Want to buy in a football community?

The Stanford football team found itself ranked No. 1 in a poll last week.

The Coldwell Banker College Home Price Comparison Index, which compares the housing markets of the 119 football bowl subdivision towns, ranks Palo Alto as the most expensive football town in the U.S.

A 2,220-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bathroom home that has a family room and two-car garage would cost an average of $1,677,000 there, the index found.

On the other side of the field, the index ranks Muncie, Ind., the home to Ball State University, as the most affordable football school housing market with that same-size home costing just $150,000.

Columbus, Ohio, which is home to Bowl Championship Series leader Ohio State, is the 51st most affordable housing market, with the same-size home costing $230,272.

Only three of the top 25 BCS teams – Boston College, USC and University of Hawaii – play in towns in the top 10 most expensive housing markets ranked by the index. Boston College is in Chestnut Hill, Mass., where that same-size house would cost $1,381,250; USC in Los Angeles, $1,306,333; and University of Hawaii in Honolulu, $843,750.

No teams from the top 25 are in the top 10 most affordable towns, according to the index.

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More loan help for first-time buyers

Qualified first-time home buyers seeking down-payment assistance will be able to tap into an additional $100 million made available to the California Housing Finance Agency, or CalHFA, which provides financing to buyers who fall within specific income ranges.

The new funds for CalHFA’s California Homebuyer’s Downpayment Assistance Program come from Proposition 1C, approved by the state’s voters last year. Proposition 46, passed in 2002, has funded more than $145 million in down-payment assistance loans and helped 18,000 families purchase their first homes.

So far, 434 buyers have used about $4 million of the Proposition 1C funding. Payments on the loans are deferred; borrowers repay the loans when the home is finally sold, refinanced or paid in full.

CalHFA has six additional down-payment assistance programs and provides first mortgages to qualified borrowers, who must satisfy strict income requirements and caps on the sales price.

For information about Cal- HFA’s homeownership, multifamily and mortgage-insurance programs, go to www.calhfa.ca.gov or call (877) 922-5432.

– Diane Wedner