Genesis Housing Corporation develops affordable housing and provides free housing counseling services to help educate consumers on housing and financial issues. Our general activities include the rehabilitation of homes to improve and stabilize neighborhoods and to provide safe and decent housing for lower income families. Genesis Housing Corporation also provides housing counseling, credit, money management and foreclosure prevention services.

Improving credit scores is a very complex issue. There are five main factors that affect a person’s FICO score. Genesis Housing Corporation teaches a free (two-hour) class on Understanding Credit, which breaks down this topic into understandable language. We also have funding from the Montgomery County Housing and Community Development Department to provide free credit reports with scores for students in our class. Following the class, we encourage every student to set up an individual session where we review in detail your credit report, and develop a Plan of Action for the next 6-9 months. This usually ties together a Money Management Strategy as well. Since these topics are closely related, we usually recommend our class on Money Management, where we explore topics related to spending (all spending, not just bill paying) and why families at many different income levels often seem to struggle financially.

Our class on Home Buying Basics takes you step by step through the home buying process, and the order in which to do them. We cover what lenders look for so that you can determine if you are ready to buy and how much you can afford. We talk about special mortgages and grants for first time home buyers, choosing a lender, a realtor and understanding the bidding process, the basics of the Agreement of Sale, and how much money you will need to be able to buy. Our individual sessions are designed to help you calculate an affordable price range and explore multiple options mortgage and grant that may be available to you.

Our Money Management Class focuses on topics relating to spending habits and reducing other spending areas to get focused on a “needs only” budget in tough times. In addition, we work with existing homeowners who are delinquent on their mortgage or their taxes, to develop a strategy to attempt to get caught up, by analyzing spending patterns and helping them set up a realistic budget, while talking to the lender or tax collector on their behalf to consider options to help them get back on track.