Service Offers Help for First-Time Buyers
Is this the year you’ll become a first-time home buyer?
If that’s your goal, then a good start to your house-hunting, experts say, is educating yourself on one of life’s most rewarding--but daunting--passages.
A free, six-hour, first-time home buyer workshop is offered once a month on Saturdays--the next one is this coming Saturday--by the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Los Angeles.
Among the topics covered:
* The real estate vocabulary.
* How to find and evaluate the most appropriate type of home. How to determine how much house you can afford.
* How to analyze your credit report.
* How to choose the type of loan that is best for your particular situation.
* How to prequalify for a mortgage.
* The real estate agent’s role, escrow, title and cost disclosures.
“Although many people are thinking about buying their first home, most don’t know what the process entails or how to get started,” said Richard Pittman, director of counseling and housing for the credit counseling service.
The workshops last from 8:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at 600 Citadel Drive, Suite 490, just off the Santa Ana Freeway in Commerce.
Workshops are scheduled for the following Saturdays in 1998: May 16, June 20, July 18, Aug. 15, Sept. 19, Oct. 17, Nov. 21 and Dec. 12.
A seminar in Spanish is scheduled for May 23, also at the service’s headquarters in Commerce.
Seating is limited and preregistration is required. For more information and reservations, call (213) 890-9585.
Workshop speakers also will discuss general credit issues, Pittman said, as well as homeownership and mortgage programs offered by city, state and federal governments and private lenders.
The service, a nonprofit community organization serving Los Angeles County since 1966, also offers a debt repayment plan that helps consumers get out of debt.
In this program, clients pay the service once a month and, for a fee that does not exceed $10 a month, it disperses the money to creditors.
The service also negotiates with creditors to waive or reduce interest rates or finance charges.
For those who stay on the debt management program successfully for at least 18 months, the service has arrangements with several lenders to provide mortgages.
To schedule a free one-on-one debt counseling session, call (800) 750-CCCS.
