Mr. Kablog and I bought our first (and only) house with about 3 percent down; some of that was even a gift from our parents.
It was 2002. We were engaged and I remember waking up one morning and thinking "Let's buy a house." It cost $149,900, so 3 percent wasn't a huge down payment by any stretch. But for two people in their early twenties at the start of careers, it was a significant chunk of change.
I hadn't been working in the field of personal finance journalism for very long and wasn't well versed in housing issues. For instance, I didn't know I should shop around for a loan; we went with the lending arm of the real estate company that our Realtor worked with. And I was too impatient to take a Home Stretch class.
I still wonder if a low-level public radio employee and a county government worker would have qualified for any down payment assistance programs. There are several, and Maria Verven, who does communications work for Edina Realty, put together a nifty list of various down payment assistance programs that I've pasted here.
The best thing of all is that most of these programs are eligible even if you get the $8,000 tax credit that I mentioned in my weekend story.
