New Jersey adds free counseling
for first-time homebuyers

The New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency is adding first-time homebuyers to its free housing counseling program. Its board approved the change at its September 3 meeting, and the agency says the new services start in October: free pre-purchase counseling and homebuyer education, offered as one-on-one counseling and group workshops.

The agency says the counseling covers how the buying process works and what owning a home asks of you afterward, and one official in the announcement names budgeting, mortgage terms, credit obligations and long term costs. A state law signed in July set up the change. The agency says the law is meant to replace shrinking federal money for this counseling and expand on it.

The program itself is not new. It began during the Great Recession in the state courts, helping homeowners facing foreclosure, and became a permanent agency program by law in 2019. The agency says more than 10,000 households have been counseled since 2019, on topics from building a budget and repairing credit to working with lenders to avoid foreclosure.

The announcement does not yet say how a buyer signs up. It asks housing counseling agencies that want to take part to contact the agency.

When you are ready to start looking, we can represent you from the first showing through closing.