By Terra Avilla
Last week was a big week for the Avilla the household – we became homeowners! Now Frankie is stuck with me for at least thirty years (insert evil cackling).
The ‘American dream’ is definitely alive and well in Lassen County and a big part of that is thanks to the amazing people we have in our community. The people who clearly love making houses into homes. Those people for Frankie and I are the angels at Summit Funding.
Frankie and I have a lot of strengths which we usually are able to bring out in one another. However, when it came to the nuances of buying a home both of us were pretty much rendered useless.
Undoubtedly there is no way we would have been able to meander our way through the home buying process without the help and guidance of their team. Kristina Shafer, Jean Loosemore and Tamara Turner.
I will forever be so thankful for Kristina’s patience as my husband and I sat in her office. I usually arrived first and would ask her anywhere from 2 to 37 questions.
Frankie, who would stroll in from practice would then re-ask her the same exact questions – insisting on hearing the answers from her and not me. Kristina was so patient and spent as much time as we needed with us. She never ever made us feel rushed or like the ignorant homebuyers we were.
She treated us with respect and streamlined the entire process. Frankie who is in and out of Susanville in the fall, had a very hectic schedule, which their team always worked around.
I remember going into her office the very first appointment and Kristina saying, “We will make this work. Don’t worry.” Luckily for us, our sellers (who are also angels – Jon and Shelly Barker) recommend we use Summit as they too had had great dealing with them.
As we approached our closing date the Summit team was in constant communication with us. They would call Frankie and I, just so that we all were on the same page.
She even sat patiently during a meeting where Peach touched every single item on her desk and told Kristina about all the shades of turquoise and magenta that we were going to paint our house.
Kristina smiled, nodded and indulged Peach as she checked closing costs for me.
I know that we have a lot of Mortgage companies in town, and all of them do so much for our community, and I have very good friends that work at others. I can say though, that after seeing this process from the beginning and middle to end – these people are dream makers. They help people begin their journey of home ownership – the epitome of the America dream.
I am so incredibly thankful I had these wonderful, kind, smart, women to help my family find and purchase our forever home – so that I can stick around for a long time – telling you all – why I love the place we live.
