New Website Helps Hopeful Homebuyers Find Down Payment Housing Grants … For FREE

Finding down payment assistance for hopeful homebuyers just got easier. Starting in January of 2004, the nation’s largest down payment assistance resource web-site was launched with the goal of having every government-subsidized program listed with information and links to the programs by state. Consumers will simply click on the state where they are looking to buy a home and a national and state list of available programs will immediately appear.

Steve Owens, founder of the website, says, “Our site offers much more than just the available down payment assistance programs. There is a tremendous amount of information about the programs available through the local and national governments, and the positive and potential negative aspects of the various types of programs. We even include information about the various charitable organizations that provide down payment assistance grants.”

Owens added that the site is a great information source for home sellers, real estate professionals and mortgage professionals, but the focus is to educate the millions of potential homebuyers that there is hope for them to owning a home.

AmericanDreamDownpaymentAssistance.com also has links to HR1276, the American Dream Down Payment Assistance Act that President Bush recently signed into law. That law will put an estimated $200 million dollars into various down payment assistance programs and will help approximately 40,000 family’s purchase a home over the next two years.

“Our biggest difficulty in managing the site is obtaining the links and information to all of the various city and county programs that are available,” Owens said. “We have set up (on the site) an easy link page where the various programs can submit a link to their own program as well as create their own link to our site. Otherwise we are just spending hours and hours a day searching the web for programs that will help the home buyers state by state.”

Some consumers have noted that the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) operates a website that contains information about the federal programs available, but many find that www.americandreamdownnpaymentassistance.com is more user-friendly and offers more information from state and local sources.

Local Mortgage companies can also provide information about their areas down payment assistance programs, however, many prospective homebuyers never approach a mortgage company in the first place because they don’t have a down payment and are not aware that these programs exist.

“The message for prospective homebuyers is this,” Owens said. “Down payments should not stand in the way of the American dream of homeownership. There are a number of assistance programs out there – and our site is where you’ll find them.”

For more information, consumers can log onto www.americandreamdownpaymentassistance.com and learn about the programs. There is a link to the HUD website to get information about the various federal programs or homebuyers can also complete an application on the website to receive more information. It will be forwarded to a DPA organization and/or the homebuyer’s local down payment assistance program.