New home, no money down: Government Helps Subsidize zero-down-payment mortgages

The Boston Globe reports:

Jean Marie Sideris doubted she could buy a home near her job in Cambridge, because most lenders now insist on a hefty down payment for even a modest mortgage, and she did not have that much cash. But that was before Sideris, 33, found out about a state-sponsored program that requires only $1,000 toward closing costs.

In August, she became the owner of a $213,000, one-bedroom condominium, financed through MassHousing, the state’s affordable-housing bank.

“It made available places I wouldn’t have been able to buy,’’ Sideris said.

Home loans with little or no money down are viewed with skepticism these days, given that they were widely considered to have accelerated the nation’s foreclosure crisis by encouraging people to buy properties they could not afford long term. Most lenders have shied away from offering such mortgages in recent years. But a few government programs, such as the one sponsored by MassHousing, still exist.

Nancy Pelosi calls this free market capitalism. Just a reminder , a homeowner without equity is a renter with debt.