In addition to not requiring a down payment, VA mortgages are now a superior choice to FHA mortgages in most cases. The reason is simple.

Once in a blue moon, Washington does the right thing for people who truly deserve it. Qualified service members, who were ordered on a period of official extended duty, have until April 30, 2011 to get a home under contract to qualify for the home buyer tax credit.

Mortgage rates shot up sharply this week. The benchmark 30 year fixed rate mortgage was at 5% according to one survey of national lenders.

In my previous 2 Blogs on DPA, I discussed and tried to dispel some of the myths surrounding down payment assistance. In addition, I highlighted some of the key factors in determining what it takes to qualify for DPA. Today, I will address who are the agencies out there who offer DPA and how doing a little research can help in deciding which program you should consider and how to find out if your lender works with that agency.

In my last post, I discussed that the MAJORITY of first time home buyers are eligible for DPA here in Colorado. In this post, I am going to talk about what are the qualifications for DPA. You will be surprised how easy it is to qualify and it is not that restrictive in order to get your piece of the DPA pie.

Ok, here we go again. We are roughly 45 days away from the Federal Tax credit expiring for would-be home buyers. It seems like we just went through this the other day and in fact, it was just last October when we were writing articles just like this. It’s mid-March and at the end of April, the tax credit for home buyers and first-time home buyers will expire. The question is did you take advantage of it?

Sure, as a new home buyer you are going to get your $8000 tax credit for buying a home (provided you close before the deadlines) and you will begin to “itemize” your tax deductions (real estate property taxes, mortgage interest, and points) going forward each year. All of these can potentially save you allot of money on your federal taxes which one of the many reasons people chose to buy rather than rent.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

I am sure by now that you saw the news from two weeks ago about the first-time home buyers’ tax credit being extended through April 30, 2010 and Congress creating a new credit for people other than first-time home buyers.

Today is GOOD NEWS for those of you thinking about buying a home or a first home. The House and Senate have finalized a version of the tax credit extension for first time buyers and created a credit for all buyers. The current proposal will extend the current $8000 first time home buyer tax credit that expires on November 30, 2009 to April 30, 2010.