Pre-Purchase Counseling Impacts on Mortgage Performance: Empirical Analysis of NeighborWorks America

Neil Mayer and Associates, together with Experian, conducted a study on the effectiveness of NeighborWorks pre-purchase homeownership counseling and education. Using information from about 75,000 loans originated between October 2007 and September 2009, analyzed the impact of pre-purchase counseling and education, provided by NeighborWorks' network, on the performance of counseled borrowers' mortgages. Overall, the study found clients receiving pre-purchase counseling and education from NeighborWorks organizations are one-third less likely to become 90+ days delinquent over the two years after receiving their loan than are borrowers who do not receive pre-purchase counseling from NeighborWorks organizations.