Original publication date: August 2, 2019
With summer homebuying season underway, it’s time to start planning first-time homebuyer seminars for when the weather turns cooler.
Getting an early start gives you more time to book your location and create and send invitations to maximize activity in the September–November period, when home sales often take a seasonal dip.
The more homebuyers know — even before they start shopping for a home — the more likely they are to find a house that suits their lifestyle and their budget, and the more likely they’ll come to you for their mortgage because of the value you provided.
Arch MI can help with our Roadmap to Homeownership, a complete toolkit for setting up and hosting homebuyer seminars to explain the homebuying process, the benefits and the financial impacts. At a time when so much communication happens via social networks and instant messages, there’s tremendous value in face-to-face meetings where you can answer potential buyers’ questions and correct false beliefs that are preventing too many young families from buying.
According to NerdWallet’s 2025 Home Buyer Report, 62% of Americans say that a 20% down payment is required to buy a home.
In fact, first-time buyers make a median down payment of 9%, according to 2024 data from the National Association of Realtors.
Arch MI’s Buy with MI program offers a comprehensive set of products and solutions that supports down payment options as low as 3% of the purchase price. And with coverage from Arch Mortgage Guaranty Company (AMGC), homeownership is possible with even lower down payments.
Our Roadmap to Homeownership toolkit provides an in-depth PowerPoint® presentation on the homebuying process that you can brand with your company logo. It also includes lists of key resources to assist homebuyers with common concerns, a glossary of terms, worksheets for calculating budgets and checklists for home shopping.
The more homebuyers know — even before they start shopping for a home — the more likely they are to find a house that suits their lifestyle and their budget, and the more likely they’ll come to you for their mortgage because of the value you provided.
In addition, our AMGC Community Program, available through AMGC, promotes affordable homebuying by insuring loans for essential workers — police officers, firefighters, paramedics, teachers and nurses — who may have only small down payments but steady jobs and good credit. It’s a unique MI solution for portfolio lending that enables you to approve down payments for eligible borrowers that can be even lower than the 3% required for a conventional loan.
By leveraging the Roadmap to Homeownership together with the AMGC Community Program, you can host homebuying seminars targeted to specific professions, whether they’re first responders (firefighters, police and EMTs), teachers, or former and current military members. Many people in these jobs have the income to support monthly mortgage payments, but the challenge of accumulating enough savings for a large down payment in high-priced housing markets is a barrier to the transition from renting to home ownership.
Start planning now by viewing our Roadmap to Homeownership toolkit. As summer draws to a close, it’s a great time to prepare your strategy for the last quarter of the year. In nature, those who are prepared for the next season will not only survive, they’ll thrive.