Vast.
It’s the only word that can describes the government’s role in the housing industry. This support is both direct and indirect.
Indirect support consists of the mortgage interest deduction that gives home owners the ability to deduct the cost of mortgage interest from their taxes.
Direct support incudes programs administered through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and loan guarantees made by the GSE’s (Government sponsored enterprises) of Fannie Mae, Ginne Mae & Fredie Mac. In addition to these federal programs, most states have some kind of “office of housing”.
In case you hadn’t noticed, the federal government isn’t known for its transparency. This is especially true in the opaque world of these programs. So, although there exist many benefits for home buyers through these programs, they are hard to identify and hard to access. So, where do you begin?
The government, like any large organization tends to operate in silos, what this means is that there is virtually no connection from one program to the other. So, just because you applied for one program and maybe you didn’t qualify, there is no one “connecting the dots” with other programs to see if they work for you instead. Since these various housing programs are organized on an agency by agency basis, I think a good place to understand what’s available, is to look at them on an agency by agency basis.
We'll cover that in an upcoming post. In the meantime, contact BuildSmart and we'll help you understand the alphabet soup that is government housing programs, and how the might be applied to your specific home buying, or home renovation need.
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