Best First Time Mortgage Rates are available to you right now. To understand how the required steps to take starts with understanding the terminology and your options.

Only lenders that will spend the time to understand as much about you as possible and that are large enough to have all available loan products to offer can make it possible for you to receive the best first time mortgage rate in the market today.

Buying your first home comes with a lot to think about and a lot of stress as long with a lot of questions.

If you don’t have enough for a down payment you might wonder what options are available to you, you may want to know what your credit score needs to be or what are the most advantageous programs for first time home buyers.

Get Pre-Qualified for a first time mortgage by filling out the questionnaire below.

Down Payment Assistance For First Time Home Buyers

Nationally there are many programs that can help you pay for your down payment and closing costs. Every state, county and township has their own programs.

DPA Loans

Down payment assistance (DPA) programs are programs that help home buyers with loans or grants that lower the amount that the borrower needs to have available for their down payment. A few options for a DPA loan for a first time home buyer can include a second mortgage. A second mortgage will need to be paid off when you refinance your first mortgage or sell your home.

Many First Time Home Buyers believe that you need 20% down to purchase a new home when in fact there are first time home buyer programs today that only require 3 or 3.5% down to purchase your first home. A first time home buyer can include anyone who has not purchased a home in 3 years.
DPA Grants
There are down payment assistant grants which do not have to be repaid. The best place to start is online to look for down payment assistance programs in your areas. Be careful in this post Covid era. Many of these programs are disappearing and may not be available when you are ready to close.

Down Payment Assistance Using Gifts
An easy solution to down payment assistance is to ask a family member to “Gift” you the money. A gift is allowable up to 3% so long that it is not a loan and does not have to be repaid. Along with a gift for the down payment when you negotiate the contract you may want to as the seller to pay 4% towards closing costs. In this manner you will just have a portion of the down payment out of pocket and the appraisal to pay for in order for you to close.

HomePath Ready Buyer™ Program

Fannie Mae first-time home buyer program offers buyers the chance to purchase a foreclosed property on their website for as little as 3% down. You can apply for up to an additional 3% of your closing costs back tas well, through the program. Fannie Mae homes sell in as is condition. This means that that no repairs will be made prior to you taking title, so you may have to make a number of repairs before the home is in move in condition.

The HomePath Ready Buyer™ program is only available to first-time buyers who want to live full-time in a house that they’re looking to purchase. You’ll need to take a class that is offered by Fannie’s Framework Homeownership and pass the same To learn more, visit HomePath’s website.

You can view state specific programs on the HUD website.. HUD website.

What Type of Credit Score Do I Need
Today, First Time Home Buyers need a credit score of 620 or above to qualify to purchase a home. Consumer credit site like Credit Karma are a good way to track and help your credit improve. A mortgage credit score is called a tri merge FICO.

It is calculated by pulling your score and liabilities from all 3 credit bureaus. The middle score is your FICO score. If you want to pull your “Risk” based FICO that you will need when applying for credit, click below.

The report is a third party credit monitoring service called Birchwood Meridian. They provide the credit scores from all three bureaus if they are available on your report.

If you go through a credit bureau you will receive all three reports but only one credit score.

The report is copied to a loan officer for a free consult with a mortgage and credit expert.

The Tri-Merge credit report is extremely useful for consolidating all three reports together for quick comparison and organization. Having access to this credit report gives you the opportunity to check for errors, figure out what is hurting your credit score, and be proud of the good credit score you have created. A copy of this report is copied to our loan advisor who will be available for a free consult to discuss how you can improve your score and qualify for a mortgage.

Loan Products

There are literally dozens of loan products for first time home buyers and certainly too many to go through here. For the best first time home buyer rates Click Here. The most popular first time home buyer program though is the FHA First Time Home Buyer Program with 3.5% down. The FHA minimizes the risk to the lender by providing a guarantee to the bank. This guarantee allows the bank to provide higher leverage at lower rates. The only drawback to the FHA first time home buyer program is that it comes with a mortgage insurance premium (MIP). This insurance premium is added to your mortgage.

The premium can go away with a refinance or when the equity in your home reaches 20%. If you put down a 20% deposit when initially purchasing, you will most likely want a conventional loan that does not require mortgage insurance.

The VA Home Loan for Veterans is a Zero Down loan product that has lower closing costs. You can explore our VA Home Loan products HERE…

Best Mortgage Rates For First Time Home Buyers.

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