Taking The First Step To Your Dream Home

Through the economic hardships we face today, owning a home seems far from reality for many, but this single parent is proof that it is possible.

“Taking that first step is really the big thing to do it takes courage,” says Marilyn Soares, a new homeowner. “It’s scary because you don’t know what you’re getting into but once you go through it with good counselors, like I had, it made the process so much easier.”

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement is providing counceling to help families and individuals like Marilyn to receive grants of over $12 thousand through their sponsors for a downpayment and more importantly, finding viable ways to save money.

“People are seeing that they can access free services and they’re coming out to be able to do that,” says Rosalee Puaoi, who is the Loan Fund Manager at CNHA. “To date we’ve serviced more than 400 clients with our homebuyer education and financial education classes.”

“We’ve seen about 15 people graduate from the program, which means that they had to go through all of the homebuyer education, meet with our counselors to just get energized and make sure that they’re lining all of their ducks up in a row,” says Rosalee.

Marilyn is one of these successful graduates and understands that managing her finances and budgeting doesn’t end with these homebuyer and financial education courses.

“That’s the steps that you need to not only get a home, but to keep a home,” she says. “It’s all about saving money, managing your finances well, putting everything into perspective.”

“This means that my daughter has a steppingstone to hand down to the generations after me and it’s something that they can show their children that what I did was possible for them also,” says Marilyn.

This could be you too. For more information, check out CNHA’s website at www.hawaiifamilyfinance.org