Week 1: Getting Started in Housing Counseling

What you can expect to learn this week:

  • Match relevant timelines to key events in the history of the housing counseling industry and National Industry Standards benchmarks for housing counseling service performance and delivery.
  • Correctly complete a fill-in-the-blank worksheet regarding the National Industry Standards recommended benchmarks for housing counseling delivery.
  • Evaluate counselor scenarios and determine whether the situation poses potential violations of the NIS Code of Ethics and Conduct.
  • Complete a self-assessment worksheet tool to acknowledge the housing counseling characteristics they currently possess and identify skills and knowledge gaps to cultivate in their professional development strategy.
  • Complete a personalized fill-in-the-blank housing counseling training and certification timeline worksheet to strategically set and achieve their certification goal.
  • From a sample, learners will correctly select the version they feel would net the most feedback from the client.
  • Use a worksheet to correctly answer questions about monthly mortgage payment components.
  • Use worksheets to correctly perform income, housing, and debt ratio calculations for client scenarios.


Week 2: Financial Coaching and Counseling

What you can expect to learn this week:

  • Work to brainstorm 7 key aspects of the COUNSEL model and 4 key aspects of the COACH model and distinguish the differences and similarities between coaching and counseling.
  • During the course learners will be presented with client scenarios and will work in to identify both a coaching and counseling approach.
  • Share their personal feelings about provocative financial questions relating to money management, receive comments from their peers and provide critical feedback to others’ responses.
  • Correctly identify credit scoring factors that will be impacted by 7 different credit actions.
  • Review non-traditional lending case study scenarios and determine the advantages and disadvantages of each along with at least 2 alternative options.
  • Determine whether the action will have a hard or soft impact on the credit score for 8 different scenarios.

Week 3: Housing Counseling for Renters and Homebuyers

What you can expect to learn this week:

  • List at least 3 pros and cons of renting.
  • Brainstorm at least 3 features and drawbacks of single and multi-family housing for rental clients.
  • Evaluate a case study and determine rental housing affordability and brainstorm at least 3 counseling strategies for the rental client scenario.
  • Answer questions about why talking about fair housing discrimination is difficult, how we can improve nonverbal communication and increase cultural sensitivity.
  • Develop a list of at least 3 open ended questions for clients relating to future housing goals, finances, and home maintenance/repairs to determine homebuying readiness.
  • Use a worksheet to accurately perform affordability ratio calculations for client scenarios and list factors that would increase a client’s buying power.
  • Refer to a worksheet to correctly identify which of the 4C’s of borrowing is impacted by different credit activities.
  • Analyze the household income for different client scenarios to determine eligibility in down payment programs.

Week 4: Keeping Your Home

What you can expect to learn this week:

  • Define the 6 options available to homeowners using a matching activity worksheet.
  • Work individually to identify the most appropriate retention or disposition options for client scenarios.
  • Correctly organize the steps in the judicial and nonjudicial foreclosure process.
  • Distinguish between certain features of judicial and non-judicial foreclosure processes.
  • Work in pairs to perform calculations to identify the break-even point for client scenarios and formulate an open-ended question to the client about moving forward in each scenario.
Prosperity Indiana
1099 N. Meridian Street, Suite 170
Indianapolis, IN 46204 
Phone // 317.222.1221 
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