The surging real estate market shows no signs of slowing down, and that creates opportunities and challenges for buyers.

Buying your first home is an exciting time full of many emotions. You are ready to strike out on your own and become a homeowner! This time is also full of lots of important information, and sometimes you can feel a little overwhelmed.

You have been saving and planning, and now it is finally time to start shopping for your first home! We are thrilled for you! But before you hit the real estate listings or start interviewing agents, you have a little math to do.

At Carolina Trust, we pride ourselves in living out the motto, "Putting People Ahead of Profits." To us, this isn't just a tagline for billboards and commercials; it is a service model that we strive to implement through each and every interaction with our members.

As a not-for-profit financial cooperative, we are in business solely to serve. We treat our members like family and take care of their financial needs as if they were our own.

Recently on Living Local Carolina, we had the opportunity to sit down with Carolina Trust Members, Lance and Christy O'Connor. The O'Connors were First-Time Homebuyers who had previously experienced difficulty trying to get a mortgage with another lender. Their experience left them pretty discouraged about purchasing a home for their family. They were referred to Carolina Trust by their realtor, and were hopeful that we could help.

Connie Thompson, VP Mortgage Operations, greeted the O'Connors with open arms and welcomed them into the CTFCU family. She not only got them into their dream home but also made the process super easy with our no sweat mortgage service guarantee.

Check out the O'Connor's Living Local Carolina segment below:

Buying your first home doesn't have to be a terrifying experience. Surprisingly, however, that's how many perspective homeowners view the process. According to Nerdwallet, millennials, especially, are hesitant to enter into the home-buying arena, even though they'd like to become homeowners and see the value of buying over renting. Most feel they don't yet make enough money to foot a monthly mortgage.

With close proximity to the beach, beautiful weather year-round, and friendly people, the Grand Strand area is an ideal place for many northerners looking to relocate.

On a recent segment of Living Local Carolina, we sat down with Carolina Trust member, Phil Adikes, who recently relocated from New York and built his dream home with the help of the Carolina Trust Mortgage department.

Phil and his wife were initially referred to a lender who offered them a rate much higher than what they were expecting. After doing some research online, Phil realized that Carolina Trust was advertising a rate much lower than the lender he had initially been referred to. With just a few weeks until their closing date, the Adikes were skeptical of restarting the lending process.

However, our mortgage team was able to get the Adikes approved in less than 48 hours at a lower rate. After doing the math, they were able to save approximately $80,000 over the life of their mortgage by using Carolina Trust as their lender.

Check out the Adikes' Living Local Carolina segment below:

If you are thinking about buying a new home, then this is an exciting time; however, buying a home is also a big decision. For this reason, you need to make sure that you take the time to get this decision right. That also means working with the right mortgage lender. Unfortunately, there are a lot of common mistakes that homebuyers may make when looking for a lender. Understand these common pitfalls so you can make sure to avoid them.

If you are thinking about refinancing your mortgage to a lower rate, then you are probably looking forward to saving money on your monthly payments. You can also go through the refinancing process to tap into the equity in your home to finance home improvements while also consolidating your other debts. At the same time, this is a big decision and you need to work with the best mortgage lenders to get a new home loan that is favorable to your financial situation. When it comes to refinancing your first mortgage, there are a few tips to follow.

Everyday people secure home improvement loans for a wide variety of reasons. Some feel they need to upgrade rooms or build an addition for resale value purposes. Others want to improve the quality of life experience of living in the space. The different goals make it nearly impossible for someone to definitively say that one way or another is the best way to utilize home improvement loans. That’s because it really comes down to maximizing the benefit you want. But for argument's sake, let’s consider two tracts about “best” uses — lifestyle and return on investment (ROI).

At its core, the concept behind home equity is a simple one. It’s a term that describes the difference between the fair market or “appraised” value and the outstanding balance of any and all loans that you may still owe. If your home was worth $200,000 and you still owed $100,000, for example, the equity on your home would be $100,000.