MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Tamika Walker was paying $800 a month to rent a Northaven house, and grew tired of it.
“Paying rent and just seeing (the money) disappear,” the 37-year-old IRS employee recalled. “I wasn’t going to have anything to call my own; I’m paying this ‘mortgage’ in rent. I decided I wanted to buy a house.”
After 10 years of discipline to clear up $25,000 in credit card and car-loan debts as well as a credit history that included bankruptcy, Tamika and her husband Clarence Walker bought a house.
They paid $129,900 in July 2014 for a new home in the Wolf River Bluffs subdivision near McLean and James Road.
For the same amount they had been paying in rent, Tamika said, “I can pay my mortgage and my utilities.”