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After he was forced out of the home he rented for 25 years, disabled veteran becomes a homeowner at age 65

Martinsville Bulletin - 4/5/2018

He arrived right on time, just as he always does, carrying the worn camouflage briefcase he brings with him everywhere.

Inside, he said, was his life. His Navy discharge papers. His complete medical history, detailing the stroke that left him disabled. His checkbooks and the notepads he uses for jotting down things he won't remember.

There was a cashier's check, withdrawn from a bank that morning. It was nearly the sum of his savings, pieced together from disability payments and Social Security, but it was enough.

At 65, Gary Goodrich was buying his first house.

He put the briefcase on the floor next to him and the check on a table, where his lender and the agents and title company owner all gathered around a mountain of paperwork.

"If you hadn't pulled off this miracle," Edwin Wyant, his agent, told Goodrich, "we all wouldn't be here."

"Oh, no, I didn't pull all this off. It was all of you guys," he said, and really, they were both right.

It started with an eviction. After 25 years in a rented stone house in the woods in Haymarket, Goodrich's landlord called.

The property was going to be developed. The stone house had to go. So did he.

Goodrich knew the day was coming, but still, he wasn't prepared for it. And while there is never a good time to get kicked out of your house, this was a particularly bad time.

A stroke had left him unable to work. His only income was Social Security and disability pay.

Because he had served three years in the Navy, the Department of Veterans Affairs provided his medical care. He was also a candidate for a VA home loan. Until his health crisis, he had never imagined either scenario.

Goodrich can't remember how he came across Wyant, a real estate agent with Long and Foster, but figures he must have stumbled across something online while looking for another rental.

When they spoke by phone for the first time in October, Wyant floated the idea of home ownership. The first thing they would have to do was figure out how much Goodrich could borrow.

That was where Deneen Bernard, a certified mortgage planning specialist with Affordable Home Loans in Stafford County, came in.

Goodrich had worked for years to get his credit score up, and he had been successful. Still, he qualified for only a $110,000 home loan. Finding property in the region for that price is a tall order.

But there were some. Among them: a three-bedroom, two-bath modular home on nearly 14 acres in Orange County.

It was a foreclosure, and it needed some work. Goodrich didn't qualify for a home improvement loan, and without the improvements, the VA wouldn't guarantee the loan for the property. It was also listed at $15,000 more than what he was approved for.

That was where the listing agents came in. Brenda and Barzel McKinney of Touch of Sold Realty are veterans who once had a dream themselves. They wanted to build their own business, and now that they had, they took pride in helping others.

Barzel McKinney sent a team into the house to replace floors, lay down carpet, put fresh paint on the walls and install missing appliances.

The final appraisal came in at $134,000. The McKinneys agreed to sell it to Goodrich for exactly what he could borrow: $110,000.

Just like that, it all came together.

Everyone involved was gathered around a conference table at Freedom Title in Fredericksburg on that drizzly Friday. Jim Croson, the owner, had reduced his fees for the final transaction.

Maybe these circumstances seemed unusual, Croson said, but "over the last few years, there are more and more situations where real estate professionals come together for special situations and help out."

Goodrich offered his own explanation the day before as to how it was happening. "I just got lucky. I happened to step off in the right direction. They busted their butts," he said of the crew who had helped make it possible.

Croson slid another paper in front of him. "This one says that you will live in the house," he said, explaining that some people will actually rent out a property they say they plan to live in, in order to qualify for a low-interest loan.

"Don't worry," Goodrich said. "I'm gonna be there. They're going to have to pry me out of that place."