Housing Counseling Resources

Beginning August 1, 2020, housing counselors will be required to become certified via a HUD-administered exam. We break down what you need to know in our FAQ and have created an Online Study Group to help housing counselors prepare for the exam. See all presentations from the Online Study Group below. 

• Financial Management: slides and recording
• Foreclosure: slides and recording
• Homeownership: slides and recording 
• Affordability and Fair Housing: slides and recording 
• Tenancy: slides and recording

Housing counseling agencies rely on Client Management Systems (CMSs) to track clients and outcomes. Trying to compare these complicated systems can be daunting so we created profiles of each CMS to help housing counselors assess their options. See the CMS Guide 2.0.

• 82% of clients who receive housing counseling think it was a helpful experience, according to the 2015 American Housing Survey, which looks at rates of housing counseling across the nation.
• Homebuyer education and counseling can “provide timely, powerful support for prospective and current homeowners as they assess their options and make decisions,” according to an overview of relevant research in Evidence Matters, published in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research.
• Neil Mayer and Associates, together with Experian, conducted a study published in 2012 on the effectiveness of NeighborWorks pre-purchase homeownership counseling and education. Overall, the study found clients receiving pre-purchase counseling and education from NeighborWorks organizations are one-third less likely to become 90+ days delinquent over the two years after receiving their loan than are borrowers who do not receive pre-purchase counseling from NeighborWorks organizations. In 2016, the Urban Institute continued the examination of NeighborWorks counseling in a report titled NeighborWorks America’s Homeownership Education and Counseling: Who Receives It and Is It Effective?
• A 2016 study by a doctoral student at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development, The Influence of Homebuyer Education on Default and Foreclosure Risk, found that first-time homebuyers who attended homebuyer education course were much less likely to lose their home to foreclosure.