March 04--Illinois formally announced the successor to its wildly popular Welcome Home Illinois home purchase program, and this time, repeat buyers and homeowners seeking to refinance their mortgages may be eligible for the loans.
Dubbed @HomeIllinois, the new program will offer a 30-year, fixed-rate, affordable loan and grants of $5,000 to help with a down payment or closing costs. Buyers must contribute $1,000 or 1 percent of the purchase price, whichever is greater.
The program, with $20 million in funding to start, is expected to assist 4,000 borrowers.
Income eligibility restrictions vary. In Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, the maximum household income allowed under the program is just under $103,000 for a family of three or more, and a single-family home bought through the program can cost no more than $357,750.
In November, the Illinois Housing Development Authority ended the Welcome Home program, which offered $7,500 forgivable loans to first-time homebuyers who hadn't owned a home in three years. More than 10,000 buyers participated in the program, and their purchases translated into $1.2 billion in affordable home loans.
Details on the program can be found at athomeillinois.gov.
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
