A report on HES Extension programs serving Missouri's families & communities

Course opens the door for home buyers

Clovie Lee of suburban St. Louis needed a complete source of information in a hurry when she bought her house in the summer of 1995. She turned to a home buyers course developed by MU extension specialists. "The course was very thorough," she said. "Even if you're not a first-time home buyer, you can really benefit from the class."

Debbie Larrow of Barnhart, Mo., wishes she would have known about the home-buyers class last year- before they began looking for house-buying information. "It would have saved us a lot of time and energy," she said. "It took us three nights in the class to get all the information it took us a year to find for ourselves."

Lee and the Larrows are among the more than 150 people in the past two years who have enrolled in an innovative home-buying course developed in the St. Louis area by extension in partnershp with Consumer Credit Counseling Service-St. Louis (CCCS). The Home Ownershp Made Easier (H.O.M.E.) course provides practical information aimed at making buying a home a little less daunting.

The course was developed by Sharon Laux, extension environmental design specialist; Victoria Jacobson, director of education with CCCS; and Patrice Dollar, extension consumer education specialist. Among the three of them, they cover every aspect of home buying: Laux teaches the steps involved in buying a home; Dollar discusses financial management; and Jacobson teaches about credit management issues.

Patrice Dollar, consumer education specialist,
teaches a primer in home buying to a St. Louis class.

"Each organization brings expertise from a different perspective," said Kay Gasen, director of extension's East Central Region. "It's an innovative partner linking experts in housing, financial planning and consumer credit issues."

In May 1995, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) of St. Louis began sponsoring H.O.M.E. classes on a regular basis. More than 80 St. Louis area mortgage banks belong to the MBA. "The mortgage bankers wanted to provide a home-buyers course like this," said Rochelle Rinderknecht, an MBA representative. "When we learned about this course, we decided to sponsor the class. It's been very well received."

The H.O.M.E. course is targeted to first-time home buyers, but anyone who wants to learn the intricacies of the home-buying process may take the course.

Participants receive a binder of information, including a Home Buyers Guide, at the initial session and a certificate upon completion. This course meets or exceeds the Community Home Buyer Education requirements for the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. The three-session course is affordable - $10 a person.

For the many aspiring home buyers who have completed the course, H.O.M.E. has not only educated and prepared, it has empowered as well. "My real estate agent was very surprised at what I knew about buying a house," said Carmelette Williams of St. Louis, who completed the course last spring. "Once he told me something that differed from what I had learned in the course," she continued. "I questioned his facts. Then he checked on it - and later told me I was right. He said he was impressed at what I knew about buying a house."