Kristie and Ben both grew up on Nantucket. They had mutual friends, and when they were both attending school in Boston, they started dating. After spending eight years in Boston and a year in DC, the couple knew they wanted to move back to Nantucket to start their lives together. Today, Kristie is the Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce. She is also the part-time Director of Development for Habitat Nantucket. Ben is a Commercial Credit Analyst at Nantucket Bank. They were married last June.

“Sure, we had housing issues when we first came back,” said Kristie. “Even though we had extensive networks, we didn’t want to live with family. We ended up living in a friend’s basement for a while, and then found shared housing. But the situation wasn’t ideal for us as newlyweds. We wanted more privacy. Our plan was always to build on one of our family’s lots, but it proved to be a very difficult and drawn out process.”

Last year, Housing Nantucket’s #GivingTuesday campaign made Kristie aware of the many ways Housing Nantucket was helping to solve the island’s housing crisis.

“We knew first-hand how difficult the housing situation was,” said Kristie. “Housing Nantucket’s mission really spoke to us. We realized we were better off than so many people. We wanted to support this cause.”

So Kristie and Ben set a goal for themselves– they wanted to buy a home within a year. They started taking steps to make this dream a reality. They completed Housing Nantucket’s First Time Home Buyer Education class. They then assembled the application paperwork for Housing Nantucket’s Covenant Program, and contacted the real estate professionals they heard speak at the class.

By summertime, after they had been in the shared housing for a year, it didn’t look like they were going to be able to build anytime soon, so they started looking off island. North Carolina appealed to the young couple, and they downloaded the mobile real estate app Zillow. The very next day, a property on Nantucket showed up that was in their price range.

“It was like the universe was telling us not to move,” Kristie said. “We called our real estate broker, and she got on it right away. She helped with the negotiations. The whole process was stressful, but the local professionals were so helpful.”

Kristie and Ben closed on their home last month. When asked if they have any suggestions for other first time home buyers, Ben reflected back.

“Work on your credit,” said Ben. “We improved our credit over the last decade, and it really paid off when we got a better interest rate. Also, take the day ofn rush to the closing. We scrambled to transfer all the utilities. We really ran around the closing off from work if you can. We had to do the walk-through that morning thethat day.“

“Now that we’re homeowners,” said Kristie, “we’re looking forward to having our family over for the holidays. Simple things like watching Sunday night football on our couch means so much to us. We recently adopted a dog, and just that feeling of knowing we could start a family makes us happy. For so long it’s been like, when is that going to happen?”

Housing Nantucket’s programs help residents like Kristie and Ben put down roots. Your donations enable us to expand our reach.