Homeownership Education and Counselling Courses
Posted on 25 February 2016
Dr Alison Wallace has won funding from the The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to spend time in New York State learning about their 'Homeownership Education and Counselling' courses (HEC). She will identify the best practice in this area and bring it back to the UK to inspire change here. She wants to focus in particular on pre-purchase education in order to encourage sustainable house buying from people with low incomes.
Attendance on homeownership education and counselling courses in the States is widespread and homeowners who attend courses have better credit scores, lower rates of mortgage default and foreclosure than similar groups of homeowners who do not receive these services. Attendance can also delay homeownership while the risks are considered and can provide access to preferential mortgage rates and deposit assistance.
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust funds British citizens to investigate inspiring practice in other countries and return with innovative ideas for the benefit of people across the UK. The Trust run a category on housing in partnership with the National Housing Federation.
Dr Wallace's recent research in the area of sustainable home ownership has shown that there are considerable barriers to sustained ownership by people from lower income groups as the traditional safety nets that struggling homeowners could rely on in the past have been undermined in recent years:
- Exploring Experiences of Shared Ownership Housing: Reconciling Owning and Renting Summary (PDF
, 495kb) Report (PDF , 2,063kb)Buy-to-let Mortgage Arrears Report (PDF , 1,291kb) - Financial resiliance and security: Examining the impact of falling housing markets on low income homeowners in Northern Ireland. Financial Resilience and Security Report Financial Resilience and Security Report (PDF , 1,609kb)