I have been telling buyers now is the time to buy particularly if you were looking for help from sellers in the form of seller-funded down payment
assistance. Read below from the Poughkeepsie Journal:

Housing industry observers expect that prospective buyers will scramble to take advantage of seller-funded down-payment assistance before a federal ban on such programs takes effect on Oct. 1.

The federal housing bill signed into law in July sews up a loophole that allows nonprofit organizations to gift mortgage down payments, and industry experts believe markets that have relied heavily on the programs could see new-home sales cut by as much as half.

Seller-funded downpayment assistance has served as a surrogate for subprime loans in some ways and has helped builders put first-time and low-income buyers into new homes.

“We will eventually go back to the mind-set of a society where you have to have 3 percent up-front to buy a home,” says Phoenix real estate analyst Jim Belfiore.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Buying First Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.