NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers

NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers offer a comprehensive range of user-friendly services that are attracting new customers and significantly boosting home ownership among the nation’s most underserved buyers — women, minorities and families of modest means. (See diagram)

Data collected from NeighborWorks organizations over the last decade shows the majority of homebuyers served at HomeOwnership Centers are African American, Latino or other minority groups, while two-thirds or more are low-income, and one-third are single women.

With appealing, high-visibility locations, consistent standards of operation, and a focus on customer convenience, NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers are reinventing the traditional community-based development model. All over the country they are moving from side streets to Main Street, expanding their markets, and opening their doors to “one-stop” shopping for prospective homebuyers and homeowners. Customers can access all of the services, products and training necessary to shop for, purchase, renovate, insure, maintain and manage a home — under one roof.

One hundred HomeOwnership Centers are serving communities across the country. Increasingly, community organizations find that this one-stop shopping, high-quality service concept is a winning strategy for both their customers and their partners. Joining this fast-growing initiative helps local NeighborWorks organizations raise their visibility, reach more diverse customers, centralize homebuyer services and training, enlist more investing partners and increase their homeowner output and economic impact.

HomeOwnership Centers Provide Creative Solutions
NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers address three problems that can hamper community-development efforts, especially when groups move beyond a single, local market area:

• Opportunities to own a home vary enormously across cities, counties, and regions;
• Low- and moderate-income home-owners are vulnerable to circumstances that can result in delinquency and default, and require ongoing support;
• Large-scale replication of a successful model is usually prohibitively costly.

The NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center model provides a basic operating framework, and there are common elements including marketing and the range of products and services provided. Within that, however, there are opportunities for individual centers to customize their product and service offerings based on local market needs. The core homebuyer education, home inspection, home-improvement lending, and postpurchase services are designed to “delinquency-proof” borrowers who, due to lower incomes, savings or other characteristics may be at higher risk for delinquency or default.

Services and Products of NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers

Homebuyer education, ranging from introductory group orientations to intensive, individualized counseling, usually in the customers’ first language;

Energy efficiency programs;

Asset building and wealth creation programs;

Home inspections and cost estimates;

Affordable first and second mortgages;

Property insurance counseling;

Contractor referrals and construction monitoring;

Home-maintenance workshops;

Training classes for resident leaders and neighborhood groups; and

Delinquency-prevention counseling.

The Value Added by HomeOwnership Centers
The most innovative feature of NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers is their market-based strategy of delivering comprehensive, high-quality home-ownership services at declining per-unit costs. Neighborhood Reinvestment has tested an idea proposed by community-based organizations, developed a national model and then aggressively replicated the model in a cost-saving response to overwhelming demand from local communities. Replication of this successful model requires the combined efforts of a strong community-based organization, supportive lenders, and participating real estate, insurance and local government partners.

The implementation of uniform standards, reduction of duplicative efforts, and peer-to-peer sharing of winning strategies produces economies of scale and speeds up the dissemination of knowledge and lessons learned through the entire network of NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Centers. This innovative approach keeps buying a home as simple as possible, and makes it easier to reach out to customers with special financial, cultural or language needs. Each new buyer receives the training needed to support long-term success as a homeowner. In addition, the training connects home ownership with community involvement, and trains homebuyers in community leadership strategies.

Standards and Technical Assistance
NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center Standards
Neighborhood Reinvestment and the NeighborWorks network established a short set of outcome-oriented standards for HomeOwnership Centers to ensure that services were consistent in quality and scope across the nation. Organizations that are selected and funded to develop a NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center are required to meet or exceed the established standards in the following categories:

• Leadership
• Full-Cycle LendingSM certification
• Customer service
• Customer-tracking systems
• Cost recovery and partners
• Marketing materials
• Staffing
• Home-ownership production
• Service-delivery systems
• Financial-management systems
• Location and design
• Monitoring and evaluation

Technical Assistance Received
To achieve the above standards, each NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center receives considerable financial and technical assistance, as well as marketing and promotional support. Selected organizations are eligible to receive assistance in the following categories:

• Start-up funding
• Location and design technical assistance
• Marketing
• Peer support
• Predevelopment funding
• Feasibility and market analysis
• Partnership development
• Training opportunities for staff
• Research and evaluation
• Internal systems

For more information on NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Programs, please contact NeighborWorks Senior Homeownership Specialist Milt Sharp.