keep showing me the moneyyyyy

The 2^nd program is called “Buying Into Baltimore” and this one is open to just about everyone.  Back in the day it was referred to as The Trolley tour because you had to sit on a trolley to see each house. They have recently given participants  the options to either drive themselves or sit on a trolley. I’ll let you guess which one we chose.  A few stipulations with this program-  you can’t be buying a house over $417k, you must buy in the designated area and it has to be when the city is offering this program (they do it once a year). Which is understandable- if you can afford a house that costs $417k then you don’t need the $4,000 from the city and you can’t be “Buying into Baltimore” if you buy outside of Baltimore. Fair enough, right?

 Since RC and I plan on buying into Baltimore and spending just under that (just so we can get the $4K, obvi) we qualify! All we had to do was go on a few tours of some houses and get a “passport” stamped at a minimum of 4 houses. Look how much fun we had!

stamp #1



stamp #2- no that's not a bracelet from the club, it's for the tour!







stamp 3



Even though we look like hell, it wasn’t because the tour was strenuous or mind blowing. It probably has more to do with the prior evening activities... Bible study ran late, naturally. (Hi Grams!) The tour took all of an hour and was super simple! We drove to the four closest open houses; I put on my best sorority girl voice and attitude to say hi to the real estate agent, make a nice comment about the house and then receive our stamp.  

Here is where it gets tricky, after the tour, we had to take our “passport”, our housing counseling certificate (already had this from LNYW. check!) and our signed contract (which has to be dated after the event date) all to the Baltimore City Housing office downtown. The catch here is that the city only gives out 50 of these grants a year and you need all 3 of those things to qualify and to be put on a list! Having the counseling already done was a huge help, having a home in mind was an even bigger help and having access to sign the contract on the Sunday following the event and before the housing office opened on Monday was priceless.

When Monday came around we didn’t know what time we should get there. Was this like the Tickle Me Elmo craze circa 1996? Did we need to camp out overnight and then beat up the people in front of us to get on the list? Turns out that you didn’t. RC and I got there around 7:30am on the Monday morning. When the office opened at 8:30 there were only 2 other people there with us. That being said, I still wouldn’t have done it any differently, something about being first on the list makes me sleep better at night. Buuuut that’s probably a whole different topic. Anyway, after you give them the initial 3 things they also need a few others documents to prove you’re actually getting the home- like signed mortgage papers/approval letters/blood samples/etc. After they recieve all of this It then takes about 14 days for them to process and to get you a check so make sure you account for that time prior!  Even if you have to wait an extra few days it’s totally worth it! $4,000 isn’t chump change and if it’s free why not take advantage of it?




stamp 4- ALL DONE!