Student loans and homeownership with Catalina Kaiyoorawongs

This week’s Girlfunds episode focuses on one of the biggest barriers to homeownership – student loans. In this Girlfunds episode, student loan expert Catalina Kaiyoorawongs shares her practical and tangible advice for people who feel overwhelmed by their student loan debt. She also speaks to parents who are walking their students through the student loan process, breaking down some of the long-term repercussions of taking out a loan that they might not be considering. 

Student loans and homeownership are closely tied together, and Catalina gives listeners the direction to navigate their debt and accomplish their goal of owning a home. 

Catalina is the CEO and co-founder of LoanSense, a homebuyer preparation tool that helps consumers crush debt and close on a house. She is also a student loan expert through her nonprofit work in both helping the socioeconomically challenged get access to college through grants and helping student debt borrowers get access to forgiveness. In fact, she counseled over $50 million in student debt on excel spreadsheets and used that data to create an algorithm for LoanSense’s software. She was also a Bill and Melinda Gates education fellow, doing research on education policy.  

Girlfunds takeaway tip from Catalina Kaiyoorawongs on student loans and homeownership. 

If you are in your late 20s and 30s and you have a belief that you can’t afford a house, it’s likely to be completely untrue. Number one, you should get a plan to see if you can reduce your payments, therefore reducing your debt to income, which is used to help you qualify. That’s number one. Number two is if you can’t qualify this second, you need to plan so you can qualify a year from now. And, we can help you do that. So don’t let notions confuse you. Get facts and get a plan. That’s what I always say to people. Get facts and get a plan because education should lift us up the economic ladder, not delay our opportunities in life.

Join the two best friends who met as financial journalists at HousingWire, Brena Nath, a twenty-something first-time homebuyer with her husband and pups, and Sarah Wheeler, an empty nester on her third home, every week for our girls night focused on everything from affording your best friend’s wedding to how to turn your side hustle into your main hustle. Each week, Girlfunds will have a special guest join us as we intertwine finance and friendship. And don’t worry, you don’t have to have your