The group HERO — Hale Empowerment Revitalization Organization — presented a free class on Saturday at Rooster Hall in Demopolis to provide information to potential homebuyers.

The group is a part of the Housing Resource Center, which helps people obtain housing through first-time homebuyer education classes, credit counseling, post-purchase counseling and foreclosure loss and mitigation counseling.

“We’re trying to venture out into other counties,” said Arlene Rhodes. “We’ve been doing this in Hale County for five or six years, and now, we’re teaching the classes and venturing out into Marengo, Perry and Sumter counties.”

“We also have an office in Wilcox County,” said Kristen Nevin of HERO.

The class was the first Saturday class held by HERO in Marengo County. HERO offers its classes on Saturdays as well as once during the week so people are more able to attend.

“We try to make it as convenient as we can for the clients that we have,” Rhodes said.

The class on Saturday at Rooster Hall lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and covered a wide variety of topics related to buying a home.

“We covered pre-purchasing – finding out if home ownership is for you,” Rhodes said. “We talk about the people you will be involved with in buying a home. We talk about credit and how important it is in the home-buying process.

“We talked about the loan process – what you go through in getting approved, the steps the lender goes through that you may not know about – and we talk about the actual closing, the documents that you are going to see and the money that you’re going to have to have available.”

Rhodes added that being prepared, having a budget and being able to save money are very important not just before buying a house but afterward as well.

“If you don’t follow through and continue to do those things once you reach your goal, your dream home can become a nightmare overnight.”

Other classes will be offered in this region.

For more information about the HERO classes or other HERO projects, contact Rhodes or Nevin at (334) 624-0842 or visit the Web site www.herohousing.org.