When I was a young man the only thing I visualized was the car that I was going to be driving when and if I was ever old enough to drive. My dream car at that time was a 1956 Chevy convertible and to this date my dream hasn't come true as I visualized it. My first car was a 1950 ford, two door sedan, and my next car was a 1953 ford, two door coupe. My dream is still with me but now it would be a 1955 Chevy convertible or a 1956 Chevy Nomad wagon. The dream will never die and one day I will give it the energy to make it happen. Once I came of age, drinking and voting age of 21, the dream became one of a house of my own. At age 27 that dream came true with the purchase of a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, rustic house with a swimming pool which I bought for $37,000 without a penny of my own money in the purchase. The transaction wasn't pretty but I made it work. I have talked about that purchase in previous columns.

I was very fortunate in my early life. My father paid my $50 tuition per semester to get me through UCLA and I paid all the rest including my books, fraternity bill and room and board when I lived at the fraternity house. I worked three jobs, rowed on the crew team, played intramural football and basketball for my fraternity, went to school and simply enjoyed life. After college I got a job as a stock broker and worked my way through night school at USC to get an MBA in Finance. Getting a house just seemed to be the next step.

Not everyone is as lucky as I was yet getting a house is now available to anyone who has the burning desire to own one. We have a plethora of programs including 100% financing, which means zero down (not exactly the way I did the zero down) so that you can purchase a home of your own. You now need a 600 credit score for 100% financing which can put a number of people on the "do not apply" list because they are in the 500+ range and don't know how to create the opportunity of owning a home for themselves.

We can! We have a lease option program that is brand new and is nothing like the normal lease option programs of the past. The old lease option plans had you leasing a house and part of the monthly payment went toward the purchase price. If you were going to pay $400,000 for the house and had a monthly payment on the lease of $1600 then $250 a month went toward the $400,000 purchase price. In this manner it would take years to accumulate a meaningful down payment, but for many there wasn't a better alternative. But now there is one.