Bobby and Aleks buy a house, part 2

The last time we checked up on Bobby and Aleks, the soon-to-be newlyweds had just made the decision to, in his words, "stop wasting money on rent" and begin the process of looking for a house. Their next step was to take advantage of a local nonprofit's homebuyer training program, where they found out they might be able to get assistance with a downpayment and came to the realization that becoming homeowners was within their reach. Bobby says:

After I proposed and it wasn't for a few months that we started bouncing around the idea of buying a home. Then we decided to go to a 1st time homebuyer class. Before the class, the biggest concern was affordability.

During and after the class, things became a little clearer. The class was through Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership and if you take the class and finish it, you get a certificate of completion that lasts 2 years. With that certificate, you could get downpayment or some kind of financial assistance from the organization.

There are some programs that give you up to $10K and after five years of staying in the home, it becomes a grant. There are other programs that will give up to a certain percentage of the sales price for downpayment assistance but you only qualify for certain programs if u fell in a salary range. For a 2 person household under many of the programs, you cannot make more than $49K.

That's a totally different story but the net-net of it all is that after the class, we started realizing that there could be a strong possibility of us actually owning a home.

Next time: Obama helps the couple out and "realtor wars".