Are you thinking of buying a house in Connecticut? Are you a first time homeowner?

If you answered yes to both of these questions, you may want to keep reading! Did you know about the CHFA program?

This is a program exclusive to Connecticut's first time home owners. There are income guidelines. These will depend on which city you'd like to purchase in. For example, in Plainville, the max income is 77,000 per household.

What dose the program do for you? It locks you into a 30 year fixed interest rate below prime. We just bought a house and our interest rate was 5.875%! That's a FIXED rate! They also offer down payment assistance.

Are there restrictions? Yes, there are!

- The house cannot cost more than $204,000

- You cannot have owned a house in the past 3 years

- The house must pass certain safety guidelines. Example, structure must be sound, no lead paint, water quality.

- You must meet the income guidelines

- You cannot re-sell before 9 years without penalty. If you do, the will want to recoup the difference in interest rates.

All in all, this proved to be too good a deal for my family to pass up! We currently live in Rhode Island. The average house that is habitable is $250,000 and interest was quoted no less than 7.5% with creative financing and huge closing costs. We have saved ourselves at least $60,000 on the price of a house by going over the border. We also figured that we were saving at least $180,000 in interest fees over the course of the loan! Amazing!

We have no plans in moving until our child is out of scholl, so the nine year lock is not an issue as we bought in a great city.

So, if you are thinking of buying in Connecticut and meet these guidelines, ask your agent about CHFA financing. There is a website devoted to the program. I cannot link it from Ebay, but it is simple to find. Just search CHFA and CT.

I hope that I have saved a prospective Connecticut buyer time and money with this guide!