Local banker helps educate public about homeownership
Education leads to Ownership
Mikal Toliver is one of the home lending advisors for Chase Banks in Dayton. He shares helpful tools with his clients that he wished he knew himself growing up.
He and his mother moved around just enough to never feel settled in one place. And although his grandmother owned a condo, the importance of homeownership and acquiring property wasn’t taught to him. “Knowing what it felt like to not have that information, now gives me an incentive to make sure I’m giving people that information.” said Toliver.
Toliver shared a deal he formed where his client bought a $220,000 house but only had to bring a couple of thousand dollars to the closing because she was assisted with Chase’s 5000 homebuyer grant and a $10,000 assistance through the Homeownership Center in Dayton.
“One of the biggest things in gaining wealth is spotting the opportunities.” said Toliver. He s says that through the homeownership event he will be showing attendees “where to find grant programs, where to find money, the importance of homeownership, and owning your community–building a community.”
According to the National Association of Realtors, homeownership is still the best way to steadily acquire wealth. It points to the long-term value of homeownership, especially if you have a fixed mortgage that won’t change with inflation.
Now Toliver is helping people get access to information on becoming a homeowner through an event called, “Is Homeownership Right for Me?”
Is Homeownership Right for Me?
About 15-20 residents in the Twin Towers neighborhood in Dayton attended the first “Is Homeownership Right for Me?” event at Ruskin Elementary School earlier this spring. The event, hosted by Chase Bank, The Homeownership Center from Dayton’s County Corp, and other organizations, is a part of a series of workshops tailored to help increase homeownership in the area. The goal is to educate the community about what it takes to become a homeowner and to inform attendees of how they could make homeownership possible for them, including first time homebuyers.
Although the event was open to the public, there was a special emphasis on the Twin Towers neighborhood. Residents in the neighborhood are a part of a 15 year lease to own program. The program that started in 2009, allowed renters to lease new housing units in the Twins Towers neighborhood from 2009—2024. Every year a renter lived in this area during that time period added a credit for the resident to potentially buy the home after the 15-year allotted period.
Now that those 15 years are up, the local Chase Bank in the area organized the homeownership event to help residents discover the next steps in purchasing their homes.
Brick by Brick’s Ann Thompson investigated how banks in addition to Chase are helpful in creating affordable housing. To read more about that, click here.
Misconceptions and Barriers to Homeownership
An Urban Institue report in 2018 detailed the barriers that aspiring homeowners face. The Washington-based think tank discovered that the main issues they faced were challenges with down payment, credit, and affordability. They found that more than two thirds of renters surveyed said that affording the down payment was a barrier to becoming a homeowner.
Toliver says that those barriers are still intimidating for current homeowner seekers today. He said most of his clients come to him thinking that their credit score bars them from ever attaining a home. Even Toliver himself admits that he thought his credit score had to be in the high 600’s or 700’s in order to get a loan. “With Chase you have to have at minimum a 620 credit score.”
The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) has affordable options where you can acquire a home with a 580 credit score.
Kenya Taylor, Vice President of Community Management for Chase Bank in Dayton, helped organize and plan the homeownership event. She says, “There is always a pathway to homeownership if you are willing to take it. It’s not always going to be grass and daisies. Maybe you have some weeds you have to cultivate.”
Taylor expresses that there is a framework that could be established to help anyone get a home despite their background. “Anybody can own a home if you want to if you are willing to put in the work.”
How can Banks help with Home Buying
Taylor and Toliver advocate that banks can help aspiring homeowners leap over these barriers. “Banks are offering a lot of solutions and opportunities for potential homebuyers and current homeowners also,” said Taylor. One of the solutions she offered was the Chase Bank homebuying assistance tool that helps potential homebuyers see what grants are available and if they qualify for them.
Taylor’s hope is that she can connect all her clients to the appropriate resources to see what options they have in homeownership. “Even if we don’t have a solution here internally, we’re always adding products to help make things more affordable… But more importantly, we also try to get the people with the resources and services in our communities that tie into that homeownership portion.”
History of Predatory Lending
As with many institutions in America, the history of banking is fraught with discriminatory practices such as predatory lending. Predatory lending typically refers to loans with unreasonable fees, interest rates, and payment requirements that keep people in a never-ending cycle of debt. Many accounts of predatory lending, as recent as the 1990’s and 2000’s, have led to financial ruin for many minority communities.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein details the history of these practices and the results of them. “Several cities sued banks because of the enormous devastation that the foreclosure crisis imposed on African Americans. The consequences of racially targeted subprime lending continue to accumulate. As the housing bubble collapsed, African American homeownership rates fell much more than white rates.”
Brick by Brick interviewed Richard Rothstein and his co author Leah Rothstein in a Solution Sidebar episode about the Color of Law and their response to that book, Just Action. You can check that out by clicking here.
Anita Schmaltz is the Vice President at the Homeownership Center in Dayton. The nonprofit helps create sustainable homeownership by connecting residents with resources and classes that focus on topics like financial wellness and down payment assistance programs.
Schmaltz says events like “Is Homeownership Right for Me?” help address the historic lack of equity and access in our country. “Because of the history of redlining, there might not be loans that were being made in those neighborhoods. The ability to have capital so that you have people who are investing in their properties, in those low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, are incredibly important.”
Schmaltz believes that education is the key to ensuring communities protect themselves from harmful financial practices. “I think any time that you can get people educated about finances, budget, what products are available, that’s a good thing. We need to talk more about it, so that people understand what’s out there. And they’re less susceptible to getting a bad product or a product that’s not appropriate for them.”
The Need for more Homeownership Events
Taylor informed us that she plans to have more homeownership events throughout the summer of 2025 to continue to educate the public about their pathways to homeownership. “This is what we hope is the beginning of making a greater impact and helping people get homeownership here” says Taylor.
The plan is to target these events in different neighborhoods and communities in Dayton. Taylor says there are resources that people are completely unaware of that can greatly impact their future. “Knowledge shouldn’t be a secret. Knowledge is power and we want to share that power. We really just want to do our best to make an impact, increase homeownership in the Dayton market and prepare people for that.”
To learn more about these events contact the Homeownership Center in Dayton for details on the upcoming classes.
Hernz Laguerre Jr. – Multi-Media Journalist
Hernz is a Haitian American who was born and raised in Spring Valley, NY. He attended school at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where he learned to hone his skills as a storyteller. After graduating with his Bachelors in Broadcast and Digital Journalism and his Masters in Television Radio and Film, he went on to a career in media as a producer, reporter and freelance videographer for companies like ESPN and Court TV. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he worked as a Multimedia Journalist for The Detroit News and then the NPR affiliate, WDET, before starting his work with the Brick by Brick team at CET and ThinkTV. Hernz aims to produce stories that tell the bigger picture while doing his due diligence to educate and inform the public about the solutions-focused work being done in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.
