Lender/Realtor Resources
You can give your clients a better chance at homeownership by using MFA’s homebuyer programs. With our below-market rates and down payment assistance, you may be able to qualify a borrower that otherwise would not have been able to purchase a home.
MFA’s programs are not limited to first-time homebuyers. Previous homeowners who buy homes in targeted areas are also eligible as well as individuals who work in specific occupations.
There are other ways our programs can work for you and your clients. Borrowers may be eligible to receive mortgage loan guideline waivers such as lower credit scores. And, borrowers may purchase a manufactured home on a permanent foundation.
So, take a look at what we have to offer. You and your clients have everything to gain!
Susie Nelson, pictured above
“YOU CAN DO THIS!”
Susie Nelson, a mortgage loan officer with Hometrust Mortgage in Las Cruces, knows what it means to pull herself up by the bootstraps. Formerly homeless and a survivor of violence and poverty, Nelson is now committed to helping others get on their feet and buying a home of their own.
“I give people the tools to break the cycles in their families,” Nelson said in a recent interview. “If I can do it, they can do it.”
The middle child of nine siblings, Nelson endured an unhappy childhood filled with abuse, neglect and fear. The foster home she was eventually placed in was not much better.
At the age of 15, Nelson made the decision to escape the foster home and take her chances living on her own. “I wasn’t running away from home so I could live a wild teenage lifestyle,” she said. It was about survival.”
Nelson found herself alone on the streets of El Paso, hungry and terrified. But nothing scared her as much as the thought of going home again.
One day, Nelson was sitting on a window ledge outside Alejandro’s restaurant in downtown El Paso when she heard a man say, “Que tienes hambre?” When the man, who turned out to be the restaurant’s owner, Alejandro, realized she didn’t speak Spanish, he asked Nelson in broken English if she was hungry. She was.
Alejandro gave Nelson the job of cleaning the bathrooms in exchange for a meal and $20. She used the money to rent a motel room for the night. She returned to Alejandro’s the next day to ask for more work.
Soon she was serving food and handling hostess duties. She also became fluent in Spanish. The job was the help Nelson needed to begin moving forward. Within a few years, she was married and had a child. She also landed her first mortgage-related bank job, which was the beginning of her career in mortgage lending.
Life was far from perfect, though. Susie survived a bout with cancer and was forced to leave her marriage for many of the same reasons she had left her home years before. But, true to form, Nelson not only survived, she thrived.
Today, Nelson has been happily married to her “knight in shining armor” for nine years. After owning and operating her own mortgage company in Las Cruces, she recently joined Hometrust Mortgage, which opened in Las Cruces in 2009. Hometrust Mortgage’s Albuquerque office has been an active MFA lending partner for many years.
Even in today’s difficult economic times, Nelson continues to close an impressive number of mortgage loans. Almost half of her clients use MFA’s down payment assistance program, which is often the only way they are able to purchase a home, Nelson said. Nelson is also quick to help the people who come into her office in other ways, including job placement assistance and connecting them with social service agencies.
Often, Nelson’s clients have to improve their credit before they can qualify for a mortgage loan. Nelson works with them for weeks or even months, giving them financial training and helping them save and budget.
“I don’t judge people”, Nelson said. “Most everyone has had credit problems at one time or another and it’s not a reflection of who someone is as a person. I’m more than happy to walk people through the process.”
Nelson said the challenges she has faced in her life motivate her to work hard to help people and get them into a home. “I tell people that just because I’m sitting on the other side of the desk doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I tell them: ‘you can do this.’”
“I tell people that just because I’m sitting on the other side of the desk doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “I tell them: ‘you can do this.’”
