Franklin County Downpayment Assistance
Looking to own your own home, but struggling to afford a downpayment?
A Homeport advisor can help you determine if you qualify for downpayment assistance. Some families receive up to $15,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance. Downpayment assistance is forgiven after five or six years of home ownership. Downpayment assistance is available from Franklin County and the Maude Hill Growing Homeownership Fund.
Interpreter services are available for Homeport consultations. Please call for guidance.
IMPORTANT: To receive Downpayment Assistance the homebuyer must be referred to Homeport by a lender, who has already approved the borrower for a mortgage. The lender is responsible for submitting to Homeport all the required documentation listed in the submission check list that is included in the informational package.
Franklin County Downpayment Assistance
Downpayment program funded by:
Please download application package and take time to review to be ready for your discussion with ShaVaughn Blunt.
Learn more about Downpayment Assistance
Watch this edition of Homeport’s “Ask Layden!” series to hear Homeport Loan Program Manager Isabel Giles explain downpayment changes recently approved by the Franklin County Commissioners. In the interview with Homeport Senior Counselor Layden Hale, Giles answer questions about personal savings limits, choices of lenders and other issues homebuyers must know in seeking the Franklin County funds.
Sarah Dunlap and children
New guidelines as of 06/08/2021 With prices escalating in the local housing market, residents of Franklin County (but outside of Columbus Schools boundaries) could receive greater downpayment assistance under a revised funding program that Homeport administers.
Watch the latest edition of Homeport’s “Ask Layden!” series to hear Homeport Loan Program Manager Isabel Giles explain downpayment changes recently approved by the Franklin County Commissioners. In the interview with Homeport Senior Counselor Layden Hale, Giles answer questions about personal savings limits, choices of lenders and other issues homebuyers must know in seeking the Franklin County funds.
When Sarah Dunlap describes homeownership, she used words like “contentment,” “satisfaction” and “fulfillment.”
“Awesome” is how Troy Keathley describes it.
Each benefited from a down payment assistance loan program by Franklin County for first time homebuyers.
Future homeowners just don’t sign on for assistance, as much as $6,000 per household. They must first take approved homebuyer education courses like the one Homeport offers. After 15 years, Homeport has successfully guided 233 families -- including the Dunlaps and Keathleys -- to more than $1 million in down payment assistance loans from the county.
“We are not only helping individual families, this program is of benefit to the entire community,” said Netta Whitman, Director of Homeport Housing Advisory Services.
Appearing before the Franklin County Board of Commissioners on Aug. 23, Whitman said the assistance provided to individuals who graduated from Homeport homebuyer education translates to an investment of $21.8 million in home sales.
The courses are also providing long-term value to the stability of the homeowners and their neighborhoods.
“Studies have shown that clients receiving Homebuyer Education and pre-purchase counseling are one-third less likely to fall behind in their mortgage than buyers who did not receive the (counseling) support,” Whitman told the Commission.
Franklin County down payment funds have several guidelines related to geography, residency and income:
The property must be located inside Franklin County and outside the physical jurisdiction of the city of Columbus.
The property must serve as the principal residence of the borrower.
Applicants must be a first-time homebuyer or must not have owned a home in the past three years.
But to be eligible for the loans, individuals must take eight hours of Homebuyer Education from Homeport or another HUD certified housing counseling agency.
The homebuyer education courses taught by Homeport are offered during the week and on weekends.
The class – four, two-hour classes on a weekday, or two, four-hour classes on weekends – introduces potential homebuyers to the key professionals in a potential purchase including lenders, Realtors, home inspectors and title company representatives.
The end result of the process is what counts, graduates of Homeport’s homebuyer course say.
“Coming home everyday to a beautiful home that is mine is a feeling of contentment, satisfaction and fulfillment,” said Dunlap about the Woodland Avenue residence home she shares with her husband and two sons. “I am so grateful for what Homeport did for my family and me.”