My fiancé recently matched to a residency program in Baltimore and we had to move from Philadelphia to Baltimore rather quickly. We were interested in buying, but had never owned a home before and had very little knowledge of the whole process. We stumbled upon Kristin's profile on the Live Baltimore website and she called me back less than three hours later that evening to introduce herself and talk through our wish list. She immediately sent me a list of potential listings based on our conversation and followed that up with several more groups of listings as new houses came on the market.
Kristin also gave us a lot of advice about the various neighborhoods in Baltimore but suggested that we not limit ourselves too much until we walked through the neighborhoods ourselves. Less than 2 weeks after our initial phone call, we had scheduled 12 showings in Canton, Upper Fells Point, and Federal Hill and Kristen spent the better part of her Saturday and Sunday walking six us of (parents included) around these neighborhoods.
Ultimately, we fell in love with Canton and decided to make an offer on a gut rehab there that was pending CHAP tax credit approval. The house wasn't even finished yet, but Kristin managed to get us a showing anyway. She talked us through the whole process from negotiation and home inspection through some nail-biting moments while we waited for the Use and Occupancy permit and final CHAP approval. Our closing was pushed back two weeks because of these delays, but Kristin expertly negotiated with the seller so we could leave our furniture and other belongings in the house and not have to put them into storage.
The whole process felt like it took forever, but we actually closed (yay!) less than 2 months after first touring the house. We honestly feel that we couldn't have done it without Kristin. She was very patient with all of our questions (we had a lot) and constantly responsive via text and email at all hours of the day or night. Not only did she work with us to find the perfect home, but she also helped us find the perfect lender! We had already talked with two banks about various mortgage programs before touring houses with Kristin, but as we were about to make an offer, we realized that the lender we had selected was going to be very difficult to work with because the loan officer was so slow to respond. Kristin immediately offered to help us find a new lender (and one that specialized in a physician's loan) and, through her professional contacts, she connected us with Michelle White and her amazing loan team at SunTrust.
Other people have told us that the key to a smooth home buying process is having the right team in place, but we didn't realize how true that was until we started working with Kristin. We can't recommend her enough!