Re: Where are the 2% mortgages for qualified first time buyers?
by
jack2012
04/29/2009, 2:56 AM #
A growing number of first-time buyers are jumping into the housing market this spring because of falling prices, historically low mortgage rates, and an $8,000 federal tax credit.
"Houses that were not previously within the grasp of first-time home buyers" are now attractive to them, said Thomas Gleason, executive director of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, the state's affordable housing bank. "There is a lot of pent-up demand."
While real estate brokers said it is too early to know whether the market is rebounding, there are indications that qualified buyers are finally deciding to get off the sidelines. During the third week of March, MassHousing booked a record $25 million in loans, topping its previous high of $17 million during the week of Jan. 11., when mortgage rates dropped significantly, according to Gleason.
New homeowners Urrooj Rehman, 27, and her fiance, Syed Hasan, 35, had an added incentive to buy a three-bedroom condominium at the Olmsted Green complex in Mattapan - they are getting married this weekend. It helped that the price of the condo recently dropped by $50,000 to $320,000, Rehman said. In addition, they were able to lock in a 30-year mortgage rate at under 5 percent and next year will be able to claim the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers included in the federal stimulus package.
"I wanted to snap something up," said Rehman, a psychiatry resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "It might get lower, but I still feel good about my decision."
Nationally, first-time buyers accounted for about 65 percent of transactions of existing homes for the first quarter of the year - a 41 percent increase from the same period last year, according to HouseHunt Inc., a information firm based in Huntington Beach, Calif. The National Association of Realtors also reports more first-time home buyers.
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