Local Cities Offering Financial Assistance for Home Buyers : Housing: Several municipalities have programs designed to help residents trying to buy their first homes. Others plan similar efforts.
Although Rigo Landeros considers his family of five middle class, he used to doubt they could ever afford a house.
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But last year, Landeros applied to a down payment assistance program offered by Fillmore’s Redevelopment Agency. The agency provided a $25,000 loan that enabled the Landeroses to buy a new four-bedroom residence on Meadowlark Drive.
Fillmore is just one of several Ventura County cities with programs designed to help residents trying to buy their first homes, and other communities are planning such aid.
The programs vary from city to city. Thousand Oaks offers 20-year loans for up to 10% of the housing price for some low- and moderate-income buyers. In an upcoming program, Oxnard will give matching grants for down payments to qualified low-income buyers.
In Fillmore, help takes the form of a 30-year loan for up to 15% of the housing price, or a maximum of $25,000. Repayment of the loan is deferred until the buyer sells or refinances the home. If the buyer still lives in the home by the end of the 30-year term, the loan will be forgiven, said Vance Johnson, the city’s housing programs specialist.
“We want them to be able to buy here and stay here,” he said.
To qualify, applicants must be first-time home buyers. They also must fall within the program’s income guidelines. A family of two must have a combined annual income of $55,560 or less. A family of four can make no more than $69,480.
Last year, out of 40 applicants, 14 were accepted.
Landeros was determined to be one of them.
Between his job as the meat department manager at Gelson’s Market in Westlake Village and his wife’s job as a respiratory therapist at Los Robles Regional Medical Center, the couple probably could have swung a down payment, he said. But the monthly mortgage bills would have given them problems.
“It was either feed my family or buy a house,” he said.
So he camped out at City Hall the night before the applications became available, arriving about 2 a.m. By the time the building opened for business, about 30 people had arrived.
“I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass by,” he said.
This year, the city has received only 27 completed applications out of 70 distributed. The application deadline is Aug. 18.
Johnson said some people may have taken the applications thinking the city would carry more of the purchase cost.
“They may have had the impression that we’re going to give them a house, and that’s not true,” he said.
Through a new Simi Valley program, some first-time buyers can get a 30-year fixed loan at about 1% or 1.25% below current market rates. Buyers must provide a 5% down payment and again meet certain income guidelines. A family of four must earn $40,200 or less.
The program is open to those who have not owned a home in the past three years, single parents and displaced homemakers--typically people who have lost their homes through marital separation or divorce.
In Thousand Oaks, qualified buyers can get a 20-year loan with no payments required for the first five years. Interest will accrue at 3% annually until the sixth year, when payments commence. After that, the interest will climb to 5%.
Grahame Watts, an environmental program analyst in the city’s public works department, purchased a Newbury Park condominium through the program. He had been renting a room in a house, and like Landeros had considered home ownership beyond his means.
“I could come up with a down payment, but I’d get killed on the monthly payments,” he said. “There’s no way I would have been able to buy the home without the program.”
Loans, of course, aren’t the only way to help home buyers.
Ventura officials, along with counterparts in Thousand Oaks and the county, are exploring a system of certificates that would serve as an income tax credit for home buyers, said Loretta McCarty of the city’s community services department. In essence, the state-approved certificates would allow buyers to put less money into taxes and more into home loans. The plan is still in the preliminary stages, she said.
Under a new Oxnard program, the city will match the down payments made by some low-income residents buying new homes in the city, said Ernie Whitaker, housing rehabilitation manager for the city’s community and residential services department.
The money, up to $5,000 per buyer, is a grant and does not require repayment. The city will aid about 20 families and hopes to start taking applications in September, he said.
Kitty Dill Durich, who with her husband, Gordon, purchased a three-level townhome through the Thousand Oaks program, said she still considers their ability to buy a home a miracle. Without the buying assistance program, she said, the couple would not have been able to afford a home for years to come.
“It’s a fantastic service,” she said. “It helped us achieve our dream about 15 years early.”
