California Dreaming

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The Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan is a down payment assistance program for first-time homebuyers from the California Housing Finance Agency (CALHFA). When you sell or transfer, you repay the original down payment, plus a share of the appreciation in the value of the home. So how can you find your California dream?

CHIC (Pearl)

In order to qualify for the Dream For All program, you need to be a first-time homebuyer, which is defined as someone who has not owned and occupied their own home in the last three years. You also need to occupy the property as a primary residence and complete two levels of homebuyer education. Oh, and your household income can’t exceed $300K.

GEEK (Kevin)

State legislators allocated $300M to this program in the form of 30-year fixed-rate loans starting at 6% with a 1.45% fee. Unfortunately, while we were writing this blog, CALHFA announced that all of the program funds have been claimed as of April 7. Hopefully, additional funding will be allocated in the next state budget. In the meantime, get educated and get ready.

Spring has sprung?

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It might be hard to tell with howling winds and frigid temps outside, but we’re officially two weeks into Spring! What do you look forward to the most this season? Showers or flowers?

CHIC (Pearl)

Who doesn’t love flowers? Seriously though, this is typically the perfect time for me to get outside and embrace my green thumb. The cold weather has certainly put a damper on my flower garden because I’m worried about overnight freezes, but that doesn’t keep me from tilling the soil, clearing the weeds, and getting things ready for the big plant.

GEEK (Kevin)

I’ll admit it, I love flowers as much as anybody. So I’m geeked up to help Pearl get our backyard garden in working order. But I also know we desperately need the water and record-setting Sierra snowpack if we’re ever going to escape from this seemingly endless drought. So bring on the April showers, and let the flowers wait for May.

Contingency, continued...

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Last week, we explored the ins and outs of title contingency. Now, let’s talk about loan contingency and what it means for buyers — and sellers.

CHIC (Pearl)

Loan contingency is a clause that allows a buyer to cancel their home purchase contract without penalty and receive a refund of their earnest money deposit in the event they're unable to secure a mortgage. Like any contingency, this clause could make an offer less desirable to a seller entertaining multiple offers. But it may be necessary to avoid serious financial risk up to and including legal action or being forced to buy the property.

GEEK (Kevin)

Sounds like a catchy clause, and it may not be all that necessary. Our job as realtors is to provide you with a choice of high-quality lenders who will do their homework and ensure that your loan will be approved before it’s sent to underwriters. At the end of the day, it benefits the lender to ensure that you’re in a strong, lendable financial position headed into the offer process. We’ll explore this more under appraisal contingency in a future post.