1st-Time Home Buyers Get $2,000 Grants

If earthquakes, fires and traffic jams aren’t enough to deal with for the average Southern Californian, trying to purchase a house for the first time can be an intimidating and overwhelming experience.

However, for first-time home buyer Laurel Rodriguez and several other Valley residents, assistance came in the form of a much-needed financial boost earlier this week.

On Tuesday, 10 first-time home buyers were randomly selected by a nonprofit foundation affiliated with San Fernando Valley Assn. of Realtors to receive $2,000 grants to be used to buy their first homes.

As a condition of the grant, recipients were required to match it with $2,000 of their own and to purchase property within the San Fernando or Santa Clarita valleys.

The winners were selected from more than 130 people who completed a three-part home-buyer counseling seminar sponsored by the association and six local mortgage lenders.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to give back to people who need this type of assistance,” said Mel Wilson, association president and a local real estate broker. “Over the last four years, the foundation has distributed over $100,000 in grants.”

Rodriguez plans to purchase the home she now rents in Pacoima.

“I had been renting for four years and found out that my landlord planned to sell the place because of low property values,” said the 42-year-old elementary school teacher. “I had never bought a house before, so I attended the seminars and learned things about home-buying that I didn’t know.”

Other winners included Michael and Jenny Baker, Emanuel Burnett, Dell and Ilene Chapple, Debra Hoffmann, Robin Maper, Elvia Myrna Martinez, Hamid Motaharnia, Sanjeev and Shilpa Singhi, and Bruce Wolf.