5 Things Borrowers Think About Homebuyer Education Initiatives

If you participate in Homebuyer Education (HE) initiatives, your credit union will find it very beneficial to evaluate your sessions and objectives. If you are having a wide participation by your members, then congratulations – you are surpassing a lot of challenges. If you look at your Homebuyer Education and realize it’s not quite getting the response you want it to, it’s time to take a step back and provide a more objective look. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do my members know my Homebuyer Education exists? How are we promoting the event?
• Is our homebuyer initiative online or do we offer in-person sessions too?
• If in person, are we hosting it often enough?
• Are we charging for the event? If so, is the charge reasonable?
• Is our event boring? What interaction takes place to engage members?
• Are we offering online options for those too busy to attend the in-person session?

A recent study by Fannie Mae, “Pre-Purchase Homeownership Education Qualitative Research: Lower-Income First-Time Homebuyers” revealed helpful feedback about homebuyer education that’s very applicable to your planning too.  Borrowers provided feedback about Homebuyer Education programs:

1. Borrowers that did participate in some type of educational session found that the content was comprehensive and valuable.
2. Borrowers preferred to learn in-person versus online because they value personal interaction, customization, and a hands-on approach to learning.
3. They also found that incentives were a huge motivator for borrowers to participate. While consumers found value in the education, they didn’t see it until after attending and weren’t motivated to attend unless there was some type of concrete incentive.
4. Borrowers also perceived that homebuyer education was more objective and credible when hosted by a government sponsored affiliation.

This data puts you in your members’ shoes and provides some perspective on HE. Homebuyer education is a great idea and valued, but it’s got to make sense and meet the members need. Keep these things in mind as you are building your homebuyer education initiative and evaluating what your credit union offers.