Establishing a life in the country
Janet and Denton Little worked together with AgCarolina Farm Credit to purchase land and build a home in rural North Carolina.
New to the process, Janet and Denton were grateful for the help they received from Farm Credit.
A whole new world
Janet and Denton had never purchased land before. While they had built a house and bought pre-existing homes, buying land was something all together new.
“I didn’t really know what to expect. Denton didn’t really know what to expect. This was a new process for both of us,” Janet said.
They started driving by a few different sites for sale, just to get an idea of what they might like. One day, they pulled up to a particular site and just knew, knew it was the perfect fit for them.
First step, find a lender
Now that Janet and Denton had their eye on a piece of property, they needed to find a lender who would help them finance their dreams of purchasing the land and building a home.
“There are a lot of places that won’t lend you money just to buy land,” Janet said. “Especially when you don’t have the whole process laid out with what you’re doing, a builder in hand and things like that.”
AgCarolina Farm Credit was different; they were excited to work with Janet and Denton to purchase the land and begin plans for their new home. “AgCarolina Farm Credit was able to work with us throughout the process, and even talked to us about the steps that we could take to move forward. It made the process really smooth and easy to understand,” Janet said.
The ease with which they were able to work with Farm Credit was surprising to the Littles. “We live in a rural community and we were under the initial impression, like most folks in our area, that you had to be into agriculture to work with Farm Credit. But we’re not associated with agriculture,” Denton said. “But Farm Credit was a great choice for us. A lot of folks don’t understand what AgCarolina Farm Credit has to offer.”
Support, every step of the way
About a year or so after they purchased the land, Janet and Denton decided to initiate the process of building their new home. Never having been through a process like this before, once again they turned to AgCarolina Farm Credit for help.
“We reached out to get all the details, to find out what steps we needed to start to take and what we needed apply for,” Denton said. “It was a smooth process. It was painless. Things went very quickly with Farm Credit.”
The Farm Credit difference
As far as a business decision, Janet and Denton have enjoyed joining Farm Credit because of its cooperative model; the patronage check at the end of each year has made a big difference for them.
“Patronage was great for us, because you can basically take your interest rate and drop it down, offsetting the amount of money you get at the end of the year via patronage,” Denton said. “It is great because not a lot of other finance companies or banks offer patronage back to their customers.”
Janet and Denton couldn’t be happier with their choice to work with AgCarolina Farm Credit.
“We’re returning customers because of the relationships we’ve built,” Denton said. “I like to have a personal relationship with whomever I’m banking with; there’s a level of trust there that has to be built. And it was very easy to establish that trust with AgCarolina Farm Credit.”