Loans for First Time Homebuyers: Oregon Bond Loan

If you’re a first time homebuyer in Portland, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Tigard, Tualatin or surrounding areas, you might qualify for below market interest rates or cash assistance when purchasing your home. Sounds great, right?

Enter the Oregon Bond Loan.

If you’re a first time home buyer or you haven’t purchased a home in the last 3 years and meet certain income limit requirements (e.g., $100,800 for a family of three) you might qualify to take advantage of one of two Oregon Bond Loan programs:

• RateAdvantage
• CashAdvantage

RateAdvantage

The RateAdvantage program offers below market interest rates on your home purchase with rates starting at 3.125% for qualified borrowers. That’s a fixed rate for the life of the loan and about an eighth of a percent (0.125) lower than the rate at which a standard FHA 30-year fixed loan is starting as of today, November 14th. Pretty sweet!

Or…

CashAdvantage

If you’re short on cash (and many homebuyers are these days), the CashAdvantage program offers 3% down payment assistance, which means your portion of the down payment will only be 0.5%. On a $300,000 purchase that’s only $1,500. By comparison, an FHA loan, which offers one of the lowest down payment requirements of all loan programs and is what more than half of first time buyers are using, requires a down payment equal to 3.5% of the purchase price. That would equate to $10,500 on the same purchase – a $9,000 difference!

The program is funded through the sale of federally authorized tax-exempt bonds. The portion subsidized to get you a below market interest rate on your loan or cash down payment assistance isn’t a loan and does not need to be paid back except in the event that you sell the home within 9 years of the purchase date and your income exceeds the program’s income qualification limits at the time of sale.

Get full details on these programs at the Oregon Bond Loan website or contact a participating lender to see if you qualify and to start the application process. You can also contact Clayton Scott, the branch manager at Windermere Mortgage Services in Lake Oswego.