Activity: Introducing Students to U.S. Banking Culture

Dwight Jarrat, ABCD’s South Side Head Start, Roslindale, MA
For our final activity we invited a realtor to come talk to the class. He, in turn, brought a mortgage originator from one of the local cooperative banks. Both the realtor and the bank representative are immigrants themselves and have a good reputation in the community. It was a dynamic meeting that took the entire three-hour class period. Not only were students introduced to the complicated Offer to Purchase form and Purchase and Sales Agreement, but they were reminded of the excellent soft-second mortgage programs (refer to Appendix 1, Glossary of Home-Buying and Money-Management Terms) available to low-income city residents. The importance of hiring a real estate lawyer was emphasized, given that even nice realtors represent the seller. Students had a lot to say and had a lot of questions.

Deborah Marquardt, We’re All in This Together (W.A.I.T.T.) House, Roxbury, MA
A community educator/liaison from a local bank and trust spoke to the class about finance and money management issues. He is a frequent presenter at W.A.I.T.T. House and a particular favorite with the students. In the past, he has been able to make banking seem accessible even to people who express suspicion about the motives of large financial institutions. Upon hearing of the students’ interest in home buying, he offered to explain the loan process from the bank’s point of view. He described what criteria the bank deems important when reviewing loan applications, and he offered advice about how to prepare for the loan application process. He also focused on fixing credit problems and how students can obtain their credit reports to begin to do that. As always, his information was clear and practical, and it added another important perspective to the home-buying process.

Sam Bernstein, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Boston, MA
In early March, a realtor based in Chinatown came to the class to meet students, make a presentation, and answer the questions they had generated earlier in the semester. This particular realtor knows our student population well because he’s been a substitute and part-time teacher at our school for many years. He speaks fluent Cantonese and some Mandarin. That day he spoke mostly in Cantonese. He had excellent bilingual materials. He compared the advantages and disadvantages of renting and owning, highlighting the tax advantages of owning a home. He showed pictures of different kinds of homes so students could compare them. He explained in detail how a broker functions. And he presented a monthly payment chart based on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. The students were prepared for and welcomed this new information, and they asked even more questions.

Shelly Rieman, Housing Activists, El Centro del Cardenal, Boston, MA
We finished the home-buying unit by inviting a banker and a housing activist from a tenant rights group to come speak to the class about home buying. These speakers, along with the Fannie Mae Foundation and Adult Literacy Resource Institute (ALRI) materials that I distributed to the students (Choosing the Mortgage That’s Right for You/Abriendo La Puerta De Su Propio Hogar, published by the Fannie Mae Foundation, and a list of home-buying resources and agencies from the ALRI’s 1997 home-buying readiness project), provided students with a good jumping-off point to begin the home-buying process.

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