When Jesse Chen was a student a few years ago at Brooklyn College, he helped his parents pay the rent on their Bensonhurst apartment. But he wanted to do more.

When he could, he decided, he'd buy a home for the three of them.

"When I paid rent each month, I thought, the place is not my own," said Chen, 26.

It took five years of saving for a down payment - and a city grant - but he made good on his vow.

Chen, who was born in Guangzhou in southern China and moved to Jersey City at age 12, worked his way through college.

He was able to pay $200 of his parents' $650-a-month rent and put savings into a money-market account.

While studying for a bachelor's degree in business management, he was careful with his money. He took no student loans and paid off his credit cards every month.

After graduating in summer 2007, he switched from a part-time data entry job at health insurer GHI in Manhattan to a full-time position approving insurance claims, which pays about $38,000 a year.

By the time he got his degree, Chen, an only child, had stepped up his efforts to prep for homebuying by talking with counselors at Asian Americans For Equality.

His aunt, who took homebuyer classes through the AAFE Community Development Fund, suggested he give them a try.

In 2006, Chen went to the organization’s Chinatown office and signed up for the First Home Club, a savings program for low- to moderate-income first-time homebuyers.

He opened a savings account at HSBC and put $188 in it every month for 10 months. The Federal Home Loan Bank gave him $7,500 by matching nearly every dollar he saved 4-to-1.

He took the community group's 12-hour course for first-time homebuyers, which was taught in Mandarin Chinese.

The course enabled him to qualify for a city Department of Housing Preservation and Development grant equal to 6% of the purchase price.

A counselor at Community Development Fund worked out a budget with Chen, and helped him figure out how much he could afford to pay for a home - $200,000 at most.

Earlier this year, he went apartment hunting. He and his parents scoured the real estate ads in Chinese-language newspapers, and he looked online at Realtor.com's listings.

For eight weekends in a row, they checked out apartments all over Brooklyn.

Some were in sketchy neighborhoods. Some weren't near a subway station, which they considered a deal breaker because his father, Zuofan Chen, commutes to Manhattan to his job at a weekly magazine published by a Chinese-language radio station. His mom, Huixian Zhang, travels all over the city to get to jobs as a home health care attendant.

Then they went to look at a handsome brick building in the Madison section of south Brooklyn down the block from Kings Highway - near a subway station. The apartment for sale was a two-bedroom co-op.

"We felt comfortable when we walked in," said. "It's a good neighborhood with a lot of stores and activity."

The 800-square-foot apartment was spacious and sunny. Through the windows, they saw shade trees lining the sidewalks.

It was a change from the basement apartment they were living in - where the view out their windows was of the feet of passersby.

"Now I can actually see people’s heads," said.

The asking price was $205,000. real estate agent, Tina Han, helped negotiate a deal at $188,000.

When Chen signed a purchase contract, he made a 10% down payment with $18,800 from his money-market account.

He used the $11,280 city grant and about $4,000 from the First Home Club savings program, and covered the closing costs with the rest of money from the savings club.

He remembers the closing and when he was handed the keys vividly.

"I was excited and happy," he said.

Chen has a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 5.375% from HSBC, which participates in a program that offers first-time homebuyers loans at discounted interest rates.

His mortgage payment is $672 a month, and the maintenance is $500.

He doesn't want his parents to contribute and, so far, he's footing the bill with no problems.

Before the family moved in to the new apartment in July, spent two weeks sprucing it up.

Rollers, brushes and paint cost about $300. picked baby blue as the color for his bedroom, and soft white for the rest of the apartment.

“I knew it would be perfect if I did it myself,” he said.