In recent months, Fannie Mae has introduced initiatives to help owner-occupants purchase foreclosures. The latest incentive for consumers to buy Fannie Mae-owned foreclosure listings is to provide closing cost assistance for buyers.
Last week, Fannie Mae announced that owner-occupants (non investors) who purchase a foreclosure through the Fannie Mae HomePath.com site will receive up to 3.5% of the final sales price to be used as closing cost assistance or for the choice of appliances.
The offer is available to any owner-occupant buyer who closes on a foreclosure listed on HomePath.com before May 1, 2010.
"Attracting qualified buyers to the market and reducing the inventory of vacant homes on the market is critical to stabilizing neighborhoods and helping the market recover. Many families are taking advantage of the federal homebuyer tax credit to buy a new home so this is a great time for Fannie Mae to offer some additional help," said Terry Edwards, Executive Vice President of Credit Portfolio Management.
Properties eligible for closing cost assistance are listed on HomePath.com. Most listings have photos, property descriptions, community and school information.
While Fannie Mae foreclosures are sold "as is", the organization typically does at least minimal repairs and freshening up of their foreclosures to make them more marketable.
In addition to this new closing cost assistance incentive, Fannie Mae also has a "First Look" program which allows owner-occupants preference over investors for the first 15 days a Fannie Mae foreclosure is on the market. Investor offers will not be accepted until after that 15-day period. The program was put in place after potential homebuyers in markets across the country complained about the high level of competition for foreclosures from investors.
Many of the Fannie Mae-owned foreclosures are eligible for special HomePath Mortgage and HomePath Renovation Mortgage financing, which require a down payment of just 3%. Properties which are eligible for HomePath financing are identified on the website.
Written by Michele Lerner
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