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* THDA offers FHA-backed loans with down payment and closing cost assistance in Hamilton County for homes up to $240,000* Loans are available for first-time home buyers, military home buyers or those in rural or targeted areas of the state* Interest-free, forgivable loans (after 15 years in a house) are available for up to 4 percent of the purchase price to pay down payment and closing fees* 30-year loans are available from THDA at 3.99 percent, although such loans require mortgage insurance fees* On the web at www.GreatChoiceTN.com to find local lenders in the mortgage loan programSource: Tennessee Housing Development Authority
If you're a first-time Chattanooga-area homebuyer who earns no more than $62,000 a year - or $71,000 for a family - Ralph Perrey has a mortgage deal for you.
Perrey is the executive director of the the Tennessee Housing Development Agency, which offers the Great Choice Mortgage that will cover 4 percent of qualified first-time buyers' closing costs and the down payment - which buyers never have to repay, provided they stay in their homes for at least 15 years.
"It's the only thing out there that offers closing cost assistance and reaches into moderate- and middle-income ranges," Perrey said Wednesday when he visited Chattanooga as part of a statewide tour to promote the mortgage program, which has rates as low as 3.99 percent.
The state agency doesn't offer the Great Choice Mortgage directly, it sells the mortgages through a long list of lenders, including 21 mortgage lenders in Hamilton County and 11 in Bradley County.
So homebuyers need to know to ask for the product - which is why the state agency is blanketing Chattanooga apartment complexes with mailers advertising the Great Choice Mortgage.
Or mortgage lenders can tell first-time buyers about the Great Choice Mortgage - if lenders are aware of it. Which is why the agency looked at the list of lenders it partners with, identified the ones that had only sold a few Great Choice Mortgages and worked to raise those lenders' awareness.
"We needed to re-engage," Perrey explained.
The agency always works to educate real estate agents about its mortgage program.
Forty percent more home buyers used the Great Choice Mortgage in 2015 than in 2014, Perrey said. Last year, 2,422 people got first mortgages through the program, agency figures show, for a total loan amount of about $300 million and an average loan value of around $125,000.
But Perrey said THDA loans grew only 25 percent last year in Southeast Tennesse, so the agency is targeting Hamilton and Bradley counties for more consumer and lender education about Great Choice loans.
The agency doesn't get any state tax money, Perrey said. Its operations are funded through interest on the mortgages it offers. THDA, which sells tax-exempt bonds to fund its mortgages, completed a $125 million bond sale Wednesday and expects to do at least two more issues this year, Perrey said.
Terre Webb, branch manager for the Mortgage Investors Group in Chattanooga, said THDA "is a great agency.
"They have helped a lot of - a lot of - people get into a home that could not have gotten into a home any other way," she said. "They work to make it easy for the lender and the borrowers."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.
About the THDA
The Tennessee Housing Development Agency (THDA) is Tennessee’s housing finance agency, created by the General Assembly in 1973. THDA was created to promote the production of more affordable new housing units for very low, low and moderate income individuals and families in the state, to promote the preservation and rehabilitation of existing housing units for such persons, and to bring greater stability to the residential construction industry and related industries so as to assure a steady flow of production of new housing units.Source: THDA
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Learn more online at greatchoicetn.com