 your piece of the rock on Think Tech, Hawaii. I'm your host, Abe Lee. I have been a real estate licensee since 1973. I'm the owner of Century 21 Iproperies, Hawaii, and work with close to 100 wonderful agents in real estate sales. I started Abe Lee seminars in 1980. I have taught over 10,000 students to get their real estate licenses and have taught continuing education to real estate agents to renew their license every two years. Our show is dedicated to helping buyers and sellers understand the process involved in a real estate transaction. Our special guests will talk about legal issues, escrow, title, getting a loan, surveys, home inspections, insurance, contracts, wills and trusts, and much, much more. And today, our special topic is how does Hawaii Homeownership Center help the first time buyer prepare to be a homeowner? And we're fortunate to have Reina Miyamoto, who's executive director for Hawaii Homeownership Center, which I affectionately call H-H-O-C. Reina, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, Abe, for the invitation and for the opportunity to talk about my favorite subject. That's great. Okay, so Reina, tell us a little bit about your background, your family, were you into school, your education, and what led you to H-H-O-C? Well, where to start? So I'm born and raised here on Oahu. I grew up here, I went to school here, and then I went to college in Boston. And then after I graduated, there was a thought to stay in the mainland. I came back home and primarily my career has been in the non-profit sector. So I started at the YMCA as a youth director, did a few different positions over there, including some community development, if you've heard of weed and seed. It's a community development initiative. So I spent a few years doing that as well. And through that, I actually met someone when it was time for me to look for another job. And she said, hey, the Hawaii Home Ownership Center is looking for a program director. Do you want to apply? And I thought, gosh, I'm a homeowner, which I'm super glad about. But I wasn't entirely sure if this was going to be, I was the right fit for the organization. But 17 years later, I'm still here and serving as the executive director. And it's been an amazing opportunity for me to meet such wonderful people in the industry, meet a lot of home buyers. And it's really filling my cup in terms of seeing the hope and that comes through our program for prospective home buyers in the community. Because I definitely feel like if people want to have a home of their own here in Hawaii, I wouldn't want them to dismiss it without at least getting educated and finding out what the process is about. Great. So now you came to HHOC, but did you know what HHOC did when you were interviewed? I did. And which was why I thought, I don't know if I'm the right fit for this organization. Do I have something to contribute to what the mission is about? And I also thought, wow, how come HHOC wasn't here when I was a first time home buyer? I could definitely have used this program myself instead of navigating it on my own. Okay. So you've worked for different executive officers before you became appointed to be the head cheese here. So what were your different roles at HHOC before you finally were asked to be the executive director? So let's say that in terms of the title, been the program director for a number of years before becoming the executive director. But I would say there's a number of experiences that have happened within that particular role. So the program director is responsible for the program of working with the staff to provide our classes that talks about money management and credit, what you need to know before you actually embark in the purchase process, the actual buying process in terms of getting a loan, working with the real estate professional, homeowners insurance and escrow, as well as individual coaching, getting people ready one-on-one, taking a look at their own personal financial situation and seeing, you know, are there first-time buyer programs that could help that particular buyer or the family? Even after they become homeowners, there's a support that we can provide for them, whether it's in class form or in one-on-one coaching. So that was actually the primary responsibility of mine, but I also have been involved in fundraising for the organization, being connected and accessing resources through our national organization. We're affiliated with NeighborWorks America and, you know, just more administrative operational type of responsibilities before becoming the executive director. Great, and you are well-groomed to be the executive director. Definitely had big shoes to fill, lots of mentoring and great teachers along the way of credit, Kendall Hirai and Dennis Lashiro as my predecessors and my previous supervisors. I've learned so much from them and they continue to be friends of the Hawaii Home Ownership Center and mentors to today. I still can call them. Great. Well, when I first about HHOC, I had no idea who they were. And here I was a real estate agent for 50 years, so 40-something years back then. So a good friend of mine, Mike Gevinaka, calls me up and says, hey, we need some people to be on the development committee for HHOC. I go, what is HHOC about? And of course, that's when Kendall was the executive director. Then of course, Dennis took over and then you. So what's the gist of what you do at HHOC? How do you help people? So at the core, I would think that we provide hope and help for home ownership. So primarily we help prospective first-time buyers and I talked a little bit about it, where we provide classes that are about what you should consider before embarking on the journey as well as the actual purchase process and who's involved. And then we also provide coaching, which is actually taking the class concepts that they learned about and actually implementing it or creating an action plan for themselves. So we offer a lifetime membership of services. So anybody that enrolls in our program can use as much or as little as that we have of our services that we offer. They could meet with their home ownership coach every month, every quarter, once every six months. So they kind of decide what works for them. And sometimes it's going to be more frequent in the beginning, maybe a little bit less in the middle. And then right when they're getting to escrow meeting with their home ownership coach a little bit more often. And then post purchase services, it's where we'd like to be there for folks, not just to get into home ownership, but we want them to sustain it for the long term. So that's why the post purchase services are available as well too. So maybe if I'm a homeowner and I thought, gosh, I think it's time for me to think about maybe buying a bigger home. My family has grown. But can I actually keep the one I'm living in now and buy another home? Or would I have to leverage the equity in the current home that I own and use that to buy the second home too? The Hawaii Homeownership Center is a third party that's not actually involved in the actual transaction. So it's kind of nice to have that resource and an unbiased party to kind of talk me through some of the things I should think about or what might be possible or resources available to me. Now the cornerstone of at least the education program is at nine hour courses that the people take. What's the fee for it? How long is it? And is it on webinar? You have live classes? Do you offer it throughout the whole state? So maybe you can talk a little more about that. Actually, I'll talk a little bit more about the lifetime membership first. So you asked about the fee. So we do offer that lifetime membership that I talked about and it's for $60 per buying unit. So it's a one-time lifetime membership fee that I pay. If I'm buying by myself, I'll pay $60. And if I'm buying with my other adult brothers and sisters, it's still $60 that covers all of this because we're considered one buying unit. The Honolulu Board of Realtors is currently offering some subsidy through their HOPE program. So there's actually $50 discounted or subsidized off of that membership fee for anybody referred by a Honolulu Board of Realtors member. Abe, you're one of them. So actually people can mention this webinar right now and name you as their referring source since you're talking about it. And whoever is listening to this program could name Abe Lee as their referring realtor and then they could receive $50 off of that lifetime membership fee. So it's a balance of $10 of an investment to that actual buying unit. As far as the classes go, we offer a couple options. So we do offer that nine-hour class that you talked about by Zoom. So it's a live instructor and we offer the classes in segments. So it's not a one-time shot nine-hour course on Zoom that's a bit much. So it's our instructor Dale that does primarily most of the classes. The other option is a self-paced option. So we engage with the third-party vendor where you can log on and off of a platform. There's some chapter tests, videos on there. And then after you finish that class, in order to get the completion certificate, folks will sign up for coaching appointment with one of our staff. And the reason why we require that is we want to make sure that anybody that uses that option will have the local information as well to the self-paced option doesn't talk about the specifics to like property tax exemptions, for example, here in Hawaii. They wouldn't talk about some other localized information that we want people to have. And that particular option is a little bit more expensive. So we pass on the $15, which is a third-party vendor cost. The other all-a-card things that people might sign up for would be like a credit report. We offer a soft credit report pool with FICO scores. So if anybody wants that, then we just pass on the direct costs for whatever it is at that point in time. Can that membership be as good for life? Yes, forever. That's great. Yeah, all right. Now, neighborhood people are signing up more now because of COVID? Because of COVID, but also I guess the blessing disguise is that having the classes offered by Zoom provides more opportunities for our neighbor islands to participate. When we offered live classes on the neighbor islands, it was basically whenever we had it scheduled. And if they couldn't make it on that at that time, the self-paced opportunity was the only alternative available to them. But now that anybody from any island, even on the mainland, and they're planning to buy here, could attend our classes, the frequency is more often. And then also in terms of it isn't limited to actually having it on island. So that's the reason I have more participation. Can you talk a little about the course content? I know it's nine hours, but what are your basic blocks of information that you cover? Sure. So the first half is about what you consider you should consider before you embark on home ownership. So it's money management and credit in the context of qualifying for financing. That's the first half. The second half is actually about the buying process, getting a mortgage, what's the loan officer's job, a little bit about loan types. Also about shopping for a home, what's the job of a real estate agent, the purchase contract, a little bit of details related to that. We also talk a little bit about homeowners insurance and the escrow process. So even if somebody only took our classes and nothing else from us, they would have a good high level overview about what I should think about before I get started all the way to getting my keys. Okay. Now some of the government sponsored affordable housing programs, do they have a component where they need to be educated in this home ownership program? And then do you give a certificate of completion so they can qualify for those affordable housing units? How does that work? So it kind of depends on which government entity is associated with an affordable housing project. But for a few of them, they would require a home buyer education by a HUD approved counseling agency. And we worked with a couple of developers because the curriculum had to be special, like it's specially designed for the individual project. So for example, the central Alamoana was one 803 Waimanu, the block was another one that requires a special class like that. And so we're able to fulfill that requirement for the government by working with the government entity, the developer and a few other entities too. So we had like a guest speaker that was representing the lender, we had somebody come in that was actually gonna talk a little bit about living in a condo as well as some of the specifics to that condo project as well too. Okay. I know that I've been a guest instructor for the real estate portion when we had live classes, which was great. But you talk about the benefits of home ownership as far as a family is concerned, and the children and their education, their, I guess, emotional stability, and also about helping with the community. So can you talk a little about why home ownership is so important to the overall general health of the family? So before I answer that specific question, I will say that, you know, there's no one thing that fits any given family, right? There's a lot of, there's some other, there's different home ownership or housing opportunities for folks, right? You had mentioned, you know, sometimes renting is appropriate for a particular person, but for those who want home ownership, and they're, you know, they're going to be staying in a staying put for a bit, and that makes sense for them. I think home ownership can provide a lot of things. I mean, one would be stability, we just talked about that, right? Safe and stable place for you to put down your things, create family memories. There's a lot of benefits in terms of being able to, you know, stay put in a community. While I'm not living with my mom, we're both homeowners on our own, right? I still am pretty tied to the community she lives in as well, too. She went to a birthday party for her neighbors, and we know, I still know most of the neighbors as well, too. So you know that community, it's not just a good feeling type of thing, but neighbors watching out for neighbors. There is, you know, safety, there's a lot of stability there for the actual neighborhood. They all take care of their properties because they're invested in their properties as well as the neighborhood itself as well. And there's some well-building aspects to most home ownership opportunities, too. So, you know, I'd mentioned that for some folks, you might think, oh, it's time for me to buy a new home because it's, we're outgrowing this one. Sometimes that particular home can be an opportunity for them to sell, earn some equity, they leverage that equity that they're taking out of their property because the home value has appreciated and invested into another property, too, or for other other means, too. So there's lots of opportunities that are good for the homeowners immediately, but also for the future generations, too, that equity that I talked about could also be used to educate their children to pay for college, fix the home, make sure that they're maintaining their investment as well, too. So I could go on and on. That's really good. So I know how many people have you served now with HHOC? I know the numbers change every year, but you serve quite a few people already, haven't you? I would say people have actually enrolled in our program. There's been about 6,000 that has come through in terms of households that have come through our program, and about half of them that we know of have actually bought a home. And 71% of the actual home owners were considered low income when they enrolled in our program. So I think that says quite a bit in terms of people having the opportunity to purchase a home of their own if they're financially ready for it, and have the access to the resources that they need to make that possible, too. Now, when the interest rates were crazy low, it was easier to qualify. But in the last year since the, or actually almost year and a half now, with the federal government just jacking up the interest rates to the highest point in the last 20 years is what they said. How do people cope with the higher interest rate and still try to afford to buy a house? It can be very eye-opening and discouraging for a buyer who's actually got qualified at the low interest rates, say at 3%, and now it's over doubled that. Because what you can buy or qualify for now, it's not what it was even a year ago. In terms of coping about that, at the Hawaii homeownership center, it really is about being financially ready, being mortgage ready. So when the opportunity comes up for you to buy that home that you are ready to do that, because I've met quite a few people that call up saying, like, oh, gosh, grandma's house is going to be for sale. I want to buy that home, keep it within the family. But they never did anything to be financially ready for that. So to go back to your question about people coping, it really is holding on and persevering and enduring some of the ups and downs of the market that they have to be committed to this goal for themselves. And nothing is static. We just mentioned that the interest rate was something else maybe a year ago. It's going to be something else likely in the next few months as well too. And those purchase opportunities that I just talked about, we have people calling and saying that family home is available. The family member is willing to negotiate the price to make sure it's affordable for them. So it really is about hanging on to that dream and just waiting for the right opportunity for them. Okay. Now, if you can address two things that come to mind. One is the down payment assistance program that the federal government has where you pay what's just an interest only, I'm sorry, principal only and no interest. And then you get forgiven on the next 10 years or something. And then maybe you can talk about the mortgage credit certificate if you don't mind. Sure. So the first program that you talked about, it's actually implemented, it's federal money, but it's actually implemented through the city and county of Ponalulu. So it's called the down payment loan program. So it is a loan and you're right that there's a percent interest and they only have to pay back the principal. It's up to $40,000. So it won't cover all of their down payment or either financing needs. So they still need to get a first mortgage possibly with mortgage insurance. This down payment loan will cover up to $40,000 and no interest. And the borrower needs to come with 5% down payment. In terms of that $40,000 loan, it is 0% interest. And for each year that they pay on time and they're still occupying that property, there's a credit to their loan balance. So essentially to just abbreviate and make it super simple. After 10 years of occupying the property, paying on time, they could actually have paid off $20,000 of that loan balance and $20,000 of it would be forgiven. So $20,000 as a gift, but like I said too, they do need to occupy the property. They actually check too. So the borrower might need to respond to inquiries about do you still live in the property and they need to respond to the government to make sure that the loan doesn't get called due. That's amazing though. You can get $20,000 forgiven and you only pay principal and no interest. Right? Yeah. Who else can do that, right? Except for people that go through and they have to go through HHLC program or some sort, right? And get a certificate? No? It doesn't actually have to be only us. Of course we would like people to come to us, but they actually say the requirement is how to approve counseling agencies, homebuyer education program, but we're one of those type of agencies. So our homebuyer education certificate would count. Great. So talk a little bit about the mortgage credit certificate now, what they call the MCC, which is another very interesting program. So I'll say this too, the city and county of Honolulu's program that I just talked about, the buyer will apply for that when they get financing. So they need to make sure that they mention that to their loan officer when they apply for financing. The mortgage credit certificate is similar to that needs to be applied for during financing and the buyer would need to check and make sure that the lender is on the participating lender list because there's only a number of lenders. There's kind of a long list though. They have a lot of options. But if they wanted to use this program that I'm about to talk about, they need to go with participating lender. So the mortgage credit certificate program is actually offered through the state, our state finance agency, the Hawaii Housing Development Finance Corporation, HHFDC. I'm going to flip the acronym a little bit just now, but HHFDC is an acronym. So the mortgage credit certificate program makes it more like it can do a couple of things for the buyer. So essentially it's, I'm going to do like a real high-level overview of the program. So as homeowners, you can write off your mortgage interest. Basically, it's taking a portion of that and getting an income tax credit instead. You can still write off the other amount that you're not taking as an income tax credit under the MCC program. The benefit of having it as an income tax credit is reducing the taxes that you need to basically be taken out in terms of withholding taxes. And that amount that you get, that credit, you can either get it within your paycheck. So by adjusting your withholding taxes, you can get that money in your paycheck and help you afford that monthly payment, or you can still get it when you're filing your taxes in a lump sum tube. This is the only vehicle that I know of short of having, you know, getting a raise or, you know, working another job that it can actually boost your qualifying amount as well too. So that MCC amount can be used by the loan officer to increase the qualifying income, which could also therefore increase the qualifying loan amount that a buyer can qualify for as well. It's a little complicated. So with what Reina said, when it's over your head, after your accountant, if you go to the HHLC education program, you learn more about this. It's an amazing program. We get a dollar for dollar tax credit, and then the rest is now a deduction of your income. Nobody else does that except this kind of program. So we want to have a few more minutes left, but I know the HHLC doesn't run on fumes and you need money. So tell us some of the fundraising programs that you have that the viewers can participate in. Well, direct donations are always appreciated. People might send in check or go to our website, donate online. That's definitely one. We have a few fundraising events. We just had our golf tournament last week. So that's our annual fundraiser that we do on the golf course. So we have sponsors that, you know, if either it's a sponsor team, Tee sponsors a whole bunch of other different opportunities. We also have an annual Gala called Flavors of Neighbors. It's currently scheduled for Monday, November 20th. That's also on our website as well. It's like a big party. We have a sign auction, live auction, live entertainment, food stations, adult beverages, everything. So you can check out the photo gallery if you want to see what that looks like. We also have an annual fundraiser. Usually it's for individuals that are interested and are invited by someone who's already connected with the Hawaii Homeownership Center. We call it Welcome Home and it's fundraising lunch. If you're interested in attending, you might not have been invited already. You can all reach out to us in general on our website or you can reach out to me specifically. My name is Reina. You can ask for me and we can make sure that you have an opportunity to attend. It's really a short program, one hour. You can check us out, learn more about our organization and testimonies from our participants in our program as well. You know, I wish we had more time for a tear-jerker story, Reina, because as many times as Reina come to my real estate school and talked about the HHOC program and then Dale Tome has taken over as an education director, Dale doesn't get as emotionally involved as Reina does. But Reina has actually shed a tear on a particular story and she cries every time she tells the story because it's a little heartwarming. So can you just give us a one-minute version of what happened with a man with a stamp? Oh my gosh. So we still offer our foreclosure prevention counseling, but the first time we did this in the early 2008-2009, people were coming in on Christmas Eve to get assistance. And so actually, this is actually the day before the after Thanksgiving, this man comes in and he asks, you know, hey, would you be able to fax these documents? His counselor wasn't there. I was there with only one other person in the office. Is it sure? And it was basically he needed some documents sent over to his lender. And this is basically what it is. So if he didn't send these documents in, he might not be able to modify his mortgage, which is what he needed to be able to afford the mortgage payment and to be able to stay in the home that he bought with his hard-earned money. He was a hard-working man, single, very soft-spoken. And while I was getting all the documents ready to be faxed, he told me, you know, I would have mailed these papers instead of coming all the way over here, but I didn't have the postage to send it. And so today it just like breaks my heart to think that this man did not have enough money for a postage stamp to send these papers that were super important for him to be able to keep his home. And I wasn't planning to cry, but of course, I'm getting a little bit choked up as Abe talked about because I remember his face. I remember what he was wearing. I remember what he looked like. And I just remembered, gosh, I pray to God that this man can keep his home because he's coming over here for help with us. And he was able to. And we've seen him a few times after that, too. Thank you. I can't thank you enough for giving us some insight. And let me finish with this story, because I'm an HHLC supporter on the development committee for I don't know how many years now. Probably about 15 or 16 years or something like that. Okay. And so I love HHLC and the mission it has and about helping people to learn about, you know, home ownership. So I get a guy that texts me. It says, Hey, I took the HHLC class online. And he's a techie guy. He says, Can you help me? So he got his certificate of completion for the course. And then it says that he can only qualify for $125,000. Family of three plus him and his wife. So we found him something in Y9. Okay. And six, five, six years later, he calls me up and says, or texts me, it's an aid. We can move up now. And I want to buy a house in Kalihi for $700,000. He moved up from $125,000 to $700,000 within that time period. But he thanks HHLC for having started this program. So I'm a firm believer that you can get people to be a homeowner. So thank you, Reina. I really appreciate your time and effort. For those of you that want to see this video, please tell your friends. Also tell your friends about Think Tech Hawaii because they archive all the shows. And if you want to know more about real estate classes, I'm at www.ablyseminars.com. And you can have information on the courses. So you could be participating, participating in the real estate program. So anyway, thank you so much, Reina, and have a wonderful week. And thank you so much viewers for being with us. Aloha.