On the Right Road to Homeownership

TOOT!  Did you hear that?  That's me on the horn of my non-profit, the Allston Brighton CDC.  Our highly successful homeownership training courses were featured prominently in our local newspaper:

...the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation [runs a] “Homebuying 101” course, a four-week program devoted to guiding potential homeowners through all the steps of purchasing their own house or condominium.

The CDC has been doing the introductory home-buying course since 1995, with more than 3,000 graduates, more than half of whom have bought homes, according to CDC Homeownership Program Specialist Jose Paulino. The program, which is offered in English and Spanish, attracts a diverse range of ages, genders and races.

...the CDC has been doing its part to help people avoid the defaults and foreclosures at the heart of the current financial crisis. The class focuses almost as much on how to afford a home as it does on finding one, and they also offer more specific classes on mortgages and foreclosures.

“We talk about the process: how people get in trouble; how the process gets started; what the bank does; and what the rights of the homeowner are,” Paulino said. “We also talk about predatory lending so people know how to find a good mortgage in order to avoid foreclosure.”

In addition, all graduates of the program get access to special CDC resources to help them find and afford their new homes, Paulino said. Successfully completing the course also allows them to qualify for several government assistance programs run by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that offer low-interest loans and down-payment assistance.

For their graduates who do purchase homes, the CDC is also producing a Homeowners Strategies Toolkit, which contains useful information about owning your own home. [...]

“In my personal opinion, a homebuying 101 class should be mandatory for first-time home buyers,” Paulino said. “Buying a property is a complex process — putting information together, accessing resources, navigating through the process — it’s difficult. For a first-time home buyer it’s stressful, but when people take the classes, they’re more informed, more empowered, to take that step.”

We also offer classes specific to buying and owning a condo.  Our homebuying program is a jewel in our programmatic crown.  I believe we qualify more moderate-income homebuyers for secure, affordable mortgage products than just about any other organization in the state.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that far fewer of our buyers have entered into foreclosure as well.

Allston Brighton is a neighborhood where one third of residents are foreign-born, one quarter live below the poverty line, and fewer than 25% of homes are owner-occupied.  We are a large, diverse and eclectic community sandwiched between Boston's wealthy suburbs Brookline and Newton.  The truth is that not many of our homebuyers can even afford to buy in our neighborhood given the skyrocketing housing prices of the last decade.  But our program offers something for both conservative and liberal economic minds: cautious and responsible training and qualification for lower-income homebuyers to enter the market, sponsored by some public monies but more private funds and administered by a private non-profit.  As well as a partnership with the government to qualify borrowers who otherwise might lack access to credit for stable homeownership opportunities.

TOOT!  TOOT!

(Photo of the Aberdeen district, Brighton, MA by Steven T. Moga)