A low down payment mortgage designed with your needs in mind

Lack of down payment money is the biggest hurdle for most first time home buyers. We eliminate that hurdle for low and moderate income buyers making the dream of home ownership come true.

Finally there is a home loan that can really help first time homebuyers!  Even with modest savings, or a little help from your family, you have a very low down payment path to your first home. All you need just 3% down! *

Two programs exist: HomeReady ® from Fannie Mae, and Home Possible ® from Freddie Mac.

The biggest benefit of these programs is clearly the low 3% down payment requirement, but there are other benefits too.

The 3% down payment can come from multiple sources.

It can be:

• Your own money (checking / savings)
• Taken from your 401(k). Either a 401k loan, or permanent withdrawal.
• A gift from a family member or employer
• Partially from a down payment assistance program

You can potentially use other types of household income to help income qualify for the loan from a non-applicant.

For example:

• Co-Signors allowed
• Maybe your elderly parents will be living in the home. We might be able to use their social security income to help you qualify.
• Or how about your spouse has bad credit, but has a job.  we can maybe use their income too without them actually being on the loan application itself.
• Rental income from a single family home may be considered for qualifying
• Using non-borrower household member family income greatly extends mortgage and homeownership access to multi-generational families!

There are a lot of restrictions on using some of this income to help you qualify, so be sure to talk to your Loan Officer about this option.

Cancellable Mortgage Insurance

Whenever you don't put down at least 20% of the purchase price, you also must have the cost of additional mortgage insurance added to your payment. On a conventional loan like this one, the mortgage insurance is cancellable, saving you more money per month down the road.

FHA loans are great too, but with a small down payment on that loan, the additional mortgage insurance is for the life of the loan. The only way to remove it is to refinance that loan.

Lower interest rates and cheaper mortgage insurance.

Both the HomeReady and the Home Possible program come with slightly lower mortgage interest rates that regular loans, and cheaper monthly mortgage insurance costs too.

Why?  Because you MUST take a first time home buyer education class to get this loan, and it is well documented that those who take a home buyer education class default on the mortgage at a much lower rate that those that didn't take a class. These savings can easily be more than $100 a month depending on your loan size.

Less Property Condition Issues

While all loan programs take the condition of the property into consideration, HomeReady and Home Possible are convention loan programs and have less stringent property condition guidelines compared to the other popular low down payment program, the FHA loan.

FHA for example requires re-painting any peeling paint areas on any home older than 1978. Conventional loans like HomeReady and Home Possible don't care about peeling paint.  This is one example, but this may be important when making offer's on homes, as many sellers reject an FHA offer if they think there may be some required repairs that they just don't want to deal with.

Income Limits Apply

As with most special first time home buyer programs, household income limits may apply. As these limits vary by property location. contact one of our First Time Home Buyer experts at (651) 552-3681 to learn what the loan limit is in your area.