Chapter Two

Planning

Congratulations! You have made the decision to buy a home. Chapter One was an overview of what you needed to think about as you decided whether buying a home made sense for you. You also began some preliminary work, such as completing the budget worksheets, determining the price home you can afford, and beginning to think about your planning team. In Chapter One, we also reviewed Joe’s financial situation and learned how resources were blended to make his home purchase possible.

Now that you know the price range that you can afford to spend for a house, you are ready to move forward. In Chapter Two, the work begins. The important first step is to create an action plan. According to many successful home buyers, developing and implementing a carefully thought-out plan is well worth the time and effort.

In this chapter, you will learn about a successful planning process for buying a home that many people have found extremely helpful. This process involves a "person-centered" approach in which you, the buyer, make all the decisions about where you will live, in what type of house, and with whom. The person-centered planning process is just one approach that you, along with the people who are assisting you, may choose to use or to modify to fit your unique situation.

Chapter Two begins with an overview of the "person-centered approach" and how it may be applied to the homeownership planning process. Next, each of the four stages of the proposed planning process is described. In Stage 1, you will lay the groundwork for planning when you (a) choose a facilitator, one person on whom you can depend throughout the entire process; and a housing counselor/education provider, a person who is trained and certified to assist you throughout the home buying process; (b) decide who else can help with the process; and (c) create personal profiles as a mechanism to help you think about your life, needs, wants, and homeownership dreams. These profiles may be shared with others to help them learn about you and the things that are important to you. The second stage, or Stage 2, involves gathering a group of supporters around you, beginning with an initial meeting. In Stage 3, you will document your dreams, needs, and wants for a house, neighborhood, and assistance.

The fourth and final stage, Stage 4, includes turning your thoughts to actions. In this stage, you will document the opportunities that are available to you to help achieve your dream of homeownership, as well as the obstacles that must be overcome. Then, you will create and implement an action plan that will take you from dreaming to inserting the key in your own front door. Finally, a checklist has been included at the close of the chapter that may help you keep track of the process along the way.

Throughout all four stages, we will use Joe’s examples to illustrate and describe the process.