Amarillo has applied for a stimulus grant that would help low income families purchase foreclosed homes
AMARILLO, TEXAS -- It seems like everywhere you look there is a push to help stimulate home buying. The city of Amarillo is trying to take advantage of a stimulus grant that is designed to match low income families with foreclosed homes to purchase.
Tuesday the city commission approved a resolution to apply for the neighborhood stabilization program's stimulus grant. The grant would total around 1.5 million dollars and would match up a dozen or so low income families with a foreclosed home to purchase.
Low income in this case would be an annual income of less than 27 thousand for a family of four. If you fall in that category the state will actually finance the loan with a zero percent interest rate on a 30 year loan as long as the home was foreclosed.
As of now the application will be sent next week and hopefully within 30 days city officials will find out if Amarillo got the grant.
The goal, if the grant does come down, would be to find as many families that qualify as possible, and to spend the grant money with 18-24 months.
"It's part of the stimulus funds and we're trying to put them to work, the other advantage you don't really see with this is not only you have homebuyers, putting people back into homes, but we're going to be rehabbing some of those homes so we'll be using contractors to stimulate that aspect of the economy also," said Todd Steelman, Community Development Administrator for the City of Amarillo.
The city also has funds set aside to help people who have secured financing and have found a foreclosed home to buy, if you qualify the city would cover up to 30 thousand dollars for closing costs. City officials believe they have funding to help out with 15-20 home purchases.
If you're interested and think you might qualify for either of these two programs, check in with the city of Amarillo's, community development office at 806-378-3023, or check out the link provided below, and look for the department of community development.
