Homewise to help with home ownership

LOS LUNAS — Owning a home is becoming an increasingly difficult feat, but organizations like Homewise are working to make it more attainable, especially for those who may need some financial assistance.

At a recent Los Lunas Village Council meeting, Homewise Chief Operating Officer Elena Gonzales shared information with the council about Homewise and how the organization is utilizing resources at the local and state level to make homeownership more feasible for people in rural communities.

“Homewise is a nonprofit and a community development financial institution; think of it as a nonprofit community lender. Our main mission is to help create successful and sustainable homeowners, strengthen neighborhoods and really just try to help people get ahead,” said Gonzales.

“In this country, most of us get ahead with the biggest purchase of our lives and, for most of us, the biggest asset is your home and building that equity. If you live in this country, you know what has happened in the last couple years and post COVID with housing prices; it’s really challenging.”

Gonzales said Homewise provides home-buyer preparation services, which include free one-on-one financial coaching to help you prepare for the home-buying process. They also have free workshops to help people learn how to manage money and make informed home-purchase decisions.

According to the company’s flier, Homewise also provides real estate services to help find the right home for your lifestyle and budget as well as “affordable, fixed-rate mortgages with stable monthly payments for the life of the loan. We also have down payment assistance for those who qualify.”

“Costs are going up everywhere on the prices of homes,” said Gonzales. “In Albuquerque, we’re creeping up and Valencia County, Los Lunas, Belen, Rio Communities, they’re not far behind Albuquerque.

“Most of the families in New Mexico that we serve, and we do lend statewide, they need help,” she said. “They need down payment assistance, and so we get really creative, as creative as we can, to raise resources so we can administer these funds for down payment assistance.”

Gonzales explained how they have made progress working with larger cities, such as Santa Fe and Albuquerque to come up with ways to assist financing for home buyers, but now they are “trying to get creative in more rural areas and see what’s available.”

For example, she encourages leadership to speak with local representatives and senators, as she shared how they were able to work with U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D) to utilize congress and senate discretionary funds as home ownership assistance vouchers for qualifying residents in her district.

“There’s really cool, creative ways to help people become homeowners, and I just wanted to come here tonight to talk about that,” said Gonzales. “I would love to continue this conversation and flesh out any ideas you have. In the coming months or years, we’ll be in a challenging kind of political environment, federally, but there’s local and state stuff. So I’m focused on New Mexico rural communities, small cities and what we can do locally and through the state.”

To learn more about Homewise, visit their website homewise.org.