Working with the states
“We spent a lot of time trying to figure out being able to provide the right down payment assistance program,” he told Mortgage Professional America at the conference. “One of the things that makes Windsor unique is we collaborate with a lot of the states with their independent bond program. We’re really passionate about that because that provides a product to all of the brokers and it’s something that no other company really truly offers.”
He invoked Florida as an example of a state aggressively promoting homeownership for first-time homebuyers via its “Homes for Heroes” program, an initiative helping mainly first responders – firefighters, ambulance personnel, law enforcement members, those in the military, healthcare professionals among them – achieve homeownership.
“In Florida, there’s the “Homes for Heroes” but then there’s the Florida bond which is totally different,” he said. “We wanted to find a product that would not only complement that. What we love about Zero Flex is I feel like it’s common-sense underwriting and for a lot of DPA [down payment assistance] programs, that is truly not there.”
He acknowledged working through state bond programs is not an easy undertaking: “It’s so difficult and originators steer away because, let’s face it, today we make all of our money by working hand in hand with realtors and we have to deliver, we have to close on time and we have to have confidence that what I am selling I can actually do. Starting off as a broker, I get it. That’s a scary spot of selling prequalifying putting my name on the line for a realtor and not being able to deliver.”
In a state as big as Texas, there are a couple of bond programs for low- and moderate-income borrowers. One dubbed the Texas First Time Homebuyer Program, aka Bond Program 77, helps secure competitive interest rates with 30-year repayable mortgages for home loans. Then there’s the Texas Mortgage Program, known as TMP-79, backed by more than $600 million set aside to assist homebuyers.
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