Q&A: Mike Mauer of the Mon Valley Initiative

Mike Mauer, a housing counselor at the has had a long career that has involved serving as the non-commissioned officer in charge of command information during Operations Desert Storm and Shield. He grew up in Bethel Park and joined the army after graduating from Point Park College in 1984, before it was later named a university. After returning to the U.S. after the military, Mauer worked at Kaufmann’s in the financial department.

Today, he helps people take concrete steps to becoming more financially stable, with the ultimate goal of buying a home. He lives in West Mifflin with his family and recently took the time to talk to Patch.

How did you become involved with MVI and what is your job like on a daily basis?

I live very close to the MVI in West Mifflin in the area known as Homeville across from Kennywood Park. I used to drive by here all of the time. When they had an opening for a housing counselor, I came in and interviewed and I have a background in financial services as I used to work in the credit department at Kauffman’s and PNC Bank. At the time when I applied here to be a housing counselor, I was working for a company that sold credit reports and products you would use in order to get mortgage loans.

I get grant funding to do what I do through the U.S. Department of Housing and Development for housing counseling and through the PA housing finance agency.

I meet with clients, sit them down, pull their credit reports and go over them with them line by line. I go over their debt to income ratios and other credit aspects and work with them until they can get themselves to a point where they can get a mortgage and purchase a house.

How is the job personally rewarding for you?

There are many times when I worked in the financial services industry where you would deny a loan application if the person was only maybe one or two items away from qualifying for a loan. People that you would turn down because of bad credit would often feel that this was something they couldn’t control or work to improve themselves. What I do is allow people an opportunity to fix their credit to a point where they can get a mortgage and buy a home without having to rely on predatory means or scams.

This is personally very rewarding to me because rather than just working and making money, I assist people in what they need to do in order to purchase a home. Many of my clients live only within a few miles of where I do and some within blocks of my house.

What surprises people about the process?

Many people are surprised when they come in here, with what little they have to do to improve their credit and get to a point to purchase a house. For example, a lot of people think that if you file for bankruptcy or lost a house in foreclosure, that you wouldn’t be in a position to get a mortgage and a house.

Most of the underwriting criteria for FHA conforming loans would allow for you to purchase a house following a bankruptcy provided your credit has improved and it has been at least 24 months since your bankruptcy was discharged in court. If you lose a house through a foreclosure, usually the time that you would wait would be about three years. Essentially, there is nothing that is an absolute deal breaker in so far as your credit is concerned. The main barriers I find with my clients are income limitations and lack of savings.

Each client that comes in here for prepurchase counseling receives an action plan that tells them what steps they need to take in order to get themselves ready for a mortgage, and how long it takes varies according to the client.

What is it like to reach that end result as people are then able to buy a new home?

Many of my clients are very happy that they were able to do this, but the success largely isn’t with me. I only guide them and tell them what to do. They are the ones that exercise the discipline, stick to their action plans and end up being homeowners.