Finding the right home to buy can be tough, but having the financial wherewithal to seal the deal is a lot tougher.

Consumers say they more often need help finding the right loan and managing debt and credit than they do finding a home or a professional to guide them.

GMAC's first quarterly customer survey to examine barriers to home ownership from the consumer's perspective echoed other "what do realty consumers want" studies and found what appears to be an insatiable appetite for information about the home buying process in general, specifically financial issues.

GMAC Mortgage, which has 330 mortgage offices nationwide, and CARAVAN Opinion Research Corporation conducted a national telephone survey of 1,000 households nationwide between January 20 and 23 this year and found that 24 percent of consumers cite a lack of financial security as a primary obstacle to home ownership, while 23 percent named saving for a down payment their biggest obstacle.

Together those financial issues were more challenging then trying to find the right house to meet their needs -- 37 percent said finding a home was the most challenging aspect to home ownership, the study found.

The survey also revealed a consumer penchant for more home ownership education, again, particularly about the financial aspects of the home buying process.

Consumers said they needed more education to help them:

• Find the right loan (20 percent).

• Manage debt (18 percent).

• Evaluate their credit (17 percent).

• Find the right house (16 percent).

• Save for a down payment (10 percent).

• Find a qualified real estate agent (7 percent).

Earlier this year, the NeighborWorks community-based neighborhood revitalization network, designed to develop strong communities, announced it was boosting its NeighborWorks Center for Home Ownership Education and Counseling (NCHEC) program to address just such concerns.

And late last year, the federal government opened MyMoney.gov to put much of the government's residential real estate information, all in one place, on the Internet.

Numerous studies reveal consumers specifically educated on the home buying transaction are more successful home owners in terms of not falling into default or otherwise struggling with mortgage payments and other costs that go into home ownership.

"Educating consumers on the complexities of the home financing and mortgage process is the responsibility of established leaders in the housing industry," said Mike Mahfouz, senior vice-president and northeastern division manager, GMAC Mortgage.

GMAC also found that 12 percent of those surveyed cited past or current credit problems as an obstacle to home ownership. Good credit early in life as a means to an end was more clearly understood by younger consumers -- 43 percent of those aged 18 to 24 wanted to learn more about FICO scores and the evaluation of credit during the home financing process, compared to only 17 percent of all consumers.

Consumers aged 25 to 34, however, were more likely than older, likely more financially stable people, to cite saving for a down payment (36 percent) and achieving financial security (39 percent) as an obstacle to home ownership.

Not surprisingly, among households with incomes at and above $75,000, 86 percent felt financially stable enough to buy a home, compared to only 70 percent of those with a household income of less than $75,000.

Published: March 31, 2005

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the Web site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for "Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home" (Nolo $24.99) and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.