Put Yourself on a Path to Homeownership

Is owning your home a dream you have for yourself? If you have been discouraged or don’t know where to start to reach your goal, hope and help is available to you! Here are a few steps to put yourself on a path to make that dream a reality.

Get educated. Readiness to buy a home is both financial and emotional. For homebuyers, this is usually the largest purchase they make in their lives — the huge financial obligation, acronyms and piles of documents to sign can be daunting and scary. The media and repeated negative messaging about Hawaii’s housing market can also have aspiring homebuyers consider homeownership out of reach before actually exploring the possibility.

Take a class from a trusted HUD-Approved Counseling Agency like Hawaii HomeOwnership Center (HHOC) and fi nd out about what’s involved in getting qualified for financing, how much down payment is really needed to buy a home, working with a REALTOR, insuring the home and the escrow process.

Create an action plan to make homeownership a reality. Homeownership coaching is available at agencies like HHOC where hopeful homebuyers can have confidential conversations about qualifying for financing. An action plan can be developed with the coach to address barriers to qualification, assessing down payment and closing cost needs, and first-time homebuyer resources that are available.

Be committed to your goal of homeownership. Hope and perseverance on the goal to buy a home are key ingredients to success. Homebuyers may need to make sacrifices to reach their goal of owning a home, such as home brewed coffee versus going to a coffee shop, bringing a lunch from home versus eating out and avoiding spending temptations to help save money to pay down debt or accumulate a down payment. For some, the process to become buyer-ready may take a while and acknowledging milestones of accomplishment along the way is important to remind yourself that you are making progress.

Remind yourself there is hope and help for homeownership. Through homeownership education and coaching, buyers can fi nd partners and cheerleaders in their journey to homeownership. First-time homebuyer resources can include 0% or below-market rate loans, which can make the monthly payment for a home more affordable. The Honolulu Board of REALTORS is also providing a $50 subsidy towards the HHOC lifetime membership fee for aspiring homebuyers referred to the program by one of their members — the balance is a nominal $10 investment by the participant.

Get on your path to homeownership and contact Hawaii HomeOwnership Center to fi nd out how to enroll in their program. Visit hihomeownership.org.