Mortgage Matters

Roland Daniels 0:28
Good morning Las Vegas. Welcome to mortgage matters. I'm Roland Daniels, a certified mortgage advisor with Geneva financial. My NMLS number is 355859, our company, NMLS number is 42056, and I'm here this morning, as always, with my fantastic co host, Heidi Griffith, good morning. Heidi, well, good morning. Roland, Good morning. Happy Sunday. Happy Sunday. How are you today? I am doing fantastic, outstanding. I appreciate that

Heidi Griffith 1:00
weather's getting cooler. Fall is in the air. It is. It's gonna be a little bit warmer this weekend, but I think we're on the cooldown, I think. So hopefully, I'm excited. So I think we have a really good show today, don't we? I agree. So before we get started, we just want to let our fantastic realtor friends that might be listening know about continuing education class that we'll be hosting alongside the Nevada housing division. That class is actually going to be on Monday, October 27 it's from 10am till 1pm we're going to bring in some brunch. We're going to learn all about how their home is possible. Programs can not only help your business, but help people become homeowners that might not have had the opportunity to right. That is the name of the game. I really think that especially where the real estate market is now. It can help you grow your business. It can help you help all good things. So if you're interested, if you'd like to grow your impact, help more people. I really think it's this class is for you. It's three general CE credits. Again, we're gonna have brunch. We've got a title wrapped on Massaro is gonna be

Roland Daniels 1:59
with us. Yep, she's with first American Title she is. And where's the location

Heidi Griffith 2:04
it's going to be, actually, at the state of Nevada Business building that's at 3300, West Sahara. It's on the fourth floor Tahoe room. There'll be signs that direct you there. If you want to register, you can either give us a call or text us. We're at 702-210-2057. Again, you can call or text us to register at 702-210-2057, you can also visit our Facebook page at mortgage matters radio, and you'll find the Eventbrite link there to register for the class as well. Sounds like a plan. Let's jump into today's conversation, because we've got a lot to talk about, don't

Roland Daniels 2:38
we? We do. So joining us today is Eric Chavez, the Associate Director of housing programs with Chicanos Por La casa, which we say CPLC is an organization that we regularly talk about and work side by side with. CPLC is making a real difference when it comes to housing, education and community empowerment they are. Eric has spent years helping individuals, families navigate the path to home ownership through counseling, education and community programs. Eric, good morning, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Heidi Griffith 3:13
Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here, Eric. You really, you really are kind of a champion in this space. I appreciate that. Thank you. You do the work. So tell us about your background.

Eric Chavez 3:21
I have an extensive background in real estate. I originally got my start working in escrow, and worked up from escrow and became a loan officer, but unfortunately, that was when I moved here to Las Vegas in 2007 Oh, wow, we know what happened. Then. Everybody says 2008 is when the great recession started. But actually here in Vegas, it started in 2007 agreed, and I found myself having more clients needing help saving their homes than actually wanting to buy homes. And just through my connections and meeting people, I ended up getting acquainted with a nonprofit agency that was was doing this, and they needed assistance with this type of work, and I joined along with them, and I've been doing that ever since. I worked with several organizations here in Las Vegas. And I just love helping people, and so that's what's really kept me motivated throughout all this time, because you really do help people every single day of the week, don't you? You know people, they don't have a lot of information when it comes to financial matters, and a lot of people take advantage of that, and so I do love being able to help people navigate that and avoid making mistakes that really just cause a lot of grief and a

Heidi Griffith 4:29
lot of pain. And you help people get into home ownership by doing all of these things between, you know, working with credit, working with budgets. So you've been with CPLC for how long

Eric Chavez 4:37
with this organization? Only two years. Yeah. Well, gosh, that was a fast two years. Yeah, time flies 15 years overall. And yeah, it's it's been amazing. Every day is a new day. Yeah?

Heidi Griffith 4:48
So not only do you teach because you actually teach with us when we do our first home ownership workshop, that's the first Saturday of every month. You actually. Do pretty much the entire class outside of the lending and real estate portion. And I'm sure that you do credit counseling right. You actually do the one on one credit counseling, and you work with people on budgets. We talk about that a lot. We talk about the services that CPLC offers pretty much every week. Tell me when you meet, when you sit down and meet with someone for Credit Counseling. What does it typically look like? And what are the biggest challenges that you're seeing with folks?

Eric Chavez 5:24
Most people, they think their credit is worse than it actually is. Everybody thinks that they have a terrible credit score, unless you have, you know, a number that represents something to be proud of. Most people who have an 800 credit score or something in the highest seven hundreds, they they use that as a badge of honor. They're like, Yes, I'm so happy, but proud of this, which is great because, yeah, that it's difficult. Most people have credit in the low sixes, high five hundreds that I deal with and so but I've been able to help them improve their credit enough to qualify for a mortgage and just get better credit offers, not only in real estate, but also credit cards, car loans, all kinds of things, and it's a different mix. People do things that they're not aware of are going to hurt them later. And so a lot of the things that I run into are things that people did a long time ago. They're still kind of

Heidi Griffith 6:11
haunting them right then, unfortunately, that happens right in life. Lives, right? We make mistakes along the way, and sometimes we've just got to take a good hard look at it and work our way out of that stuff. So what's a pretty common thing that you're seeing on credit reports that maybe, if it hasn't happened to us yet, we can try and avoid

Eric Chavez 6:28
something that I see a lot of is late payments. Yeah, I see a lot of that. People still have the the idea that if they don't pay something this month, it's okay, because they'll pay it next month, but they don't understand that. That's still going to haunt them for at least two years. And in the next two years, you might want to buy a house, and so that might affect your score to the point where now you're no longer qualifying. And so one of the biggest education pieces that I can offer people is that the only way to improve your credit is to use your credit. But there's also wise moves to do regarding that. And so we talk about those, what the best ways are of doing that,

Heidi Griffith 7:02
right? Because 130 day late. Can take a good credit score and make it not good anymore, can't it?

Eric Chavez 7:08
Yes, if you have an excellent credit score, one bad move that the hit is even bigger, right? The fall from grace, as they say, right?

Heidi Griffith 7:13
And so what do you think about, you know, a lot of times we will look for like Goodwill letters. So, you know, you haven't been late before, and sometimes it does just, you know, skip your brain and you forget to make a payment. Are you seeing creditors, in most instances, if you've got a great credit history, helping folks out by removing that 130 day? Or is that less and less common? In

Eric Chavez 7:35
my experience, I don't see that. Yeah, because most people on the phone, when you call them, they can't really change anything right. You can try to dispute things in writing, and sometimes people do get some consideration. Maybe it was a billing error or something, or, you know, the payment was processed late, and that was why it reflected negatively on your on your record. But no, not always. Sometimes those things are just kind of set in stone, but we try to look around other ways of improving your credit. Great.

Roland Daniels 8:03
So on those 30 day lates, is there anything that a consumer can do to improve their FICO score after that 30 day late instead of waiting those two years? Sure, there's a lot

Eric Chavez 8:15
of things. One of the tried and true methods, of course, is getting a secured credit card. Of course, because you know you're investing in your own credit. And I've seen someone take their credit after a hit from bankruptcy. They open three secured credit cards, and they ended up being able to qualify for a mortgage much sooner than their window of eligibility was, was was due. Oh, wow. There are lots of different different tricks that people can do. One of the best things I can offer is that there's credit builder loans like one. Nevada credit union is one of the first here in the valley that started doing that. You can sign up for a credit builder loan. You're basically investing in yourself. The reporting every time you make a deposit into this account, after that, you get the money back. And so if you're trying to buy a house, that's just a great way of trying to start building that cushion that you're going to be able to use for your down payment, or your closing costs, or moving costs, moving expenses, whatever the need is. Love

Heidi Griffith 9:07
that. So you're funding that loan. So you put up money, and then they're reporting the good credit

Eric Chavez 9:12
right on paper. It looks like they lend to you $1,000 I'd say, but they didn't really lend you anything. All they're saying is, you're on the deposit plan of sorts, and so you're depositing money every month, every month that you make a successful deposit, they're reporting to the credit bureaus. Hey, they're quote, repaying this loan back, but at the end of it, you get that money back, and you end up getting the benefit of an improved credit score. I love that. And you said one Nevada Credit Union offers that. That's one of the major ones that I recommend. There's lots of other banks and credit unions around town, but that was one of the first that I became aware of, and sometimes some of the other credit unions, some of the other banks, mentioned it to my clients. Well, yeah, I've heard of that through my bank, and I'll say, talk to them, sign up, ask questions about, How can this help me? What are the details? And definitely use it to your advantage, because it's a great way of improving your credit, even if you have qualifying credit. Credit, I always say, if your credit score is better, you're going to get better terms all around. So why not?

Roland Daniels 10:05
So when it comes to an unsecured and a secured credit card, are they treated the same by the Bureau's and how, how we look at things when it comes to credit, is there any difference? I do

Eric Chavez 10:15
see a difference. I don't know in terms of when the account is open. I've never compared, you know, because whenever you open a new account on your credit, there is going to be a different going to be a dip in your score. But I do know that with a secured credit card, that dip lasts less time, your score starts to rebound sooner, because you're technically investing in yourself, right? Okay, I just get to know $500 to open this secured credit card the bank is holding it, and I need to now make sure that I meet up with this obligation successfully, and so there's a little bit more skin in the game, as they say. And so, yeah, I do see that a lot of people are able to improve their credit faster. That is, like I said, one of the traditional ways that before all of these nouveau Ways of Working your credit became popular, but that was one of the most common ways, and still holds

Heidi Griffith 11:00
true. Well, it totally makes sense. That's a great tip and suggestion. It makes sense, though, because now you're showing that you're making an effort to improve your credit. I can see how that can really help. So is that one of the tips that you give folks when you sit down do a credit counseling session?

Eric Chavez 11:15
Sure? You know, I do try to be very clear, because, especially like in home buyer classes, I'll tell people, improve your credit. And then I got a caveat that a caveat that and say, don't go and buy

Roland Daniels 11:24
a car, right? Yes, we hear that all the time. Oh, look at a car loan, and that'll help improve your credit, because now you have a mix of credit, but now you have a $700 car payment, right?

Eric Chavez 11:33
There's no small car payments anymore, and so yeah, back in the old days, maybe when you had a $200 payment, but no more of them. These days, I see people with the 678, $100 car, well, that is the average car. 750 Yes, eating of the money you have for your mortgage payment.

Heidi Griffith 11:46
Well, we tell people all the time, you know they're gonna give you the car loan. If you want a house, get the house right. Get the house. Then get the car right. Then get the car. You can drive your car into your home. Well, not into it. Let's kind of kick you crazy, into your garage, of your new home versus now you've got a car, because we've seen it. We've had it happen to us, where in the middle of a transaction, someone decided they needed a car, and I get it. People need transportation. We need you to get to and from but going out and purchasing a car with a $750 car payment can take your debt to income out of the game. And now you know, you're, you know, house now, we've got a car, a new loan, and your score

Eric Chavez 12:23
is going to drop, and then that payment is going to eat up all that money that you had disposable for your housing payment, and so you might end qualifying for less housing, a smaller housing payment. And so, yeah, it has a detrimental effect,

Roland Daniels 12:35
because we do get a lot of clients stating that somebody told them that if they got a car loan that their FICO score would increase, but we found out that once they pay off that car, there will be a dip in their FICO score as well. Have you seen that

Eric Chavez 12:51
right anytime there's any change, no matter good or bad, any changes on your credit score or any changes on your credit profile, the first reaction of the formula, the FICO formula, is your score is going to get even paying off a collection, right? People think, well, I have this collection. You know, the old the popular one from back in the old days was the Cox cable box. Oh, I didn't turn in the Cox cable box, and now they're charging me money, and then I'm going to pay that off, because that's a good thing, but then your score goes down because you paid it off, because they thought they were doing a good thing. But the formula doesn't, doesn't award you for that. And

Heidi Griffith 13:19
that's a great point, though, because, and that brings us to something that we talk about all the time, and that's why, you know so many people, even, even if we've got a copy of our credit report, and you can get a free copy of your credit report, can't you? Yes, where do we go to get our

Roland Daniels 13:34
credit report? Annual Credit report.com,

Heidi Griffith 13:37
and you can get that annually. You get all three reports. And typically, now it's, you can get it way more frequently than annually. I've seen it as frequent as weekly, dependent on what breach there's been, unfortunately, that's

Roland Daniels 13:52
unfortunately there's breaches with all three bureaus always,

Heidi Griffith 13:56
yeah, but, but so we see people that try and, you know, do DIY it, and I get it. You know, it's daunting. It's scary. Some, you know, sometimes we're embarrassed about what's on that report or what people are going to think of us. First of all, many of us, most of us, have been in a situation in our lives. But we will always suggest, first and foremost, that they call you, schedule a credit counseling appointment, and come in because a lot of times people do, they start paying stuff off, thinking that it's going to benefit them, and it actually ends up hurting them and or just extending time until they can do whatever it is they're going to do, whether it's buy a house, buy a car, just improve their credit overall. You know, see a lot of people that are paying charge offs. That doesn't help us, does it? No,

Roland Daniels 14:39
not always, and sometimes medical collections as well. Medical

Eric Chavez 14:42
collections. People don't know that most of the times. You can just dispute that and have it go away. If it's a small collection, if it's large collection, like you're in the hospital for, you know, months, and you know, $10,000 or more, then that's gonna be a little harder to remove. But I used to have deal with those $50 $60 co pays that didn't get. Had registered with the insurance company, and so then that was haunting people and just dinging their score continuously. But that's a thing of the past, and so that's some of the information I tried to share with people. Is that this is sometimes as simple as writing a letter and you can make it

Roland Daniels 15:14
go away. And do you recommend pay for deletion? Pay for deletion when? So let's say I have a collection of $400 and I offer them $100 if they'll pay. If I make that $100 payment, will they remove it from my credit report?

Eric Chavez 15:30
Yes, of course, if you can get that to happen, then it never happened. It's like I used to have a scar on my arm, and now the scar is gone. No one will know that I fell on my face.

Heidi Griffith 15:42
It's a good and something that we always recommend is, if you do reach out and they do agree to do a pay for delete, and in a lot of instances, they want the pay in full for them to delete it writing, get it in writing before you send $1

Eric Chavez 15:54
it's worth it to make it go away. It never happened. And then it's like, I lost 10 pounds, and I'm back to my high school weeks, right?

Heidi Griffith 16:03
Happens all the time. He might be a credit counselor, but He is funny.

Roland Daniels 16:10
And one of the other How should I say strategies that we use? What about our authorized users being added on as an authorized user with someone who has great credit, and maybe they have a credit card that maybe they're below that 30%

Eric Chavez 16:28
credit limit. Yeah, the credit world got a little savvy to them. That was a very common thing that was used but still works. Definitely. I recommend that a lot, because I'll get, for example, married couples will come in and maybe she has great credit and he doesn't. And so I say, Well, you have to share that credit that show the wealth and help him, you know, get a little bit of a rise based on your good history. And just don't make any, you know, negative, negative emotions and negative activities on your credit and your both will end up rising above together. And so yes, that, I do recommend that

Roland Daniels 16:59
because, just because they're an authorized user doesn't mean that they have to use the credit card. They just write a

Eric Chavez 17:06
piggyback. Yeah, sometimes I'll even tell the way,

Heidi Griffith 17:08
Hey, you don't give them a credit card. And we tell folks that. So we tell people all the time, you know, do you have, you know, a relative, maybe mom has good credit, and maybe you can. And so, you know, mom's like, I'm not giving you my credit. You don't have to. You don't even have to. You don't even have to give them the card number add you as an authorized user. It's not going to increase your score magically, if you've got some work to do. But all of those little things can help, can't they?

Eric Chavez 17:33
You'll start to get a lift. You'll see it almost immediately, just because now you're getting some of that extra history. And that's some of the things that people don't always realize. I hear a lot of my clients, they say, Well, I have this credit card. It's got a really high interest rate. I want to cancel it. And I say, No, absolutely not. That's available credit. If you cancel that card, now you have less available credit, and the formula is going to punish you for that. And so you want to make sure you keep that open credit card. If you don't want to use it, take it out of your wallet, put it, you know, in the drawer with your underwear or in the freezer, out of sight, out of mind, until maybe you can get new tires or something, you know, car repair emergency. Then you then you need it at that point, maybe. But yes, don't, don't cancel it.

Heidi Griffith 18:11
And so what happened? So I have a card that this just happened. I got a letter in the mail this week, and it said that, you know, we, we value you. We don't want to see you go, but if you don't use our credit card, we're getting rid of you. So I personally went out, I put a small charge on that card, and I went home and I just paid it off. Is that the best way to keep those cards active so that I'm able to use the juice from that card even though I'm not utilizing it?

Eric Chavez 18:34
Sure? Sure? I tell people, go buy gas, go buy groceries, something that you already know. You have money to pay for, and all you got to do is really use a credit card once a year and they'll leave you alone. And if you're not ready to use the card, you can always give them a call and say, Hey, I don't want you to cancel this card. I will be using it here shortly. And like I said, a small purchase, it doesn't have to be anything large. And, you know, you don't have to wait 30 days for the bill to come. You can pay it off immediately. So long as you see that activity, they'll be happy,

Heidi Griffith 19:00
right? Because is there some weird form, you know, I'm seeing this on social media all the time, that if you pay this by this date, that this will happen, and there's no weird I mean, just as long as you pay it on time, right? Just

Eric Chavez 19:10
as long as you pay it, you know, you might be paying less interest if you do pay it before the bill arrives, because they're charging you, you know, days of interest. So after 30 days, you've been paying 3031, days of interest, in most cases. And so if you pay it sooner, then you pay less interest, but for not waiting for that bill to arrive. Okay, so

Heidi Griffith 19:26
if you pay before your bill comes, you could be better off.

Roland Daniels 19:28
Sure, we've even heard that maybe you make two payments, $50 on the first and maybe another $50 on the 15th, and they're stating that it could increase your FICO score. Have you seen that happen before?

Eric Chavez 19:40
No, I've never recommended that strategy, but just before the bill comes, yeah, if people can do that, but if you can, it's like the mortgage payment, you know, they say the same thing. You can do that. Do a bi weekly pay, and they say there is a benefit to that on your credit, saving on activity, and you're saving on interest as well. I. And so there's this residual benefit. So I'm sure I could do some research on that, probably, and get some more background

Heidi Griffith 20:05
info. So, so when we send folks to you to do credit counseling versus because, you know, we have a lot of people that will call us and say, Oh, I'm going to call a credit repair company. They've told me that, you know, they're going to take a look and they're going to get all this stuff. There's no magic fix to credit. Is there. There

Eric Chavez 20:20
is no magic fix,

Roland Daniels 20:22
or they're promising, yes. And then in 90 days, you will we will take your score from 600 to 760

Eric Chavez 20:29
if that were true, I would not have a job. You would

Heidi Griffith 20:31
not have a job. And the great thing about where you sit and what you do is you really do represent the consumer. This is a free service. The only thing that you charge for is a soft pull credit report, isn't

Eric Chavez 20:44
it? Sure it's a mortgage credit report. So it's got all three scores. It's got all the information. And the most cases, I give people the credit report and say, Take this to your lender, and they'll probably get you pre approved for your mortgage before they even have full credit and so you won't get that initial hit to your credit score. And so some people, especially if they have just barely qualifying credit scores, that it ends up benefiting them too, because

Heidi Griffith 21:06
that one little bit of a dean could hurt you, right? Yeah, especially if you're looking at like a down payment assistance product like Nevada housing or Nevada Rural, we've got that 640 we don't want you to come in at 636 now, if you do, we can get you up to 640 that's fairly simple. But you know, we're talking to people, and they're using these services, and they're being charged 200 500 sometimes a couple $1,000 and being promised, you know, things are going to be removed, and in many instances, and you talk about this in class every month, you know, if you dispute a charge on your credit report, so you call X, Y, Z lender, you Say, Hey, this isn't mine. I've never seen it before, but maybe you know it is yours, or maybe you might not really remember if it's yours or not, and they've got you tell them to submit everything in writing. Right in writing, don't call on the phone. Don't call on the phone. What's the benefit of writing?

Eric Chavez 21:53
Because there is a federal law the government says that if you dispute something in writing, they have to respond in 30 days. There is no law governing the phone call. There is no law governing the inquiry submitted on the internet. However, it printed in mail, delivered by the US Post Office. They have to respond in 30 days, and so now you have a specific timeline that you know you're going to get some action performed on your account, and if they can't get a satisfactory response on your account, they're going to make it

Heidi Griffith 22:19
go away. Okay, so what happens if they make it go away? Because that does sometimes happen, right? Because they didn't respond in time that 30 day period. But then, you know, a couple weeks later, they're going through their paperwork and they're like, oh, no, it's back on my credit report. Bob owes this money. It's gonna come back on your report, isn't it?

Eric Chavez 22:35
Sometimes maybe that collection agency was just too slow to respond, and so it might pop up. You can still dispute it again, say, hey, they were outside of the window to respond. And sometimes that will work in your favor. And you can probably get that removed permanently. That's the zombie credit as they call it zombie, because I thought it was dead, and

Heidi Griffith 22:52
then it came back to let, okay, The Walking Dead over here. So that's great. So you don't have to pay anybody to do that. All you've got to do is look at your credit report and mail the letter, right?

Eric Chavez 23:01
I tell people, when it comes to fixing your credit, there is no magic wand. Basically, it takes time or money. If you have money it's going to take less time. If you don't have money, it's going to take more

Heidi Griffith 23:12
time. Great point, great point, right?

Roland Daniels 23:15
So for consumers out there, what would you say is the best advice for someone working on their credit, is it just time, or is there more than is there something else that I can do besides having a secured credit card or a builder loan? Is there anything else that you would recommend,

Eric Chavez 23:34
I would say, Talk to someone, a professional, maybe your loan officer, maybe your HUD, certified housing counselor. These are people who have a lot of knowledge. They're there to help you. They have your best interests at heart. Don't listen to your co worker, because I get that all the time. Oh, Joe at work says, XYZ, like, oh, well, does Joe do this for a living? Because if he's working with you, I don't think he does Right, right, right? And so I get a lot of that. Oh, well. My mom says this. Well, your mom probably has terrible credit too, I don't know, but we want to try and help people. I don't get any benefit from you getting a better credit score. The only benefit that I get is see you with a happy face and then see you off into the horizon. That's That's my goal.

Heidi Griffith 24:14
Well, yeah, yeah, because and we talk again, we talk about how important HUD counselors are a lot of people. You know, unfortunately, in our industry real estate, there's a lot of us, there's a lot of funders, there's a lot of real estate agents. There's a lot of information, not always accurate information. My biggest thing is representation and having someone who looks out but for your best interest. And I really believe that you are that person. You know, HUD, counselors are the heart of this. Things have changed. Like I've mentioned in the past. It used to be that lenders had to give you a list of HUD certified counselors that you have the opportunity to speak with, to kind of go over your options, get a little bit more information, know that it's a third party person who doesn't represent a lender or a realtor. They're there for your best, and that's who you. Are. That is who you are. So thank you so much. Thank you for you know, just kind of helping people out. We appreciate it. We really do well. That was a fast 30 minutes. It

Roland Daniels 25:07
flew by. It always does before we leave, Eric, along with the services that you provide when it comes to credit, are there any other services that CPLC can help the consumers. Out there any other resources that can really help them?

Eric Chavez 25:24
So yeah, as we mentioned, credit counseling, we offer financial coaching, helping people to build their savings, their assets. We help people. Of course, we connect to down payment assistance programs. We also outside of the housing program. Inside of the housing program, we still offer rental counseling and outside of the program, we also have supportive housing for people with disabilities or people with AIDS. We have a program specific to that. That's a federal program. We have a youth build program for young people, 16 to 24 who didn't complete high school, they can come to us and help get help getting their high set, and also they get paid career training. We have other programs, growth opportunities for young people to learn trade traits, program trades, thank you. Getting lots of assistance for families. Of course, during tax season, we offer free tax preparation. We have a lot of programs that come on and offline, but definitely on our newsletter online, our social media websites, these are some of the places that you'll find out about these programs. We do have a trunk or treat events happening October 24 that's a good way to bring the community out and meet them and be able to offer them a fun experience for the whole family.

Heidi Griffith 26:35
I love that. I love that. So why don't you now you're located at 555, North Maryland Parkway, right, right. That's on the corner of Maryland Parkway and

Eric Chavez 26:43
Bonanza downtown.

Roland Daniels 26:44
And what's the phone number?

Eric Chavez 26:46
The phone number for the agency is 702-207-1614,

Heidi Griffith 26:50
that's awesome. And before we go, we don't want to forget that we actually have a class with CPLC, the path to home ownership that's coming up on Saturday, November 1. It's from 830 until 3pm we've got lunch. We've got snacks. Eric, you may not be there because I think you're going to be having some fun time, but Thomas will be there with us. We'll be talking about budgeting, we'll be talking about credit, we'll be talking about the home ownership process, and this is what you're going to be able to get. You're going to be able to get people who care about you and want to see you achieve the dream, if that's something you'd like to do. So before we go, I just want to talk really quickly about something we talk about every week that Silver State Fair Housing Council, one of the ways Silver State Fair Housing Council protects the rights is through their Tester program. Right? So testers are everyday community members, you and me. We get trained to pose as renters or buyers to help uncover rental discrimination, housing discrimination, and make sure that we're all treated fairly, because the Fair Housing Act protects every single one of us. One of the most common complaints that Nevada has is is directly with disability, right? And that's not great things like refusing, you know, a service to a person, or denying reasonable modifications like ramps or grab bars or, you know, if you needed to be on a first level, they're not offering that first level. It's these little things. I really recommend looking into these programs. They're in need of Tester program or testers always, so that we can take a look at two different people looking at the same type of thing and making sure that everyone is treated equally and fairly. So if you'd like to learn more about becoming a tester to find out how the Silver State Fair Housing Council can help, you can reach them directly at 1-888-585-8634, that's again, 1-888-585-8364, and remember, fair housing protects all of us. Getting involved helps protect your community as well.

Roland Daniels 28:45
If you have any questions about anything we talked about today, you can give us a call or text us. That number is 702-210-2057 once again, that's 702-210-2057 make sure you tune in next Sunday at 7:30am right here on KU NV, 91.5 we'll be joined by Kevin Hickey with the home ownership programs manager for Nevada Rural Housing. Kevin has always brought great insight and energy to the show. Yes, and you don't want to miss this

Heidi Griffith 29:17
conversation. We want to thank you again, Eric for coming by. Thanks for taking time out of your

Roland Daniels 29:21
busy day. We really do appreciate it. Thank you. Until then, believe in what's possible, even if you've been told that it's out of reach. And remember, stay true to yourself and your mind. Bye. You.

Music 29:30
You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai