We discussed Fannie Mae’s HomePath program on our downtown Phoenix blog, Urban Life, a few months ago. Now we’d like to talk about it for the real estate investor.
Basically, Fannie Mae is looking at ways to reduce their REO home inventory and the HomePath financing program is one way. HomePath lets both traditional buyers and real estate investors buy selected Fannie Mae REO properties for little money down and low transaction fees.
Here are some of the specifics:
- Low down payment and flexible mortgage terms (fixed-rate, adjustable-rate, or interest-only)
- You may qualify even if your credit is less than perfect
- Available to both owner occupiers and investors
- Down payment (at least 10% for investors) can be funded by your own savings; a gift; a grant; or a loan from a nonprofit organization, state or local government, or even an employer.
- No mortgage insurance*
- No appraisal fee
I bet we have your attention now. Ten percent down, as you know, is hard to get these days and when you add in no appraisal and not mortgage insurance you have significantly reduced your closing costs.
Fannie Mae is able to offer no appraisal because they get one before they put the home on the market. Most banks and asset companies simply get 2-3 BPO’s, but not Fannie. They get an appraisal and a BPO to determine listing prices.
The program does have a couple requirements. You have to use an approved HomePath lender and there are only about 15 or so. We like Desert Heritage Mortgage for the Phoenix market or you can go to the HomePath web site to find other options.
The other condition of the HomePath program is that only certain Fannie Mea REO properties are in the program. I checked the inventory for Phoenix while writing this post and there were 1054 properties available. Scottsdale had about 80 and Glendale had 253. As you can see, there are a lot of possibilities.
If you toss us an email, the link is in the top-right of the site, we’ll be happy to run a search for you and find some good candidates or you can do it yourself by going to our real estate web site, click on the search for homes tab and use the HomePath search tool.
If cash is a bit tight, or you simply like to get into your investment homes with little down, the Fannie Mae Homepath program may be the ticket.
As always, we are here to answer questions anytime… well maybe not at 2:00 am.
Best to you,
Ron Urban & Gene Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777
We’re brothers, you’ll feel like family.
