Posted on June 28, 2017
BOSTON --- MHP would be remiss if it let National Homeownership Month go one second further without recognizing the Massachusetts Homeownership Collaborative for its pivotal role in raising the standard of homebuyer education.
An initiative managed by the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA), the collaborative recently celebrated its 20th year of providing professional training, curriculum standards, and best practices criteria for homebuyer counseling agencies across Massachusetts.
Homebuyer education is a key part of the ONE Mortgage Program. It helps low- and moderate-income first-time buyers understand what they can afford, and what mortgage program is the best fit for them.
Every individual and family that buys a home with ONE Mortgage takes a class from a counseling agency that’s received a seal of approval from CHAPA’s collaborative. It’s a major reason why ONE Mortgage has been able to serve homebuyers with an average income of between $50,000 and $60,000 while maintaining historic delinquency and foreclosure rates that are at or below the rates of prime loans.
“MHP helped create and administers the ONE Mortgage Program but it’s a big tent involving participating lenders and homebuyer educators,” said Judy Jacobson, MHP’s deputy director. “We appreciate the high education standards CHAPA sets and the work all the educators due to get buyers ready for the biggest purchase of their lives.”
ONE Mortgage – then known as SoftSecond – was created in 1990 in response to a study that found patterns of mortgage discrimination in Boston. The program was created to give low- and moderate-income and minority homebuyers better access to mortgage financing. It was piloted in Boston and then taken statewide. Homebuyer education became a requirement of the program to ensure that buyers were financially prepared.
In 1996, the Massachusetts Homeownership Collaborative was created to bring together educators and form a standard curriculum and best practices for counseling agencies.
“Before the collaborative, it was the wild wild west,” said Jim Wilde, executive director of the Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership. “There were no web sites and you had the same conversation on the phone with prospective buyers 4,000 times. Then the collaborative came along and worked to create a common curriculum and standards for all of us. I’m a big fan of the collaborative.”
The collaborative celebrated its 20th year with a ceremony and reflective panel discussion in December at the Federal Reserve. Present were many of the educators who helped form, inform and strengthen the collaborative through the years. In addition to Jacobson and Wilde, discussion participants and attendees included Richard Walker of the Federal Reserve, Dana LeWinter of the Massachusetts Community and Banking Council, Aida Franquiz of Boston Private Bank, Angelo Nuby of MassHousing and Tom Callahan of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance (MAHA).
During the discussion, Jacobson noted the impact of the late Florence Hagins, who was the very first SoftSecond buyer and then went on to be a respected homebuyer counselor who helped hundreds of buyers who took classes at the MAHA. After the discussion, CHAPA’s Karen Wiener oversaw a ceremony in which 47 counseling agencies were given new or renewed seals of approval.
Every year, MHP interviews families and individuals about how they bought their home with SoftSecond or ONE Mortgage. Unprompted, most buyers talk about how the classes gave them the knowledge and confidence they needed to buy a home, something they thought might not be possible. Here’s a sound bite from our 2016 annual report interview with MonaLisa McArthur, who bought her home after taking a class at the NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center of Central Mass.
“By taking the class and learning each step of the (homebuying) process, I didn’t have any fear anymore,” said McArthur. “I was taught so much. I knew I could do it. Now, I tell all my friends who want to buy to TAKE THE CLASS.”
That’s a testimony to the CHAPA collaborative.
ABOUT ONE MORTGAGE: Prosperous families. Stable and secure neighborhoods. Sound, private-sector loans that get repaid. That’s what ONE Mortgage delivers.
Since 1990, ONE Mortgage and its predecessor – the SoftSecond Loan Program – have helped more than 20,000 low- and moderate-income families purchase their first and home and has delivered $3.5 billion in below-market, private mortgage financing.
ONE Mortgage is a 30-year, fixed-rate loan with a minimum 3 percent down payment (5 percent for three-family properties). ONE homebuyers save more each month because they do not have to pay for costly private mortgage insurance.
State interest subsidies are used to reduce monthly payments in the early years of homeownership and then public funds are repaid by borrowers when they successfully sell their home or refinance out of the program.
For more information about ONE Mortgage, go to www.mhp.net/onemortgage.