MASSACHUSETTS – Governor Maura Healey announced on January 22 that she is expanding down payment assistance and lowering mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers to make it easier and more affordable for middle-class families to become homeowners in Massachusetts.
The announcement was made during her third State of the Commonwealth Address.
“We have to be a state where teachers, nurses, and recent grads can afford to actually live,” said Healey.
She added that the core problem is decades of underbuilding since the 1990s, driving up prices and rents due to a housing shortage — and the solution is to build more homes, faster.
Healey is investing $25 million through MassHousing to expand homebuyer assistance, helping 1,000 additional middle-income households buy their first home next year—nearly doubling last year’s total.
The governor will also commit additional resources to lower mortgage rates for all eligible residents purchasing their first home with a MassHousing mortgage by 0.55%. This provides new homebuyers with immediate relief and saves the average homebuyer more than $42,000 over the lifetime of their mortgage.
Down payment assistance program
The down payment assistance program offers loans of up to $25,000 to first-time homebuyers across Massachusetts.
The assistance is provided as a loan, often deferred or low-interest, and repayment typically occurs when the home is sold, refinanced, or the mortgage ends.
In Holyoke, Alexis and Delyann LaSanta recently bought their first home for themselves and their three children after eight years of renting.
Using a MassHousing first mortgage and $25,000 in down payment assistance, the family purchased a four-bedroom home in South Holyoke Homes, a new community built by the Holyoke Housing Authority with MassHousing support.
“We’re so happy. We are still a little starstruck that we are in here,” said Alexis LaSanta.
For more information, visit https://www.masshousing.com/en/home-ownership/homebuyers/down-payment-assistance
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