A contractor opened up his business so his crew could learn how to buy a home

Workshops · Trenton

Last Friday we taught a homebuyer class at Carlos Rodas’s business. He owns Perfect Touch, and he called it for his own crew.

August 14, 2026  ·  Trenton, NJ  ·  Leer en español

Trenton, August 14, 2026. Last Friday we spent the afternoon at Carlos Rodas’s business with part of his crew and a few neighbors. Carlos owns Perfect Touch, a construction company. The idea was not ours. It was his.

He did not call us to sell anything. He called because he wanted his people to know how buying a house works in this country, and he knew nobody else was going to explain it to them.

Why he did it

Eleven years ago Carlos was still in his dirty work clothes when he stopped to eat near a McDonald’s. A woman saw him and asked if he was looking for anyone to hire. He left her a business card. Fifteen days later her son in law called him.

That man worked with him for years. Carlos chose not to give his name.

“He was such a good man, so good, that you could not deny him a good wage, good treatment, and dignity. But beyond that, I started mentoring him with advice, with ideas, to the point that he came and bought his house.”

That is when it clicked for Carlos.

“I realized that we as bosses, as employers, whatever you want to call us, are often very selfish. We do not want to help our employee, who is the one actually doing the work for us.”

Friday came out of that. His motivation, in his own words, is to take his people to that level and give them the joy of wanting something of their own in this country.

What we covered

The down payment is not money you lose. It is the most common confusion in the room and the first one we clear up. If you buy a hundred thousand dollar house and put down ten thousand, you are not handing that money to the bank. You are putting it into your own house. The bank asks for it as a requirement, but the money stays yours.

An ITIN opens doors most people do not know exist. There are loan programs that do not require a Social Security number. Getting an ITIN takes a few minutes online. The barrier is almost never the requirement itself. The barrier is that nobody tells you it exists.

Dina explained where her certainty about this comes from. In the nineties her father went from bank to bank trying to open an account, and every one told him the same thing, that without a Social Security number it could not be done. She was with the Guatemalan Civic Association back then, and one day a man who worked at a bank came to tell the community that it could be done, that a tax ID was enough.

“Because we did not know, all of us were missing that opportunity.”

If you own a business, tax returns are not always the obstacle. Restaurant owners, deli owners, bodega owners, people with strong and steady cash flow. There are programs where the bank looks at twelve months of that cash flow instead of tax returns.

And the mistake that costs the most has nothing to do with money. Guillermo explained it through Doña Florinda, the neighbor everyone who grew up with that show remembers. She has rented for years. She saves. Her income is steady and her credit is good. She can afford it. But she is waiting on a perfect love that never arrives, and while she waits, she does not act. House hunting works the same way. Not this one, something is missing. Not this one either. And the years go by.

“Nobody wakes up in the morning saying today I am going to buy a house, and has bought one by five in the afternoon.”

What the people who came said

Sandra arrived not knowing where to start.

“We had no idea at all how to go from being a renter to being an owner. Now I know how to start and how to have a place of my own.”

She said she was going to talk to her friends and neighbors, and that if we hold another session, she will bring them.

There was also a question that comes up in nearly every one of these classes, and it came up that afternoon. When someone has no papers, they often believe they cannot even try, that if something goes wrong they lose everything, and because of that doubt they never ask. That fear ends up costing more than any paperwork ever would. There is usually a path, and the only way to find out is to ask.

What Carlos would tell another business owner

We asked him at the end whether the day had been worth it, and what he would say to other employers.

“We have to support our people. They need to put a roof over their children, their wife, their family. I am not saying follow my example, but somehow think more about our people. I would not call them employees. I would call them partners, our associates, so that they can make their dreams real too.”

And earlier he had said something that stayed with us:

“As immigrants we have that right to contribute our grain of sand to this country.”

If you want to do the same

We give these classes free. They cost nothing, not to the company and not to anyone who attends. They run entirely in Spanish or entirely in English, they last about an hour and a half, and we come to your location. Mercer and Burlington are home for us, and we drive about an hour past them anywhere in New Jersey.

Nobody signs anything. Nobody leaves a phone number at the door. These are classes, not sales pitches. And when a question needs an attorney or an accountant, we say so instead of guessing.

Thank you, Don Carlos, for opening your doors to us.

The loan programs mentioned here have requirements that depend on each case and change over time. Nothing above is legal or tax advice. Finca Realty LLC is a licensed New Jersey real estate brokerage. Equal Housing Opportunity.