Q. How did you hear about The Help Program?

My girlfriend read about it in the newspaper. We checked into it because her landlord was selling her place and she was being evicted. I was in a two-bedroom place so we were just kind of looking for something else. I hadn’t thought of buying and I figured renting a house would be more what we were looking for. We were in such a hurry and HELP helped us find this home. We fell in love with it because it was just exactly what we needed since there are now six of us.

Q. What did HELP do?

They helped us find this house and told us that the value was going to boom because of the neighborhood and the surrounding area. A lot of the homes around here weren't even built yet.

We just fell in love with it and it was one we knew we could afford. They set the guidelines and took care of all the paperwork and I just kind of sat back in awe. HELP helped us clear up the credit which took a little longer than they thought it would, so that was a bit of a down side.

After a while, they finally said we could work something out because my credit score had improved enough. They helped us through it, all the way through the loan papers and all that. I was very satisfied with that. I know it's a lot of money we paid, but now it's ours and we're not just throwing out money for rent. It's just an awesome way of getting into a home. Otherwise I would have had to come up with 20% down and whatever else they required.

Q. How long did you rent the house from HELP until you were able to own it?

We rented for about a year and a half and then we went through the process of trying for loans. It took us a few months to get to this point to where I signed the papers. A lot of it was trying clean up with records and stuff like that too. We signed the papers at the end of November, the first of December somewhere around in there.

Q. How much equity would you say you've got in the house right now?

Right now? We paid $158,500, I believe, and it was appraised in November for $195,000. So in a year and a half, almost two years, that’s what we’ve made.

Q. So in one and a half years you have made almost $40,000?

Yes. We have a real good deal. We knew owning a house was a gold mine but a lot of times if you don't have the money you can't do anything and I'm not much for saving and never have been so this changes everything.

Q. Was there anything that made you a little nervous about going with The HELP Program?

The only thing that I was worried about was that it was almost too good to be true. It was that type of thing. Where can you find someone who is willing to put out 100% to get me into a house? The rent was more than what either my girlfriend or I were paying but when you added it up, it was less than what the two of us were paying at the time. By moving in together it just worked out. There really wasn't any negative, but it was more like “Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it”. It's all played out, one hand after another.

I hadn't worked for seven years up until a couple years ago. I had just been watching the kids and you don't get any credit that way. I do a lot of cash payments and that's the way my life style has always been so the credit just wasn't there. So being able to buy a house is really something I never thought I could do.

Q. If I were considering The HELP Program, what would you tell me?

I would tell you to take a chance. Everything is in black and white before you agree to anything. So there's no reason why not to go through with the program at least to find out what your payments are going to be, the area you're going to be in and you know if you can pay the rent. It's a little higher than the normal rent but you're getting so much in the end it's incredible.

If you can afford it, it's better than just throwing your money out for just rent. I can't say enough about it; give it a chance. Make sure you can afford to make the payments and that's all, it follows. The house is going to rise in value.