Homebuying: whom do you trust?
Venturing into the unknown is often largely a matter of trust. True in adventure caving; true in homebuying, as we match up my life with a New York Times story about educating renters:
MARGUERITE WILLIAMS always wanted to own a home in
In our bicameral brains we have both adventurous id and cautious superego, with cautious Jekyll normally blocking lustful Hyde:
Part of me is upright and manly, the other part venal and furtive.
The fear is greater when the new is truly unknown … and risky:
It wasn’t a lack of money that held her back — she works in admissions at Southern Connecticut State University — as much as a lack of information.
Some years ago, on a long-weekend mini-vacation to
Opening a huge hole in the ground since 1925.
Wandering through the gift shop, we found the registration desk. Who’ll be our guide? I asked the young blond counter kid who ran our credit card for eighty bucks a head. “Look for the filthy guy,” he said.
What constitutes an expert? Someone who looks as if he has done it before, and whose appearance matches our image of an aficionado. For homebuying, we want a sober reverend:
Rev. Carl McCluster.
For caving — well, someone who looks a little different:
A few moments later, we were greeted by gum-chewing Ryan, a smiling younger version of John Belushi: round face, big grin, black stubble, squinting eyes, a blue bandanna folded into a do-rag to cushion a red hockey helmet festooned with silver duct tape holding flashlights, glow sticks, and other gadgets. He had been a standup comic in
Our fear is not just that we lack knowledge, we are even more afraid that someone with more knowledge will prove untrustworthy or downright malevolent:
A widow for more than 20 years, Ms. Williams feared that someone would talk her into a bad decision, or that the cost of keeping up a property would be more than she could handle.
Churches serving minority communities throughout the region are reaching out to people like Ms. Williams who, though perhaps financially capable of buying a home, are unsure how to go about it.
Because when we embark on our journey into the unknown, we are relying on the competence and the goodwill of our guide:
Downstairs, Ryan gave us each a release form to read and sign.
Marguerite Williams now owns a co-op in
It’s in the nature of these large complex transactions that they begin with an element of commitment, launching oneself head first into the unknown:
A 55-gallon drum had been set, end-on, in the hillside. Ryan climbed up to it, put his hand through a coffee-can-sized hole, repeatedly turned an out-of-sight but loudly protesting crank, and the lid popped open like can of beans. “Enter.”
Now imagine one end of this is stuck into a hillside.
Among the great lies of real estate is “Trust me just this once.”
For people not in the business, finance is a dark cave with tortuous entry, darkness, and the potential for being fleeced:
That’s posh for ‘realtor’
“They showed me I could almost do the same thing purchasing as renting,” Ms. Williams said in the four-room co-op she bought for $54,000 at Seaside Village Homes, a community of green-shuttered brick houses a few blocks from
In all such adventures, the key is not do-it-yourself products, but guided-tour services, coaching the neophyte through each step of the process:
Though the three programs operate somewhat differently, the basic structure is similar: sponsoring churches serve as the host of weeknight orientation sessions on home buying, where participants are encouraged to enroll in a more comprehensive education program developed by Freddie Mac. Financial counselors — typically trained church volunteers or community development corporation employees — review each participant’s credit history and, in one-on-one sessions, help them plan how to pay off debt barring access to a mortgage.
Having the coaches come from one’s own community is critical, for trust is personal, and the more you look like me, the more easily I can trust you.
The key element, however, is the churches, which promote the program to their members, who in turn spread the word. About 10 African-American and Hispanic churches are involved in the
With trust comes confidence to take on greater challenges:
“There is no cave.”
“Now we’re going to do Mind Bender. You don’t have to do it, but you really should. I think everybody here is thin enough.”
“If you get really stuck, we’ll stretch you through.”
“There’s only one way through: take off your helmet and hold it in your left hand. Not the right one, your shoulders and head won’t fit. Flying flat on your belly, extend your left arm straight ahead, right arm at your side. Turn your head to the right, which will lower your left shoulder. Then, using only your left hand’s fingers, your guy, and your toes, scrunch along in two-inch steps. Remember, take a few breaths first and calm yourself. Otherwise it’ll expand your rib cage and you will get yourself wedged. My first time in Mind Bender I got stuck for half an hour and was nearly in tears. If you get really stuck, we can always pull you out by your boots.”
Confidence may be fleeting, and it’s wise to seize it:
Having nearly come unglued in the cave darkness moments before, I was determined not to give myself additional time to stew and fret. I watched Ryan’s butt and boots as he belly-crawled down to the join at Mind Bender, then my turn. Left arm out, right arm back, I chanted to myself. Head to the right, crab walk like a tiptoeing dog from a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Without forcing my space, I kept moving, always moving, no matter how slowly. If I was moving I could not be jammed.
These sallies must be met with success, for confidence is also fragile and easily crushed:
More than 200 people have either gone through or are enrolled in the education program, according to Bridgette Russell, the interim director. Six people have closed on homes so far, but, she said, the number would be higher if home prices were lower.
“One of the greatest frustrations is you can get a person to address credit delinquencies and have sufficient savings to technically qualify for a mortgage,” Ms. Russell said, “but the housing market’s prices are limiting what people can do.”
Housing costs are also a sticking point at the ERDA Homes program in
As I’ve previously posted, saving precedes borrowing, and the behavioral change is the biggest asset of all.
While the end goal is homeownership, ERDA’s larger aim is to build financial knowledge within a population where, surveys have shown, roughly 30 percent of residents don’t even have bank accounts.
Since a clergy coalition and tenants associations began promoting the ERDA program about six months ago, about 100 residents have developed personal financial action plans, 104 have opened bank accounts and eight have been pre-approved for mortgages of $130,000 to $250,000.
Homeownership is the ultimate goal, but financial literacy is an achievement in its own right:
Rosemary Allette, who lives at Ravenswood, credits her financial counselor at ERDA with giving her the confidence to begin working toward mortgage approval.
An employee of the State Department of Education, Ms. Allette, 46, said the program motivated her to rein in her spending: she takes a bag lunch to the office, stays away from the shopping center across the street, pays her bills the day they arrive and has a set sum deducted from her paycheck for deposit into her savings. She has also paid off some old medical bills and had a $4,000 judgment removed from her credit report.
After 20 years of living in public housing, Ms. Allette said, “I’m saving up for, if not a house, at least for a co-op or a condo, something tangible, something to show for all my hard work all these years.”
None of us is immune; everybody’s afraid of something.
Had we done any caving before? Ryan asked us. No,
“Ordinary people spend their lives getting out of tense situations.
Repo man spends his life getting in to tense situations!”
“I don’t mind going into caves and tight spaces but there at least you can always breathe.”
“Just head for the light.”
