http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-down-payment-assistance-program-aims-to-boost-neighborhoods/article/3667017

Very bad idea. If you can't afford the downpayment you can't afford to own. If you can't afford to own you can't afford to 'fix-up'. We have a housing option for those who can't afford to own - it is called renting. Plus, government should not be trying to concentrate the poor into specific areas. We already tried that many times over and it has NEVER worked for anyone.

That's not true, everybody doesn't have an extra $10,000 just to pull out to buy a house, but that doesn't mean you can't keep up with your mortgage payments, and it doesn't mean you are poor. Especially if you fall in the "working middle class" category. Prime example, is me! My wife and I didn't have enough money for a down payment for our new $220,000 home, we borrowed the money from my parents. But we have had no problem keeping up with our mortgage payments, and home ownership was the best thing we ever did!

Similar programs like this have been used for sometime throughout the U.S. and have been very successful. The Buyer still Must be able to secure their own mortgage, and lenders are no longer just handing out loans to anyone that can sign their name on the line.

This is a great idea, and could spur improvements in inner-city neighborhoods like Classen Ten-Penn.

This program is only for the poor - so yes - it means you are poor. Making the mortgage payment is only half the battle though. They are doing this program so the new owners fix up the houses. What is so sad is how many people think this is helping the poor when it isn't helping them at all.

If by poor you mean young with good paying job and high credit score, but not much savings then I guess.

Again the Buyer MUST be able to have lender financing, No qualifying for a mortgage then no housing assistance. Last time I checked the poor are not qualifying for mortgages.

Has anyone been able to find the qualification guidelines?

Also, strange that they use Memorial as the north boundary and Meridian as the west... Why not all the way to at least Rockwell? There are lots of neighborhoods in the Putnam City area that need help.

I do find the border boundary a little odd, and actually too large, but that is another problem with the size of Okc.

Also I have seen other cities and their programs that require the Applicant / Home Buyer to be employed within the same border area i.e. Oklahoma City.

The broad boundaries just go to show how blight has spread all throughout the city due to our crazy sprawl.

Pretty bad when you have to lump in neighborhoods near Memorial Road with those in the central core.

From 2002 - the rest is history.

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The way these HUD programs work is that the home buyer 1) has to qualify for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage; and 2) has to provide at least 1% of the purchase price towards the down payment.

The maximum HUD will provide is $6,000 ($10K in some rare circumstances) but that is secured by a 60-month second mortgage held by the city. If the homeowner defaults on their primary mortgage or sells the home within that time, the remaining period is pro-rated and is a lien against the property.

There are also maximum income guidelines depending on the number of people in the household, but it's usually starts around $30K and can go up to almost $60K.


Sounds like a great program to me.

OKC missed out on the housing bubble and collapse but I guess it is never too late to join in. Welcome to 2002 OKC. Good luck.

This isn't nearly the same thing because housing prices aren't hugely inflated like they were in many parts of the country and the tight lending market means that people will have to be well-qualified for an 80% loan.

The mortgage meltdown was caused by people owing more than their house was worth. I can't see how this program would cause that to happen.

Pete - watch the video I posted. It is Bush in 2002 saying the down payment assistance was a great start but needed to be improved on. It is a slippery slope that Oklahoma missed out on, but it has arrived. Every journey starts with a single step. I am simply amazed that we have such a disastrous economic event so recent in our past and how many people jump on board the very program when it is brought to Oklahoma. Why would Republicans want to repeat the single greatest failure of the last Republican president and why would Democrats want to bring the "failed policies of the past" to Oklahoma?

Pete - watch the video I posted. It is Bush in 2002 saying the down payment assistance was a great start but needed to be improved on. It is a slippery slope that Oklahoma missed out on, but it has arrived. Every journey starts with a single step. I am simply amazed that we have such a disastrous economic event so recent in our past and how many people jump on board the very program when it is brought to Oklahoma. Why would Republicans want to repeat the single greatest failure of the last Republican president and why would Democrats want to bring the "failed policies of the past" to Oklahoma?

not close to the reality of that or this situation

Then don't let me stand in the way. Peace out.

OKC missed out on the housing bubble and collapse but I guess it is never too late to join in. Welcome to 2002 OKC. Good luck.

WTF? I know you're a strong conservative, but this has nothing to do with inflating a "housing bubble." This is not like issuing subprime loans to people with stated income and crap credit. This is an incentive for qualified buyers to spend a little money on an aging home instead of fleeing to a brand-new place (with no fixup costs) in the 'burbs. Given your strong advocacy for rebuilding our inner-city, I'm surprised you're opposed to this.

This is a sensible program.

This isn't nearly the same thing because housing prices aren't hugely inflated like they were in many parts of the country and the tight lending market means that people will have to be well-qualified for an 80% loan.

The mortgage meltdown was caused by people owing more than their house was worth. I can't see how this program would cause that to happen.

Truthfully, Pete, the mortgage meltdown was only tangentially related to home values. It had more to do with mortgages being resold as investment grade paper dozens of times by market investors.

Truthfully, Pete, the mortgage meltdown was only tangentially related to home values. It had more to do with mortgages being resold as investment grade paper dozens of times by market investors.

Strongly disagree but this is off topic anyway.

Strongly disagree but this is off topic anyway.

I may have misstated. I doubt we really disagree on this topic, and I don't want to go off subject, but here's what I meant to say: the inflation of home values was caused in part by the abundance of new mortgage products (offered to people who wouldn't otherwise qualify), and the reselling of these mortgages as investment-grade instruments, further inflating their values. You know far more about this than me living in California, and I didn't mean to say you were wrong. The obvious outcome was a plunge in home values from their artificially inflated values, and on that, we agree. Sorry I wasn't more clear.

For what its worth, from the article:

Those with incomes near or less than the area's median income are eligible.

Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-city-down-payment-assistance-program-aims-to-boost-neighborhoods/article/3667017#ixzz1sKbMXlSY

I don't have any real opinion on the program but to say if you can't afford a down payment then you can't afford a home is just plain wrong. A year or two out of college I wasn't poor but I didn't have $5,000 or $10,000 saved up for a down payment. Someone loaned me the down payment money and I've got no problem owning a home and have made a ton of improvements on it. This is something I would have looked into a couple years back if it was available.

DPA programs being used as a tool for neighborhood revitalization are nothing new. OKC, Norman, Edmond, and others have offered them for 8+ years using HUD funds. Thousands of qualified buyers with good credit in Oklahoma have used them and all had to qualify for a mortgage, put at least 1% to 3% down AND attend a minimum 6-hour first-time buyer education class. They are highly successful with very few foreclosures.

With all the cuts to HUD, I'm surprised some cities can still afford to run the programs, as they are paperwork and staff intensive. Lack of mortgage regulations hurt all of us, especially first-timers, and some cities stopped offering DPA because dealing with shady lenders was beyond thier pay grade. The good news is most shady lenders are gone.

I think our older neighborhoods, and especially you and I, have benefited greatly by HUD's DPA programs. Community and economic development begin with building personal wealth and homeownership is recognized as a tool for this. Personal wealth leads to paying bills on time, better access to credit, more expendable income to buy home improvement and house paint supplies, which make neighborhoods nicer, increases property values, supports businesses, it adds to sales tax, which pays for city services and so on.

Just a quick glance through HUD's website, hug.gov, its obvious the changing demographics, economics, environmental degredation and health, have led to more focus and funding for housing options, including renting, and sustainable planning and access to good transit, healthcare and healthy foods. I, for one, love this direction. It seems like the secretaries of HUD and Transportation are top notch and really see the big picture.

I think I prefer the way Philly grew their center city population. Back in the late 90's they offered 10 years worth of property tax credits to anyone who moved to their downtown area regardless of income. The people I worked with there credit it for helping to sell thousands of existing units and even more new units being built.

Down payments are not a meaningless requirement. They are 1) designed to indicate to a lender that you are financially capable of owning a home 2) that if you default, they have more capital to offset their loss, and 3) be an incentive for you not to walk away from the property because you would lose a substantial sum of money.

I am not suggesting there is some perfect down payment amount that perfectly accomplishes this, but I am skeptical that without these "benefits" of the practice of requiring a down payment, that home ownership can grow in a healthy fashion.

Yeah, I've got no problem with down payment requirements and all of that kind of stuff. I know they are far from meaningless. My point was just because you don't have a down payment doesn't mean you are poor.

Here we go again...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/us-usa-housing-negative-idUSBRE83P12E20120426


Insight: Falling home prices drag new buyers under water

(Reuters) - More than 1 million Americans who have taken out mortgages in the past two years now owe more on their loans than their homes are worth, and Federal Housing Administration loans that require only a tiny down payment are partly to blame.

That figure, provided to Reuters by tracking firm CoreLogic, represents about one out of 10 home loans made during that period.

It is a sobering indication the U.S. housing market remains deeply troubled, with home values still falling in many parts of the country, and raises the question of whether low-down payment loans backed by the FHA are putting another generation of buyers at risk

...

These loans, insured by the FHA, require a down payment of as little as 3.5 percent of the purchase price, providing only a small cushion of protection against a drop in home prices that could drive a borrower into negative equity.

"This is creating a new wave of underwater borrowers," said Gary Shilling, a veteran financial analyst and well-known housing market bear. "We have all three branches of government trying to keep people in four bedroom houses who can't afford chicken coops."