AAAHHHH…the holiday season! I love it!! Let’s rewind a few years shall we. My wife and I went shopping…ON LINE! Man how fun, easy and convenient. We finished 6-weeks before the big day! All we had to do was sit back, watch the old Christmas TV shows, drink some hot cider and wait. Finally one day I pulled into the drive way and there it was…the big box. I mean a big, big box. We ripped it open and dove in…. inspecting our bounty. Wow…how fun…I mean this is…gre..a…t…wait…wait! Where is the big gift for our daughter? Oh no! We are missing a gift! How could this happen…and another one…now we are missing 2…no 3 gifts. So we get back on-line…make phone calls…all in an attempt to get our Christmas put back together. We didn’t make it! We turned lemons into lemonade when we had gifts show up a few weeks later…we just celebrated again. Not the end of the world!

This pass year we had some very bad storms come through our area and our house had some damage. Now before I go further let me say that I have loved our insurance company…up until the storms. The weeks following I really wished we had a local rep who knew my family…knew where I worked…who had a local office and had a vested interest in making sure I was getting things done quickly and RIGHT! But there was no local guy/gal to yell at, cry with, shake hands with or even joke around with. Just a 1-800 number. They were nice enough…but man-o-man I would have loved to have someone who lives in my community…someone I could have had a cup of coffee with and got things done. Sometimes there’s nothing better than having a local contact.

By now you probably have figured it out…we are talking about a local mortgage professional vs. a national mortgage 1-800 number or an on-line company. When things go great and it’s all about the interest rate…you are a happy camper. But when things go bad…when the process stalls…when you have questions…when things aren’t what they need to be…it sure would be nice to have a local person. Let’s be honest interest rates are something most all mortgage companies, local or national, offer…so what separates them. The local flare! I mean having a local person who knows the right questions to ask matters. Having someone who will answer his or her phone in the evenings. Someone who knows if they mess up they could run into you at the store. We want to be serviced and we want to have someone we can go ‘see’ if things go wrong.

In today’s economy the standard, simple, easy loan is fading…there are more challenges out there and it is critical to work with someone who you can trust. Trust is hard to develop through emails, phone calls and a ‘help’ button on a webpage.

To meet a local mortgage professional call Peoples Home Equity 423-591-9801 or find them on the web at www.chattmortgage.com or look them up on facebook at Peoples Home Equity Chattanooga. You can always listen to their radio program ‘The Buyers Market’ every Monday night at 7pm on WGOW 102.3Fm (stream it www.wgow.com)