3% Interest Or Less Through Cook Inlet Lending
Cook Inlet Lending
I attended a seminar yesterday afternoon outlining the loan requirements for a special loan through Cook Inlet Lending Center,(CILC). Cook Inlet Lending is part of Cook Inlet Housing and has been working mostly in Anchorage until now.
CILC has eight brand new homes in Palmer and eight more renovated homes in the Wasilla area.
Their loan programs are intended to provide affordable housing for lower income families. They do this through a variety of means including lower interest rates, deferred payments, and even some small grants.
For example, although the program requires a minimum down payment of 3%, they can help people without savings reach that point. They will require you to set up a savings account and make monthly payments to it. If after 6 months you have saved at least $1000 the program will match that with $3,200.
In addition, you can roll the closing costs into the loan so that you can feasibly get into a $187,000 home for $5,610 of which only $2,410 came out of your own pocket after the $3,200 matching grant. Other parts of the program allow the payments to be much lower because after combining all the parts of the program together your interest rate is 3% or lower. It looks to me like the payments would be about 25% lower than you normally would have.
You actually end of combining 3 and sometimes even 4 mortgages together to buy the house. The first mortgage comes from Alaska Housing Finance Corporation for about 50% of the purchase price. Then you get a second mortgage from CILC for 20% of the purchase price, a third mortgage for 30% of the purchase price and if you are a qualified Native American you can even get a 4th mortgage.
The 3rd mortgage is for 1% interest or less depending on your qualifications and maxes out at $50,000. This mortgage is amortized over 35 years and the payments are completely deferred. That is, you don’t make ANY payments on this portion of the loan until the 35 years are up or until you sell the home…whichever comes first. At that point you pay off that mortgage plus the accumulated interest.
It’s a pretty complicated program so you should talk to Cook Inlet Lending Center to see if you qualify. If you have acceptable credit and have a family income that is below the average for our area you have a good chance of being accepted. Cindy Mittlestadt at 907.793.3058 is the Senior Manager and can point you in the right direction.
To find out which homes are available in the valley for this program, contact me at 907.232.7900 or email me at [email protected]
There are some brand new homes in Palmer that qualify and some completely renovated homes in Wasilla.
