chair molding, every room got repainted and every electrical outlet was changed.

John

Every plug, every light switch; they were beige; now they’re all white.

Lauren

To the outside, we redid all of the landscaping. So, everything was removed and we actually had a couple trees that were taken down, so we had all of that completed.

John

But, we were able to do that because we were able to put less down on our house. Those are things that happened outside of the 203k loan.

Lauren

I’m going to get a little emotional. I couldn’t be any happier. This was a house that when we originally came through, everyone thought I was a little crazy, but I just I saw the potential. It needed a lot of TLC and that’s what we gave this home. And, being able to utilize the FHA 203k renovation loan, we have created our dream home in just less than a year. We have just been so happy. For us, it was just a great process and a great time.