Santander Bank discovers Red Hook, by Nathan Weiser

On January 24, Santander Bank, which has a branch at 498 Columbia Street, held a home-buyers workshop in the basement of the River of God Christian Center, at 110 Wolcott Street.

Leon Gelzer, Santander’s Mortgage Development Officer, served as host. Branch Manager Christian Jarama also showed up to meet his neighbors.

“We want you to come in and become a customer to have access to a bank that is right in your community, so you will not have to go all the way downtown to access your money,” Gelzer told the gathering.
Santander took over the branch when they purchased Sovereign Bank, which previously had taken over Brooklyn’s Independence Savings Bank.

Independence had opened in Red Hook as a result of community pressure, and was chartered under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which requires banks to tend to the borrowing needs of the community that it serves.

Serve neighbors better
“We have decided that because we are a CRA branch, we needed to serve our neighbors even better,” Gelzer said. “That is why we are adding hours.”
Santander will be open during the week on some weekdays from 9 am until 6 pm, and on Saturday’s they will be open from 9 am until 2 pm.

According to church member Josephine DeJesus, they’ve had two previous workshops in this series. “The first one was on budgeting, and the second one was on understanding credit and understanding banking,” she said.

Gelzer made it known that Santander wants to educate the community and wants to continue to do workshops each quarter.

At the home-buyer’s workshop, Jarama told everyone that is important to make sacrifices when preparing to buy a house. Some ideas that the attendees volunteered as ways to save money included not eating out as much, making meals at home more, bringing lunch to work and not doing nails and hair as much.

“Once you come to that realization that there are sacrifices that you need to make, it is key, because whatever we think, we feel, we do,” Gelzer added.

Another suggestion that Gelzer had was to have a relationship with a good real estate agent.

“You want to make sure that you have an experienced realtor because if they say that they just started, you are teaching them how to do their job,” Gelzer said. “You don’t need that. You walk into the office and you should ask how long have you been doing this. If they say part time then the first thing you should say is let me speak to your broker.”

Gelzer believes that one should make sure the realtor is experienced because then they can adequately walk you through the process.

Gelzer informed everyone that the rates can vary between a condo, a co-op, and a one to four family home. He said that it is important to know what you want and what is best for you. Also, he told everyone that they need to have a 620 credit score when moving in. Gelzer explained to everyone in attendance how to get their credit scores above 620.

Multiple family a good option
DeJesus, who has attended all three of the workshops so far, has had her mindset shifted as far as the kind of home that she wants to move to.

“One thing is that I came in with a mindset of getting a condo or co-op, but then after the workshop, I understood that in getting a multiple family home, it would benefit me in terms of it being easier for me to access, as well as also the apartments paying the mortgage for itself,” DeJesus said. “It kind of opened me up to embracing getting a multi-family as opposed to a condo. That is my goal now.”

Gelzer added that no one should use a bank that gives you “free money.” This means that they are giving you down payment assistance because it is costing you to get the money.

“They are giving it to you at a higher interest rate,” Gelzer said.
The longtime home buying specialist told everyone that it is important to know exactly what you want in the house that you want to purchase. He asked everyone what the one thing is that the house must have.

One said that closet space is important, another said that a walk in closet is ideal to be able to store stuff, a third person said that she wanted a bathroom in her bedroom and two people said that having a backyard was what they desired the most.

Purchasing the right property for everyone in the family is very important, according to Gelzer.

He told a story about when he visited three houses. At the first one, his kids started crying. At the second home, it seemed like it was the right one at first, but it ended up not having three things they wanted.

“But the third house I went to my kids started claiming their rooms,” Gelzer said. “That was the right house for me.

He went on to make a point about taking children and spouses to look at the home because they need to have the most input.

“If you are married, take your husband [or wife] and your children because they need to have the buy-in as well,” Gelzer said. “Men, don’t take your brother with you – take your wife. She needs to have that buy-in.”

Importance of mortgage officer
“It is very crucial in today’s time, when you are going for a mortgage, you make sure you work with a reputable mortgage officer,” Gelzer said. “How do you know somebody is experienced? Ask how many years have you been doing this.”

Gelzer suggested finding out who has the best rates. He also emphasized not going to a part time or inexperienced real estate broker.

Gelzer wanted the takeaway to be that the buying process is easier with partners you know and trust, to be prepared before one looks at a home and that it is possible to fill out a pre-qualification form at Santander.

Santander finances one to four family homes, co-ops, and condos. They also have a commercial division that does six units and above.

In the future, Santander Bank aims to do more workshops to help educate locals in the community about the various financial questions they may have.