23.0°
Sold! Gina Coronel enjoys a moment with her daughter, Giana, on the deck of their new home at Stoneridge in Truckee. Coronel was able to purchase her townhome with help from Truckee’s first time homebuyer assistance program. |
CommentsGina Coronel:
A Local Success Story
By Maura MackPublished: August 15, 2010
Home Slice
Editor’s Note: We’re pleased this month to introduce our new real estate columnist, Maura Mack. In her column, Home Slice, Maura will strive to bring our readers information they can really use, not just numbers, graphs, and market trends. She’ll also highlight success stories from around the area, like the one below about a local woman who recently managed to purchase her very first home.
Maura has been in the area since 1994 and began her career in property management in 2000. Since 2001, she has been a certified realtor and member of the Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors, the California Association of Realtors, and the National Association of Realtors. Maura is based at Pacific Crest Properties in Tahoe Donner, a 16-person team that takes pride in personal service and cherishes living and working in our beautiful mountain environment.
In addition to her career in real estate, Maura loves spending time with her son Declan, husband Jason, and dog June Bug, while skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and camping.
We’re pleased to welcome Maura to the Moonshine team! If you have a real estate question, concern, or a topic you’d like to see covered, feel free to send an email to maura@moonshineink.com.
Touch-up paint is drying on a beige-colored wall in Gina Coronel’s tidy new Stoneridge townhome, up the hill from downtown Truckee. “I invented this color,” Coronel said. “It’s called masking tape!” Coronel moved into her new home on June 1, thanks to Truckee’s first time homebuyer assistance program. After getting pre-approved for a loan, filling out the necessary paperwork, and turning it into the town, Coronel learned that she had been chosen through a lottery. “The town was great. The whole process, from application to close of escrow, took about four months.”
Coronel, a single mom employed at Safeway who is also working on her associates degree at Sierra Nevada College, had been researching buyer-assistance programs and grants for several years, both through Nevada and Placer counties, and found out about the town’s program through local lender Rachel Lamoreux at Tahoe Lending Group. “I was pretty determined to find a place for my daughter and me. If you really want it, it is out there,” Coronel said.
When asked what the best part of homeownership is, Coronel replied, “Knowing that I have my own house. It’s mine. I can do whatever I want.”
Info: townoftruckee.com
Did You Know?
• Contemplating letting your home go to a short sale or foreclosure and unable to refinance at today’s record-low rates? Check out the Obama Administration’s Making Home Affordable program. If your home is Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac–backed, is a one to four unit single-family dwelling, and your mortgage is no more than 125 percent of the value of your home, you may be able to lower your interest rate and monthly payments. Info: makinghomeaffordable.gov
• Are you currently purchasing a short sale home? Beware if a lien holder is asking for money to be paid directly to them in order to agree to the negotiation. If the money is not accounted for in writing (specifically on the HUD-1 statement), this can be construed as loan fraud. You and your agent should walk away.
• The Truckee Donner Public Utility District is giving a $100 rebate for leaky toilets. The Customer Water Leak Repair Rebate Program requires that you have a licensed contractor identify and repair the leak, submit an application for the rebate with the contractor invoice, and have TDPUD verify that the leak has been repaired. Info: tdpud.org
0 Reader Comments so far ...
Be the first to comment on this article!