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A Home of Your Own Guide
A resource for housing educators and counselors to assist people with disabilities
This manual is designed to serve as a curriculum guide for housing educators and counselors who provide pre-purchase home buyer education to prospective homeowners with disabilities. It meets Fannie Mae's home-buyer curriculum guidelines for community lending mortgages as well as for HomeChoiceSM mortgages, which provide special underwriting flexibilities to people with disabilities. Fannie Mae requires lenders who originate these mortgages to ensure that borrowers receive pre-purchase training that accommodates their specific disability-related needs.
We believe that homeownership is a worthwhile and attainable goal and have developed this guide to enable housing educators to better serve people with disabilities.
Chapter 1 describes the advantages and disadvantages of owning a home. It discusses major issues that you'll need to help your clients address including the affordability of owning a home, non-income sources of financial assistance (including disability benefits) that may be available, credit history (and nontraditional credit history), and getting prequalified for a mortgage.
Chapter 2 describes assembling a planning team to help in every phase of the home-buying process and to provide ongoing support to the new homeowner. We provide a detailed example of one successful homebuyer's experiences using this approach.
Chapter 3 provides practical advice on shopping for a home, choosing and working with a real estate agent, making an offer on a house, and negotiating the final purchase price. We explain various contingencies that your clients may wish to include in the sales contract, as well as guardianship issues and state certification requirements. We recommend emphasizing the importance of a home inspection and planning for accessibility modifications.
Chapter 4 describes the process of obtaining a mortgage, the various types of loans available, and how to compare terms so that you can advise your clients when shopping for a mortgage. You will walk your clients through the process of completing a loan application, preparing for the loan interview, and explain the underwriting process that lenders use in deciding whether to approve or deny a loan. We also present strategies to overcome the obstacle of the possiblity of a client's loan application being denied.
Chapter 5 explains the closing (or settlement) process and the steps your clients must take prior to closing. You can ease your clients' anxiety about the "big day" by making sure they understand what closing costs they are responsible for and the documents they will be required to sign.
Chapter 6 provides a glimpse into the life of a homeowner. You can help your clients by providing advice regarding settling in, safety tips, money management, and strategies for maintaining their new home. We also explain what you can advise your clients to do if they ever run into problems paying their mortgage.
This manual concludes with a set of worksheets designed to help your clients throughout the home-buying process, an annotated resource list for housing educators and counselors, and a glossary of mortgage terms.
The guide is also available from Fannie Mae's Fulfillment Center at 1-800-471-5554 (refer to code number HI313). Another free resource Fannie Mae provides is the For Home Buyers & Homeowners section on our Web site. This section helps homebuyers and current homeowners find the Fannie Mae-approved lender and mortgage that's right for them. We detail mortgage products like Home Choice and provide listings of counseling agencies throughout the country.
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Preface