About 15 years ago, those of us who had trouble sleeping would, at some point in time, end up watching a late night infomercial about buying homes with nothing down. And it could be done. A friend watched one where they said you could buy a home even if you didn’t have a job. Well, he was out of work, so he tried it. And he did buy a home. I am sorry to say that he lost the home to foreclosure like many others did in the housing crisis, but he did. But zero down mortgages are mostly a thing of the past.
And you can still purchase a home with nothing down. But I am aware of only one easy way to do that. And that is if you are a Veteran and you have Veteran’s Benefits. The Veteran’s Administration backs mortgages for veterans. And this program allows them to get a mortgage for up to the full appraised value of the home. And having the Veterans Administration (and by extension the government) extend this benefit to our veterans, is doing the right thing for these brave men and women.
But if you are not a veteran, what can you do if you do not have money for the down payment? Well the easiest way is to get a mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Authority. With an FHA mortgage you can get by with as little as 3.5% down. And there are other mortgage programs with possibly a little less down.
Whether you get a Veterans Administration mortgage, a FHA mortgage or one of the other low down payment mortgages, you still need to come up with closing costs. And the closing costs can easily be $8,000, $10,000 or more. And this can be another big hurdle to overcome. But here is an idea which quite often works.
Ask the seller to pay your closing costs.
Say what??? Why would the seller do that?
I’ll explain how it works after these words from our sponsors, Bunny and Art Reiman – Realtors.
Are you looking to purchase a home but don’t have much money for the down payment? We may have some ideas that can help. Call us at 732-598-7700 or visit www.55plusinocean.com. You’ll be glad you did.
Here’s how it works. You find a home, make an offer and it gets expected. We then say to the seller “we agreed on this price. But now we will offer you $10,000 more, and you will use that $10,000 to pay our closing costs.”
Who says no?