Anyway, I bought my house with 3% down, and they were willing to role some of the closing costs into the loan. This is part of a firsttime home buyers program all the banks have now. South Trust even waived the PMI(insurance you have to have if you put less than 20% down on most any home loan) if you attended a home-buyers seminar they give. Unfortunately, the little that was useful in the class was old news by the time you got there. Many people there seemed even more clueless than I, about the whole process.(I was a basket-case). My loan officier also went way out of her way to keep every thing rolling smoothly and calm me down, but I think that was just her.
I believe(or want to) that these programs were a result of a study of discrimination in housing that happened in the late 70's. I had a part-time gig as a "white female" with a local org that got the Fed contract for the study. You should have seen scared to death me in my home-made Volve pick-up, shopping for a $400,000 house. I kinda thought the real est. agent would have guessed what was going on.
I have been very glad that I spent much less than I qualified for and I think that many people who didn't, might get in trouble financially.
What really amazed me after I got the house was how much you get by buying. A lot more habitat for the money, plus the homeowners insurance seems like a luxery. And of course the tax deduction every one raves about, but I think most low-income people get no benefit from this. I've seen the numbers somewhere. If I got to deduct ANY of my health insurance premiums, I'd for sure have enough to make itemizing practical. But no, I'm just a working-stiff buyinng insurance. Gotta own a business to get the deduction. I've thought of saying I'm a writer and incorperateing as Tribal Echoes.
Would you like some more soda?
Later Paula
ps. There are some no down-payment progs available, but those hoops had fire around them, I couldn't deal with it. Also, the people I did talk to about it, try to sound discourageing. Tell you about all the minus' first.