Is owning a home a dream you have for yourself? If you have been discouraged by the pre-qualification you received or news stories about interest rates and the cost of housing, or you don’t know how you can reach your goal, hope and help is available to you! Here are a few steps to put yourself on a path to make that dream a reality.

Get ready for future opportunities to buy a home. Readiness to buy a home is both financial and emotional. For homebuyers, this is usually the largest purchase they make in their lives — the huge financial obligation, acronyms, and piles of documents to sign can be daunting and scary. The media and repeated negative messaging about Hawaii’s housing market can also have aspiring homebuyers consider homeownership out of reach before actually exploring the possibility.

Take a class from a trusted HUD-approved Counseling Agency like Hawaii HomeOwnership Center (HHOC) and find out about what’s involved in getting qualified for financing, how much down payment is really needed to buy a home, working with a REALTOR, insuring the home and the escrow process.

If you get prepared for the purchase process now, you will be ready to take advantage of opportunities that come your way. It’s always heartbreaking when hopeful homeowners have the opportunity to purchase the home they have been renting or to buy the family home, but they cannot qualify for financing and they miss that purchase opportunity.

Create an action plan to make homeownership a reality. Homeownership coaching is available at agencies like HHOC, where hopeful homebuyers can have confidential conversations about be coming mortgage-ready.

An action plan can be developed with a coach to address barriers to qualification, assessing down payment and closing cost needs, and firsttime homebuyer resources that are available.

Be committed to your goal of homeownership. Hope, preparation and perseverance on the goal to buy a home are key ingredients to success. Homebuyers may need to make sacrifices to reach their goal of owning a home — home brewed coffee versus going to a coffee shop, bringing a lunch from home versus eating out and avoiding spending temptations can help save money to pay down debt or accumulate a down payment.

For some, the process to become mortgage-ready may take a while and acknowledging milestones of accomplishment along the way is important to remind yourself that you are making progress.

Remind yourself there is hope and help for homeownership. Through homeownership education and coaching, buyers can find partners and cheerleaders in their journey to homeownership. First-time homebuyer resources can include 0% or below-market rate loans, which can make the monthly payment for a home more affordable. The Honolulu Board of REALTORS is also providing a $50 subsidy towards the HHOC lifetime membership fee for aspiring homebuyers referred to the program by one of their members — the balance is a nominal $10 investment by the participant.

Get on your path to homeownership and contact Hawaii HomeOwnership Center to find out how to enroll in their program. Visit hihomeownership.org for more information.