Mortgage Wedding Registry Helps Newlyweds With Home Down Payment
April 7, 2008
The traditional wedding gifts help a young couple starting out furnish their home with china, crystal, and accessories that will become family heirlooms as they build their lives together. Now, with Feather Our Nest (www.featherournest.com), family and well-wishers can present the bride and groom with the ultimate wedding gift, their first home.
The brainchild of Carol Peterson, an experienced REALTOR and founder of the Travel Bride honeymoon registry (www.travelbride.com), the Feather Our Nest mortgage registry is a unique concept to help any newlywed couples get started with their first home. The service works like any wedding registry. The bride and groom register online using the simple web form or by telephone. Feather Our Nest will then provide the couple with a set of attractive Wedding Registry cards that can be given to friends and family to advise them of the registry and provide instructions on how to make cash contributions of any denomination toward a new home down payment. Gift-givers receive gift cards that can be presented to the newlyweds, and timely updates with lists of gift givers are delivered via e-mail to the bride and groom.
‘Today’s newlyweds are searching for innovative and different types of bridal registries, especially since many couples already have established households and don’t need two toasters or more china,- said Peterson. ‘With Feather Our Nest, we help young couples cross the threshold toward a new home. What better way to help a young couple start out?-
To help registered users find a home, Feather Our Nest is affiliated with Referral Network, Inc., which helps connect prospective homebuyers with qualified real estate agents anywhere in the United States and Canada. If the newlyweds use an agent within the referral network, the $300 registry fee for Feather Our Nest is fully refunded at the close of escrow
HELP SETTING UP A MORTGAGE BRIDAL REGISTRY
These entities either offer registries for wedding guests to make cash gifts toward home-buying expenses or coordinate the setup:
National City Mortgage: Must go to a local branch to get paperwork that then can be taken to any bank to set up a homeownership bridal registry account; www.nationalcitymortgage.com.
There is one San Antonio branch, at 1000 Central Parkway N., (210) 494-4085.
FeatherOurNest.com: Everything is done online. Each deposit must be at least $50 by check or credit card; (866) 523-4438 or www.featherournest.com.
MORTGAGE REGISTRY ETIQUETTE
- It is OK to ask wedding guests for cash gifts to be used to buy a home.
- Like any registry, don’t include information about your mortgage registry with the wedding invitation.
- Keep mortgage gifts separate from all other cash, as that makes it easier to document the gifts.
- Mortgage registry deposits can come only from people who will not earn any payment from the couple’s home purchase.
- Offer a second registry for traditional gift items as a courtesy to your wedding guests.
- Send personalized thank-you notes to all your gift givers.
Sources: Joanne Rossa, Diana Boucher, Carol Peterson, and Geoffrey Laux of SunTrust Mortgage
Comments
One Response to “Mortgage Wedding Registry Helps Newlyweds With Home Down Payment”
You could also look at using My Dream Home Registry . com to have friends & family help you pay your downpayment. If you have a home, you can show any “big ticket” items that you need such as paint, new countertops, cabinetry, etc. The website is done very classy and you can custom as much as you like with your own registry pages.