Search Topics
I Bought My First Home!
Submitted by: Tarryn D
South Africa, JohannesburgI'm a single mom of 2 beautiful children, a girl 14, and a boy, 10. My husband died about 10 years ago from suicide and I've raised my kids with the love and support of family and friends. I work as a Land Development Administrator (Office Manager) and I'm 33 years old.
I had been living with my parents since 2018 and I moved out on November 1st, 2021.
To give you background. My husband left me in R 250,000 worth of debt when he passed and I declared myself insolvent and had been paying off my debt since his passing. I had been paying off debt for so long that I did not even realize that my name had been cleared now.
A situation occurred where I was forced to move out of my parent’s home so I was desperately looking for rental apartments. The apartments I liked were either out of my budget or the ones that were within my budget were really shabby looking.
As I was searching the net, I came across a pre- approval website for a home loan. So, I entered my information out of curiosity, and to my surprise, I qualified for a home loan. That was when I had started sending my information out to rental agents to contact me for the apartments I wished to live in.
I had made a list of what I wanted. My list was, it must have 3 bedrooms, be spacious, safe for when I need to leave the kids at home and in a good area.
The first 2 viewings were terrible but then the agent showed me a unit near a lake. I fell instantly in love with the place but the price was definitely out of budget. At first I said no but the agent said I should just view it first. I went to the unit and it checked off all the items on my list and I fell in love with it even more.
I decided to go for it. The government subsidizes new, first time home buyers and the bank could give me a home loan that covered the attorney fees and the cost of the unit.
I qualified for a home loan that was under the asking price of the seller. I started sulking and cried because I would lose my dream home. My son kept on telling me, mom just believe it will work out.
Me and the kids already had our rooms picked out and we visualized staying there and what we would do when we lived there. Every day I would go on the rental agency’s website and look at the pictures of my home. It really was already mine in my head.
Suddenly I had a thought. Let me valuate the property and also see what the units were selling for in the area. Because of this, I negotiated the seller down to below my qualified home loan price, R 60,000 less than what he was asking for it. I got the approval and signed the OTP! But then the bank came back and said they will not cover the attorney fees. I started panicking again, where was I going to get the money.
The seller was so fond of me that he paid an R 10k deposit towards the attorney fees and I decided to approach the attorneys and make a 4 x installment payment to each attorney. The seller and the attorneys were patient with me while I was paying them off.
Now today I am a proud owner of my first dream home!
I realized that I was practicing The Secret even before I read about it this year in January 2022. Just looking back, I see how these principles of having faith and visualizing and making it already yours before you have it, really works. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I know I am able to tap into my power whenever I so desire. Thank you so much, Rhonda.