If you don’t have enough money for a down payment on a home, you may wonder about the seller’s ability to help. While the seller can help with many different costs regarding your home purchase, the down payment is not one of them. If a seller were to help you with the down payment, it could be considered an inducement to purchase – or in other words, a bribe.
Looking for Current Mortgage Interest Rates? Click Here.
What’s an Inducement to Purchase?
If you are hemming and hawing about whether you want to buy a home or not, the seller could sway you by telling you he will help with the down payment. That could convince you to buy the home, even if it wasn’t your original intent. If you meet with financial difficulty down the road, you could blame it on the seller and the fact that he ‘bribed you’ to buy the home.
Other Ways Sellers Can Help
Luckily, there are other ways that sellers can help you with your loan. If you can’t get a down payment, consider the VA or USDA loan program. If you are a veteran, you can use the VA loan program, if you buy a home in a rural area and are a low to moderate-income family, you can use the USDA program. If neither of those options work, the FHA loan requires just 3.5% down on the home.
Once you figure out your loan program, you can have the seller help you with the closing costs. This is called seller concessions. This is money the seller gives you to help you cover the closing costs. Most loan programs allow the seller to contribute up to 6% of the sales price of the home. This is separate from the down payment, though. The seller can help you cover any lender fees as well as third-party fees. Keep in mind, though, the money the seller gives you is really money you are borrowing from the bank to buy the home. The seller increases the price of the home accordingly, which means you borrow the money to cover the closing costs.
Click to See the Latest Mortgage Rates.
Here’s an example:
You agree to buy a home for $150,000. Before you sign the contract, you decide to ask the seller to help you with the closing costs. The total closing costs are $8,000. The seller agrees to pay them, but you have to increase the sales price to $158,000. As long as the home appraises for at least $158,000, you should be okay. This means that your monthly payment is now a little higher and you pay interest on the $8,000 that the seller will give you at the closing. The seller walks away with the same amount of money whether he helped you with the closing costs or not.
Who Can Help You With the Down Payment?
What if you truly cannot come up with the down payment? Who can help you? While it’s not the seller – anyone that isn’t involved in the transaction, such as the real estate agent, can help you. Typically, this means family members. They can give you gift money, but this gift money is different than the gifts you receive on your birthday.
Lenders need to trace the origination of the gift money. In other words, they need to make sure that it’s not a loan somewhere down the road. They will need a gift letter from the donor, stating that the money is a gift, the purpose of the gift, and that it doesn’t need to be repaid. The donor must include your name and the address the money is meant to help purchase. The donor must then sign and date the letter.
The donor will also have to provide proof of the funds’ origination. Typically, lenders require only 2 months of bank statements to show that the donor has possession of the money. If there are any large deposits that don’t coincide with the donor’s income, the lender may need further proof of the funds’ origination to make sure there isn’t a loan hidden down the line somewhere.
The bottom line is that the seller can help you, but not with the down payment. If you need help with your down payment, you’ll need either a no down payment loan program, such as the VA or USDA loan, or you’ll need to receive the funds as a gift from a family member.