Free Professional Advice For First-Time Homebuyers

Somebody Will Give You Straight Advice About Buying a House, for Free, and Isn't Selling You Anything

Every generation is supposed to hand the next one an easier time of it. That has been the arrangement for a long while, and it mostly held.

It isn't holding now. My kids' generation is delaying the big things, and buying a first house is near the top of the list. Some of that delay is a choice, and choice is fine. A lot of it isn't a choice. A lot of it is somebody running the numbers, twice, and concluding that it can't be done.

I can't make a house cheaper by writing a blog post. What I can tell you is that there is a person whose entire job is to sit down with you, look at your actual situation, and tell you the truth about it, and that person costs you nothing and is not selling you a thing.

Almost nobody in this county uses one.

What the Minnesota Homeownership Center is

It's an independent nonprofit, thirty-plus years old, and it doesn't lend money or sell houses. What it does is run a statewide network of homeownership advisors housed inside community organizations, and certify and train them to a common standard.

The advisors are certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and their time is paid for through federal, state and local grants rather than by you.

Here's the part that matters most, and it's the reason I'm writing about this one.

Almost everybody else in a home purchase gets paid when the purchase happens. The agent, the loan officer, the title company. That doesn't make any of them dishonest, and most of them aren't. It does mean that not one of them is neutral, and the Center's network is required to disclose conflicts of interest precisely because that's the whole point of the model.

You are allowed to have somebody in your corner who does not get paid if you buy. That's not a handout. It's just information, which is the cheapest thing government and nonprofits can give a person and often the most useful.

What an advisor actually does

Sits with you and works through what you can realistically afford, which is frequently not what a lender will approve you for. Looks at your credit and tells you the specific steps to raise it. Explains which mortgage products fit and which don't. Walks you through inspections, offers, and closing. Tells you how the scams work.

They'll also tell you if the answer right now is "not yet," which is worth as much as a yes and which nobody who works on commission is eager to say out loud.

The Center's homebuyer education program is called Home Stretch, and it covers the whole sequence from what you can afford to what happens at the closing table. You can take it in person or as a live virtual workshop, or as an online self-guided course if the schedule doesn't work.

There's a practical reason to take it beyond the education. Minnesota Housing's first mortgage programs come with down payment and closing cost assistance loans attached, and completing a qualified homebuyer education course is a requirement before closing. So the free class is often the gate to the money.

I'm not going to print a dollar figure for that assistance, because the limits change and I'd rather you get the current one than a stale one from me. The advisor will know it. That's the point of the advisor.

Where to find one near here

Two places to start.

The Center runs a search tool that finds an advisor by location, by service, and by language spoken. The language list includes Spanish, Somali, Hmong, Amharic, Oromo, and Swahili, which matters in Chaska more than some people assume.

Closer to home, the Carver County Community Development Agency is a HUD-approved housing counseling agency serving every city in this county, Chaska and Chanhassen and Victoria and Waconia and Carver and Cologne and Mayer and New Germany and Norwood Young America and Watertown. The CAP Agency also keeps an office at 110 West Second Street in Chaska.

You can also just call the Center directly at 651-659-9336, or toll free at 866-462-6466.

Hay asesores que hablan español, y el servicio no tiene costo.

This isn't only for people buying

The part I'd most like people already in a house to know is that the same network handles the bad months.

Since 2008 the Center's advisors have helped more than 40,000 Minnesota households avoid foreclosure. If you are behind on a mortgage payment, or about to be, there are free foreclosure prevention advisors and there is more room to work with than most people believe.

The single most useful thing I can say about that is: call early. Options that exist in month two do not all still exist in month six. People wait because they're embarrassed, and the embarrassment costs them the options.

The network also does refinancing counseling and reverse mortgage counseling, which matters for older homeowners around here who are getting mail about both. And the Center keeps a directory of home rehab and repair programs, which is how a furnace or a roof stops being the thing that ends somebody's homeownership.

Why this one is on the list

Since 1993, this network has helped more than 100,000 Minnesota households buy and keep their homes. That's a lot of people for an organization most Minnesotans have never heard of.

I don't think a free advisor solves the housing problem in this district. It doesn't. The prices are the prices, the inventory is the inventory, and those are arguments for another day and a longer post.

But I've watched people talk themselves out of things because nobody ever laid the actual numbers in front of them, and I'd rather somebody find out for sure that they can't buy this year than assume it and never ask. Sometimes the answer surprises people in the good direction.

If you call and hit a wall, tell me where the wall was. I'll help you get around it.