As Phoenix metro real estate market cools down, sellers offer added incentives

FOX 10’s Linda Williams reports.

PHOENIX – A new housing loan program goes into effect next month. It bumps up the loan limit to about $750,000 and get this – the down payment is just 3%. Of course, you still have to qualify, but this is just one of many shifts in the market.

Here are two words we haven’t seen on a home for sale sign in quite a while: owner financing.

“The seller has a lot of equity and saw an opportunity for the buyer to financing directly to them. In the case here, the seller would act directly as the bank,” said Dan Volcko, a realtor with Realty One.

High-end homes like this coveted Al Beadle design in a Phoenix neighborhood command high prices. The owner is willing to help out the right buyer navigate its million dollar price tag.

“There’s a lot of creativity that can go on. You just have to ask, and have an agent and lending partners willing to discuss what’s possible,” said Volcko.

Also creating new possibilities for buyers, a new program that allows first time home buyers to get into a jumbo size mortgage without the jumbo size down payment.

“Recently, Fannie May, Freddie Mac came out with a higher price point of $726,200. They picked that as the criteria for the maximum conventional loan limit. So what that means is that for people who can afford a price point of say, $750,000 on a house, 3% down is all you need,” said Jeremy Schachter of Fairway Independent Mortgage.

Alex Perez of Keller Williams Realty in Phoenix says 3% down on a loan up to $749,000 will pull some buyers back into the market – – buyers who had given up.

“In order to qualify for different types of areas, the requirements for down payments were really out of reach. And now this really allows the buyers, all of my clients that were on the fence, then pushed off the fence, can now get over that fence now.”

Schachter says as interest rates fall, he expects the housing market will pick up in 2023.

More real estate news:

Interest rates rise again: How you can make a home loan more affordable

Just last week, the feds raised interest rates again by three-quarters of a percent. The rising rates make buying a home even more expensive and out of reach for some buyers. So what can you do?

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