By Quila Bryant
There is good news for the Charlotte area real estate market. Mecklenburg county has been selected by U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Hardest Hit Fund®, as one of the five North Carolina counties to receive state down payment assistance funds. Through this North Carolina Housing Fund, each homebuyer who qualifies for the down payment assistance may be eligible for $15,000 towards the purchase of their home.
The best part is that local grants can be partnered with this federal grant. When partnering local down payment funds with the NC Housing Fund, home buyers may get up to 20 percent in down payment assistance. In select neighborhoods, a homebuyer may get as much as $40,000 in down payment assistance.
Receiving the funds towards a down payment is obviously a benefit but some of the not so obvious benefits of these funds are:
-Buyer is only required to put a minimum of $500 into the transaction. The standard out-of-pocket amount is an average of $1,500, which means this is $1,000 savings automatically.
-Funds are added as zero percent, forgivable and deferred second loan. This means the funds are not paid back by the homebuyer unless they resale their home before a certain amount of time.
-Buyers have access to homebuyer education and counseling programs. Buyers can use these programs to their advantage to gain more knowledge of the transaction.
Although this is a beneficial opportunity for homebuyers, there are certain requirements that buyers must meet to take advantage of the down payment assistance. Potential homebuyers must have a credit score of at least 640. In addition to the credit score, the buyer must be a first time homebuyer with stable income. The buyers income limits must be within 80 percent of the area’s median income. The actual house that a buyer choses to buy should be a newer home built within the last 10 years and must not exceed $245,000.
For information about the down payment programs visit www.nchfa.com and www.cmpg.org.
For more information vist www.movetocltnc.com