MCLEAN, Va., April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- At the McCourt Building in Woodbridge, VA, Freddie Mac , BB&T and Virginia Cooperative Extension today announce a new first-time homeowner outreach initiative underway in Prince William County.
The HOME PREP initiative makes available homeownership education, counseling and workshops, and a variety of innovative mortgage products. The goal is to help low- and moderate-income families, including minority families, police, firefighters, teachers and healthcare workers in Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park to become homeowners. HOME PREP will help prepare families for homeownership through homebuyer education and counseling, such as Freddie Mac's CreditSmart financial literacy workshops.
Participants will learn important information about budgeting, credit and credit management, insight into how lenders assess credit histories, and how credit plays a profound role in achieving one's financial goals, like renting an apartment, buying a car or home, or getting a job.
"Our objective is to help more families overcome the key barriers to homeownership such as impaired credit and lack of information about the homebuying process," said Craig Nickerson, vice president of Expanding Markets for Freddie Mac. "We look forward to working with BB&T and the Prince William County Office of Virginia Cooperative Extension to help more people become homeowners."
"The Board of County Supervisors is committed to helping working families meet their housing needs, especially those who are serving their communities such as police officers, firefighters, and teachers," said Sean Connaughton, Chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. "Financial literacy and education, combined with affordable loan products, will help those families who participate in this program obtain the goal of home ownership."
"Cooperative Extension's mission is to educate. In the Financial Education Program our goal is to educate families and individuals so that they will achieve and maintain stable housing, while building wealth. Home ownership is a necessary step for most people to meet that goal," said Joe Botta from Prince William County's Cooperative Extension Office.
VCE will provide homebuyer education classes that will include Freddie Mac's CreditSmart(R) financial literacy training and help identify individuals for participation in the HOME PREP Initiative. BB&T will make available their low down payment and flexible mortgage products to initiative participants. Freddie Mac will purchase eligible mortgages from BB&T. In addition, BB&T has bilingual mortgage staff in numerous branch offices.
"We are very excited to take part in such a meaningful and worthwhile program that promises to help so many deserving families," said Donta Wilson, president of BB&T's Northern, Va.-based community bank region. "Part of our mission at BB&T is to help our clients achieve economic success and financial security while working to improve the quality of life in the communities where we operate. The HOME PREP initiative definitely meets that objective."
Those interested in the HOME PREP program should contact Robin Taylor in the VCE Manassas office at either 703.792.4765, or
Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned company established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac fulfills its mission by purchasing residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage-related securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers and four million renters in America. For more information, visit, http://www.freddiemac.com.
Winston-Salem, N.C.,-based BB&T Corporation and its subsidiaries offer full-service commercial and retail banking and additional financial services such as insurance, investments, retail brokerage, corporate finance, international banking, leasing and trust. BB&T operates more than 1,400 financial centers in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Indiana and Washington, D.C. With more than $109.2 billion in assets, BB&T Corp. is the nation's ninth largest financial holding company.
Virginia Cooperative Extension is an Extension of Virginia Tech and Virginia State Universities. VCE helps improve people's lives by providing research based educational resources through a network of on campus and local Extension Office educators.
