Harrisburg Home Purchase Loans Low Rates in Pennsylvania with FHA Financing
Harrisburg home buyers have been taking advantage of new options for qualifying with low rate FHA home purchase loans to help them lock in buying a new home.
Harrisburg is the capital of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is in Dauphin County and lies on the east bank of the Susquehanna River, 105 miles west-northwest of Pennsylvania.
Harrisburg is the fourth most populous metropolitan area in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton (The Lehigh Valley). It is the tenth largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Reading, Scranton, Bethlehem, Harrisburg and Altoona.
Harrisburg Home Buying with FHA Loans
The FHA has temporarily raised its lending limit to $271,050 for Harrisburg home purchase loans and refinances. The median price for a Harrisburg, PA home is $176,822, and values have still been increasing despite home values decreasing elsewhere in the nation. So, Harrisburg home buying makes good financial sense. Now couldn’t be a better time for FHA home buying on a home in Harrisburg because conventional loans are getting to be nearly impossible to qualify for.
You need at least a 660 FICO credit score to qualify for a conventional loan if you also put 20% down on the property. If you have less than 20% start-up equity, you need at least a 700 FICO score. With FHA, you only need a 580 score and just a 3% down payment on a home in Harrisburg to qualify. And, even with credit dings, you get low, fixed interest rates with FHA. Plus, you can do a FHA streamline refinance if the interest rates drop on a 97 percent loan to value. You need to act quickly to take advantage of FHA’s increased loan limits. They’re due to expire on December 31, 20087 before settling on the limits established by the newly passed Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. While the new permanent loan limits will be higher than they were, they won’t be as high as they are now.
Another Incentive for Harrisburg Home Buying
Harrisburg was the first in the U.S. to issue this certificate. It enables qualified, first-time home buyers to apply up to 50 percent of the interest paid on their mortgages as a federal income tax credit for each year of the mortgage term.
