How to get extra grant money for first time home buyer!

[NW Admin]

Well, my husband and I have been preparing to buy our first home. We have low income and little savings so we knew now is the time to take advantage of all the grants and aid available.

We have plans to buy a fixer-upper home that is cheap and needs a lot of work. We will then do the repairs ourselves.

I wasn't really sure where to get started or what to do to find out about all the grant money that was available or how to go about getting the 2009 first time homebuyer rebate. So I started out by using Google to search for all kinds of related keywords.

The best resource ended up being the website for Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They have so many resources there that it took me days to look through it all. I want to try to make things a little easier by posting those resources for you. I will put them in an attached post though. Before I do that, I want to tell you about our next step.

HUD lead us to the Columbus Housing Partnership (CHP) here in Ohio. They offer a FREE HUD approved class that is REQUIRED in order to get the 5 grants I will cover in another attached post. The class was for home buying and teaches you the ins and outs of purchasing a home from getting your finances in order to closing day and inspections. We had the choice of a 2 day course or a 4 day course. We chose the 4 day course because it had better hours for us.

We thought the class might be really boring, but it turned out to be the opposite. We found ourselves listening very intently to what the teachers and speakers had to say and also that we were participating in the conversations. We both learned a lot and realized we didn't know as much as we thought we did. I do recommend taking one of these classes.

Now HUD can refer you to a business in your state that offers the same class and it should be free. CHP also offers free financial counseling once you have completed the class. We have not done that yet, but plan to. They can recommend what actions you should take to ensure your finances and credit are in order before you try to purchase a home. They will also help you determine what you can safely afford.

I will post more information in another post here soon. In the mean time, HUDs website is...
Homes and Communities - U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

The Columbus Housing Partnership website is...
Columbus Housing Partnership