Nevada Rural Housing Authority offers program

When Nicole Moreno and her husband, Francisco, had their second child, they knew they needed to move into a bigger home. Their challenge was that they kept getting out-bid by cash buyers in the competitive Clark County real estate market.

“We needed help coming up with a large enough down payment to be able to compete,” she said.

Fortunately, Paula Clark, a senior loan consultant with imortgage, offered them a solution, when she told them about the Nevada Rural Housing Authority’s Home at Last program.

“Here’s a teacher, a mother of two small children, and her husband — she’s just completed her schooling and is ready to start back to work and it’s almost impossible for them to save the money necessary to put down for their home,” Clark said.

The Home at Last Access program provides a grant equal to 4 percent of one’s loan amount for hardworking Nevadan families making less than $97,500 a year.

The grant is available throughout Nevada, in cities with populations of less than 150,000. Buyers should contact an approved lender to find out if they qualify.

After qualifying for the Home at Last program, the Moreno family received a grant for their down payment, enabling them to move into their new home at Mountain’s Edge, a master-planned community in the Las Vegas Valley, in October 2012.

“There are many families who can afford the monthly payment, but they just can’t come up with the down payment,” Clark said. “The Home at Last program has helped so many people get into their first home or back into a home after a previous financial setback because of the recession.”

“We’re very excited to be able to offer our housing assistance programs in Southern Nevada so we can help more families get into their own homes,” said Alison Rachiell, Home at Last mortgage and marketing specialist for the Southern Nevada office. “People are often surprised that they can buy homes in many places in the Las Vegas Valley, like Enterprise, Summerlin South and Whitney. Winchester, a community that many would affectionately call ‘Old Las Vegas’ also qualifies.”

The Southern Nevada office provides information about the NRHA’s housing assistance programs to mortgage lenders, banks, Realtors, brokers, title and hazard insurance companies and prospective homebuyers in Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Mineral and Nye counties, she said.

The imortgage lenders have used the programs to help more than 100 families into homes over the past three years.

“It’s been a lifesaver for so many people,” Clark said.

The Nevada Rural Housing Authority provides a range of housing and community development programs that help build and sustain independent communities.

It provides rental support, a home financing program, needs assessments and economic development to Nevada’s 15 rural counties and the rural portions of Clark and Washoe counties, with a coverage area including 110,000 square miles.

Families interested in using the access program can visit the authority’s website at www.nvrural.org/access for more information or call 702-992-7215.