New mortgage down-payment help available for metro Phoenix teachers, police, firefighters

• More than 7,600 metro Phoenix homeowners have received aid from the Home in Five Advantage program
• This isn’t a taxpayer-backed program: Bonds are sold to investors and lenders to provide the aid to homeowners

If police, firemen and teachers can’t afford to buy a home in metro Phoenix, then the region has a big problem.

That’s why Valley government and civic leaders expanded a popular mortgage down-payment program to help these workers this week.

Many teachers and first responders can now get a 5-percent grant to put down on a Phoenix-area home.

The help comes through the Home in Five Advantage program. It has already helped more than 7,600 people with low to moderate incomes buy Valley houses since 2012.

One of those people is Koran Hardimon.  He heard about the loan program from a woman at his church last year and applied.

He was approved and able to buy a central Phoenix home in the St. Gregory neighborhood, near Osborn Road and 16th Avenue.

“I recommend Home in Five to all my friends,” Hardimon told me Tuesday at Phoenix’s Franklin Police and Fire High School, where the expansion of the program was announced. “It helped me clean up my credit and buy before prices climb higher. “

Hardimon, who is a diversity manager for Intel, was able to get 4 percent of his home’s $285,000 cost for a down payment and some help with closing fees.

The program previously only helped military homebuyers with a 5-percent down payment.

No down payment? A new program could help

To qualify:

• Borrowers must have a FICO or credit score of at least 640.
• The price of a house can’t top $300,000.
• Homebuyers must work with approved lenders to qualify for a government-backed mortgage.
• Borrowers must complete an 8-hour homebuyer education class.

An important note:  This isn’t a taxpayer-backed program. The Phoenix and Maricopa IDAs (formerly known as Industrial Development Authorities) sell bonds to investors and lenders to provide the aid to homeowners.

Metro Phoenix’s Home in Five program has been lauded nationally and copied in some form by other cities. It was on President Barack Obama’s list of successful Arizona housing programs to discuss when he came to Phoenix to announce new housing aid in early January.

Investors wouldn’t keep buying bonds to expand the program if it wasn’t working. Fewer than 15 borrowers helped by the Valley program have lost houses to foreclosure. That’s less than half a percent.

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“Homeownership makes neighborhoods and communities stronger,” Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton told a crowd Tuesday. “That is even more the case when those new homeowners are our city’s outstanding teachers and hard-working first responders.”

No one disputes homeownership helps stabilize neighborhoods.

I would love to have more firemen, police and teachers buy in my neighborhood.

And Hardimon’s new home is not too far from mine. I was thrilled to meet my new neighbor Tuesday.