A state program to help homebuyers is getting a big infusion of cash, and that will mean more generous aid to families buying a house. Monica Fischer with the Iowa Finance Authority says the “First Home” program helps with one of the toughest hurdles to home-buying, the down payment. Borrowers who qualify for the down-payment assistance through First Home Plus get fifteen-hundred dollars to put toward their down payment or closing costs, though in some targeted neighborhoods of Iowa’s ten largest cities that’s 25-hundred dollars, and those who get the help this month only will get an extra five-hundred on top of that. You can thank the recent rock-bottom interest rates that have kept the housing market hot. The program’s funded by revenues from the state’s Title Guaranty Program, which has had soaring revenues because of all the people refinancing mortgages. Fischer says nobody predicted this big a boom in the refinancing market. Income limits vary by county, and in rural counties the limit is 55-thousand dollars for one or two people, and 60-thousand for a household of three or more. In the state’s ten largest metro areas, income limits are as high as 77-thousand dollars for a one- or two-person household, and Fischer says it’s a middle-income homebuyers’ program that includes an “awful lot of people.” For more details, see the website at www.ifahome.com
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