Light Rain, 66°
Weather sponsored by:

Florida Housing payment help for first-time Clay homebuyers

Clay Today
Posted 2/27/19

CLAY COUNTY – The Florida Housing Finance Corp. will relaunch the Florida Hardest-Hit Fund Down Payment Assistance Program March 4 in Clay County.

This federal program was implemented to prevent …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Don't have an ID?


Print subscribers

If you're a print subscriber, but do not yet have an online account, click here to create one.

Non-subscribers

Click here to see your options for subscribing.

Single day pass

You also have the option of purchasing 24 hours of access, for $1.00. Click here to purchase a single day pass.

Florida Housing payment help for first-time Clay homebuyers


Posted

CLAY COUNTY – The Florida Housing Finance Corp. will relaunch the Florida Hardest-Hit Fund Down Payment Assistance Program March 4 in Clay County.

This federal program was implemented to prevent foreclosures by stimulating home purchase activity and stabilizing neighborhoods in certain counties that demonstrated high levels on housing market distress. HHF-DPA provides up to $15,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance to eligible first-time homebuyers and is forgivable over five years. Florida Housing has successfully disbursed 100 percent of the over $1 billion in program funds allocated by the U.S. Department of Treasury two years ahead of schedule and is now using approximately $20 million in repayments of program loans to assist additional Floridians.

Locally, Academy Mortgage Corp., 9428 Baymeadows Rd., Jacksonville, will handle applications from Clay County.

Previously, HHF-DPA was available in eleven Florida counties. For the relaunch, Florida Housing used the latest market data to conduct a Treasury-mandated assessment of lingering negative effects in local housing markets. Based on this assessment, Florida Housing will assist eligible first-time homebuyers in the following five counties: Clay, Duval, Hillsborough, Osceola and Pasco.

“Statistics show that foreclosures have drastically decreased in Florida and that our state has recovered from the housing crisis,” said Trey Price, executive director of Florida Housing. “This funding will further assist with the continued stabilization of recovering, distressed neighborhoods.”

Since the beginning of the year, 52,742 Florida families have received assistance through HHF programs and more than 20,000 received down payment and closing cost assistance through HHF-DPA. It is estimated that approximately 1,500 eligible first-time homebuyers will be assisted with this additional funding.

First announced on Feb. 19, 2010, by the Treasury, the Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund for the Hardest-Hit Housing Markets provides federal funding to states hardest hit by the aftermath of the burst of the housing bubble. Funding was allocated to 18 states and the District of Columbia.

For further information, including eligibility requirements, contact Academy Mortgage Corp. at (904) 647-1777.