First-Time Home Buyers
Patient guidance, real numbers, no pressure — from pre-approval to keys in hand.
Why First-Timers Choose April
Buying your first home shouldn’t feel like a leap in the dark. With 16+ years around Montana buying, selling, remodeling, and building, I’ve walked every kind of first-time journey — and I’ll walk yours with you.
Patient guidance
Local lender and inspector network
Honest advice on every house
The Path to Your Front Porch
01
Know your numbers before you fall in love.
02
Search smart, tour with intent, feel it out.
03
Real numbers, honest comps, no games.
04
Know exactly what you’re buying.
05
Keys in hand. Time to breathe.
Montana-Friendly Financing
Western Montana has real programs for first-time buyers — I’ll connect you with lenders who use them every day.
Stockman offers personalized lending solutions backed by local expertise, helping homebuyers navigate the financing process with confidence.
CrossCountry Mortgage provides a wide range of home financing options, helping buyers find mortgage solutions that fit their needs and long-term goals.
Whitefish Credit Union combines community-focused service with flexible home financing options, supporting buyers throughout their homeownership journey.
YOUR FINANCING PARTNERS
Explore my trusted lending partners who offer personalized financing solutions
and expert guidance to help make your homeownership journey easier.
Free Buyer’s Guide
A plain-English walkthrough of the whole process — pre-approval, offers, inspections, and closing — written for western Montana.
Common Questions
Do I need 20% down?
No — FHA loans start at 3.5% down, and Montana Housing programs offer down payment assistance to qualifying buyers.
How much home can I afford?
Start with the mortgage calculator below, then we’ll get you pre-approved to see real numbers.
Is a fixer-upper a good first home?
Sometimes — with 16+ years of remodeling experience, I’ll help you see what a house can become, and what it will cost.
How long does closing take?
Usually 30–45 days in western Montana, once you’re under contract.
Tools for Your Search
Tell me what you’re looking for and get new matching listings the moment they hit the market.
Play with real numbers — price, down payment, rate — and see the monthly picture.
Let’s Talk
Book a free 20-minute call — tell me where you are in the process and I’ll point you in the right direction.
(406) 360-2990
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to