Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 9:11.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-11 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 29.9 MB to 6.0 MB --- transcript --- Well, hello everybody. This is Diane Helms from Getting Real About Real Estate in Nevada County. So good to hear you on the other end here today. And today, my special guest that I am honored to introduce to you is Suzy Bell. Suzy Bell with Empire Home Loans, right here in Nevada County, correct? Correct. Yeah. She is here to discuss today how to buy a home with nothing down. And Suzy, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and your business? Sure. So thank you for having me here. And I grew up in Sacramento and I worked in the mortgage industry like many, many years ago as a loan processor. And then I moved my way up through that company as the vice president of the company. And then had children, stayed home, and came back into the industry. So I'm happy to be here. Well, that's great. You've had a lot of experience, really. Just a little break in between that moms sometimes have to do. Absolutely. For sure. But that's great. I'm glad that you're really back into it. And I get to see a lot of you at our marketing sessions here at Nevada County when we talk about the MLS tours. It seems like you're almost always there. The marketing meetings are so fantastic. Yeah, they really are. So you know, I'd like to understand more about the first-time homebuyer programs in Nevada County and Grass Valley. I'm aware of some of them, but I'm sure you could explain more detail the differences between each one. Yes. So Nevada County has their own first-time homebuyer program with a down payment assistance for down payment and closing costs of $50,000. And you need to have income eligibility and be a first-time homebuyer. Also, the City of Grass Valley has their own down payment assistance program of $75,000 with their own income limits. And also, you need to be a first-time homebuyer. Okay. Yeah. First-time homebuyer. That's interesting. And we'll get into that eligibility in a moment. Sometimes people ask me, what is the medium income and how does it affect loans? Can you explain the criteria regarding the median income and what it is for each of the programs available? Certainly. So Nevada County's area median income, which is the average income for our county, they go to 120% of the area median income. And for a family of four, that's $168,500. So for this program, you would have to make less than that or up to that amount to qualify for their program. And then in the City of Grass Valley, the area median income for a family of four is $100,100. Oh, wow. That's not too restrictive, I don't think. Yeah, it's a pretty good amount. Yeah, I think it is a pretty good amount. So, I mean, they must get lots of applicants, I would wonder. I would have guessed that they would. I know that Nevada County, I mean, specifically, and you and I discussed about this recently, the difference is City of Grass Valley, city limits would be a different type loan. Nevada County would include places like Alta Sierra or any place outside of the city limits, correct? Exactly. Yeah. Nevada County goes all the way up to Truckee. Yeah, right. I know that. That's exciting. So how does Grass Valley and Nevada County decide? With all the applicants that they get, who's going to receive them? So they're just very strict on their criteria. The income eligibility and being a first-time homebuyer. Nevada County, also, you can, again, you can get anything in the county, but Grass Valley, you're restricted to being in the city. Nevada County, you actually have to be a resident of Nevada County in order to apply for the Nevada County first-time homebuyer program. But the really cool thing is if you are purchasing in the City of Grass Valley, you can double up on both programs. So you can use the Nevada County program and the City of Grass Valley program together. Oh, really? So that's interesting. I wonder how, so you could use them both at the same time? Exactly. So that would be a total of $125,000 towards your down payment and closing costs. Wow, that is amazing. And do they have to pay it back? They do. These programs are silent seconds, so you don't have to pay it back for 30 years. And they have a very low interest rate on the second. Wow, that's amazing. That's great. I think, I remember, well, years ago, there was a program where I know I had a client of mine who utilized it for that second mortgage and didn't have to pay that back for many years, actually, until she sold the house. Exactly. So I think there was a minimum requirement for that at that time. I'm sure there still is. But, you know, what's really great is that these programs are available, and I just don't think that a lot of people really are aware of them. And that's why I invited you here today, because I'd like to, you know, get people more in tune to what is available for these home loans. And it helps them and helps all of Nevada County. I know that these grants and these programs were provided by the State of California. But I also know that the California Association of Realtors have done tremendous lobbying towards providing money towards these grants. I mean, our own local association has received a grant from the California Association of Realtors this year. And that grant was for $50,000. And what it did is it enabled first-time home buyers the ability to receive a $2,000 grant per household for fire hardening once their home was purchased. So, I mean, you and I are both on that Affordable Housing Committee at the Association of Realtors, as well as a few others. And what we have done is we go through those applications, right? We do. And then we make sure that they met the criteria. And you, as a lender, are involved in those applications as well, correct? Yes, yes. We check to make sure that the borrowers are first-time home buyers. And then we send all of our information to you for the application. Yeah, exactly. And there's a lot of paperwork involved, but it is so worth it. And I've seen the smiling faces of those recipients that have received that grant. And it helps them out a lot. Yeah. I think that all of the applicants who applied so far have received, have been approved. Yeah, I know. It's been amazing. And that's a lot of money. What do you think, $2,000 for that entire grant? I mean, that is really amazing. So, you know, getting back to some other home loans, let's talk about the CALHFA loan. And that's C-A-L-H-F-A loans. Can you explain what that means and more about what this program is about? Yeah. CALHFA has a program called the Dream for All. And it offers up to 20% for down payment and closing costs not to exceed $150,000. The home buyer must register for a voucher and a random drawing selects the resident or the registrants who will receive this voucher. It's not first come, first serve like a lot of these other programs are. The borrower must be first generation home borrower and must be a current resident of California. And all the borrowers on the loan must be first time home buyers. Their combined household income must meet the CALHFA income limits. And the CALHFA, and that income limit is? It's $197,000 for Nevada County. This is all over California, so each county is different. Yeah, and yeah, so $197,000, did you say? Wow, that's really great. It's one of the highest ones. Yeah. So, and how is that paid back? I mean, what happens with that program? This is a grant, so you don't have to pay it back. And that's why there's not quite as many as, you know, one might hope. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of where I was going with it, the grant. Yeah, exactly. So I know in that grant there's something about a requirement for first generation, right? Eligibility requirements. Can you go into those eligibility requirements and what does that mean, first generation, first time home buyer? What does that mean? So a first generation home buyer is a purchaser who has not owned a home for the last seven years and whose parents currently do not own a home. And it only has to be one of the borrowers that is a first generation home buyer. Also, they have other criteria for people who were in foster care. Oh, is that right? Well, I didn't realize that. I love that. That's great. So what are the benefits of that? I mean, is there a lot of money available for that? So there isn't a ton of money available for it, no. But they do redo the drawing every time they reallocate funds. So they are reallocating funds, then they would do another drawing. So anybody can put their name in the hat and anyone can get it. Oh, as long as that they qualify, correct? Yes, exactly. And I'm assuming that they get a criteria list of eligibility requirements when they apply. When they apply, yes. They have to fit all the criteria. And where do they apply? They apply with CALHFA on their website, but they also have to be approved for a home loan. So they have to find a lender like me. Yeah, okay. So contact your local lender, right? Yeah, exactly. You can explain whether or not that they qualify. Right. That's great. You know, this is good information. I'm glad that we're talking about that today. Can you talk about, I know there's talk about zero down payment loans. I know they're out there. Can you give us some information about what qualifies, what those types of loans are and the criteria for them? Yes. So a couple of no down payment loans are the USDA loan and the VA loan. The USDA loan also has income limits. Their income limit is $122,800 for a family of one to four and $162,100 for a family of five to eight people. And your credit score needs to be between 620 and 640 or above. And the lovely thing about this is that you can get your closing costs from either a gift or a seller. So you can negotiate that into the contract with your real estate agent. Awesome. That's great. You know what? I'm just looking at our little clock here and I think it's time for a little commercial station break. So stay tuned, folks, because Suzy Bell with Empire Home Loans and Diane Helms, your Getting Real About Real Estate Realtor, local realtor in Nevada County, will be right back. Welcome back, folks, to Getting Real About Real Estate with Diane Helms here and Suzy Bell, the lender with Empire Home Loans. We were just talking about zero down payment loans and what loans are available that people can purchase with zero down. And Suzy, you mentioned VA and USDA, right? Yes, yes. And so when you mentioned what are the requirements, I don't know if we really got into the requirements for VA. Yeah, VA. So the VA loans require no money down, which is beautiful. It's 100 percent loan. The seller, again, could be negotiated to pay for your closing costs and or you can get a gift from someone for your closing costs. That's great. The VA loans are mortgage backed by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. And the wonderful thing about VA loans is their rates are lower and there's no mortgage insurance. So typically on larger loan to values like 97 percent up to 100 percent, there's mortgage insurance monthly. And so you save a lot of money by not paying mortgage insurance on these loans. When you are applying for a VA loan, you just have to get a certificate of eligibility and you can do that on the VA housing portal. Oh, that's great. So I guess the interest rates are very favorable, aren't they? They are. Yeah. Yes, yes. They're lower than most of the other loans. Yeah, I know that, you know, from experience that VA has changed. You know, they have lightened up some of their restrictive, you know, concerns on letting people borrow the money from that type of loan. And I think one of them was, you know, they don't require the seller to have to pay the pest repairs. Right? I mean, they probably want the pest repairs probably done, the Section 1 repairs. But sometimes I've understood that there might be cases where they let that go. But we won't get into that. What I want to get into is the fact that there's a lot of people that may be not aware that might be aware that they can get a VA loan or they can sell their home to a vet as a seller and not have to worry necessarily about having to pay for those dry rots, Section 1. We call them pest repairs. Because I know a buyer can pay for those in escrow or actually prior to close of escrow instead of the seller. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. If the buyer has the funds and they want to pay for it, they certainly can. And it is available, but there are how many – what's the statistics of the people that are able to be – you were saying earlier that – Yeah, so a lot of veterans actually don't even know that the program is available to them. And it's only 13% of veterans actually use the VA program to purchase homes, which is surprising because 78% to 80% of veterans are homeowners. And only 3 out of 10 veterans are aware that this loan is offered to them with 100% financing. Gee, that's amazing, right? Well, I think we're not doing a good enough job of getting the word out. Exactly. Yeah, that's this – I've got a heart for our vets and I think that's really great. And VA has gotten a lot more open about all of their requirements. And I think in the past they really were super restrictive and everybody sees them as like a restrictive loan. Correct. But they're not as restrictive as they used to be. Yeah, that's true. And the US VA loans are for anybody, correct? Yes, exactly. You don't have to be a vet and you don't have to be a first-time home buyer for a USDA loan, correct? You do not, but you do need to buy the home in a designated area. So it needs to be on the USDA website. They have a portal and you can actually put the address in and it will tell you whether or not you're in a designated area that is available to the USDA loans. Okay, well, that's good to know. Yeah. And what's the good thing about the USDA loan as compared to others? Well, the USDA loan compared to an FHA loan, for example, is the FHA loan you have to put 3.5% down and the USDA loan you do not have to put 3.5% down. And the interest rate is lower for the USDA loans as well. Oh, yeah, well, that's good to know. So that's good to know that you don't have to be a first-time home buyer to receive those types of loans. That's really good to know. I would love now to ask you about some tips for our listeners, especially for first-time home buyers, you know, some lender tips that are important. Say I'm a first-time home buyer and I don't know the first thing about what to do. And I call Suzy Bell up and I go, Suzy, I want to buy this home and I heard that you do first-time home buyer loans, you do all kinds of loans. What am I supposed to do? What's the requirements? What would you tell them? So as a first-time home buyer, I would recommend that you check your credit score. You are saving for a down payment and closing costs. Closing costs are generally between 3% and 5% of the sales price, just to give you an idea of what you would be looking to save up for. And you want to just make sure that you have a good credit score. Some people think that if they don't have a good credit score that they can't buy a home. But there are lots of different programs out there. And so that is not necessarily the truth. Sometimes you can have a bad credit score and still buy a home. Yeah, that's amazing too, that you work with folks often. And actually counseling them ahead of time, getting them prepared. In fact, I want to bring that up because a lot of people, they'll go in kind of blind, not knowing. But if they knew that, gosh, if I can just get this done maybe within the next four or five months, they will qualify for a loan, correct? Exactly, exactly. And there are a lot of companies out there that they say that they're going to fix your credit. And they don't necessarily do that. So people will end up giving them money in their fake companies. Oh, that's scary. Yeah. You want to make sure that if you are finding a company that you talk to someone who's used them before that they're a credible company. Yeah. So I don't know if you're like me, but it seems like I'm always, as a realtor, I'm always asked, so hi, how's the market going? What's the market like? Well, it changes, right, all the time. I know that and I know it does for you. They always ask me, what do you think is going to happen? You know what I say? I go, you know what? I lost my crystal ball back in 2008. It's the time to lose it, right? It's like you can't project the future, folks, but I don't think anybody could at any time. But I know you probably get asked those questions a lot. What do you think is happening, not that you're projecting what's going to happen, but from a lender's perspective, what's happening in the lender world as far as loans availability and people applying for loans? What do you see? So most people ask, you know, where are the rates? What's the rates doing? So I would say that if you look historically at the rates, they're going to stay close to 7%. You know, through history, they've stayed close to 7% up and down. There's been some huge spikes up and some huge spikes down. But we're kind of right back there right now. And we do vary on rates every day. You know, they go up a little bit. They go down a little bit. And the market is so unpredictable right now. I just, yeah, I can't really say what will happen. That's true. We really can't, no matter what, anyway. But I just know that there's no better time than the present, if you don't own a home, to own a home. Because not only does it give people the security of having, you know, not having to be evicted from a home that they're renting, but the security in knowing that their money is going towards equity and wealth at some point in their life. It's going to, if they stay with it, you know, values do increase. Right, exactly. And historically, values have increased. Yes, they have. And so if you wait, you might actually price yourself out of the market. I know. So it's always good to just do it now. Yep, that's true. You know, yeah, I remember my first house I bought, I was 18, and it was 6% interest. That's amazing. That was a long time ago, folks. You bought a house when you were 18. I know that. Yeah, 6% interest. That's what the interest was, and that was many decades ago. But yeah, so now, you know, you're still looking. You know, granted, the prices have gone up, but that home was a home in Napa that I bought, you know, a long time ago. It was like $19,000. Oh, my gosh. Now, that same home today is way over a million dollars. So, you know, that's kind of what I'm going to say to folks when they're thinking, gee, I don't know if I can buy a home or if I should be able to buy one because the world is crazy. But the main thing is if you don't have a home, you'll never have that security. You'll never have the opportunity at some point to gain more equity in a home and to further establish a family, a good thing for your family in the future. So I think it's important. Absolutely. I totally agree with that. And I love helping first-time homebuyers. I mean, I just love handing over the keys for them. I do, too, right? They're so excited, and it's such a great thing to buy your first home, really. For sure. Yeah, it's nerve-wracking, but it's exciting. I know. Well, I just want to say thank you for being on our show today, Suzy, for bringing out this information to our audience, and thank you for listening. This is Diane Helms again with Getting Real About Real Estate, your local realtor with Century 21 Cornerstone, also a mediator. And I appreciate you guys listening to the show. And if you have anybody that is interested in being on the show, please give me a call at 530-913-8598, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, or anywhere about town. You'll see me. I love our community, and I love working with local lenders such as yourself, Suzy. Thank you for coming. And would you like to give your phone number before we leave? Oh, sure. Thank you so much, Diane. My number is 916-802-8917, and that's Suzy Bell with Empire Home Loans. Great. So we will see you next time. Getting Real About Real Estate is aired the second Friday of each month at 1130 a.m. on KNCO. Have a great day, everyone. And that means it will be the second Friday of October when we get back with Diane Helms and Getting Real About Real Estate. Right here in our neighborhood, families are struggling to put food on the table. Interfaith Food Ministry needs your support to continue providing wholesome supplemental groceries to Nevada County residents. Visit interfaithfoodministry.org and be a part of this vital mission. Your donation feeds families, fuels hope, and builds community. Please join the fight to end food insecurity. Interfaith Food Ministry, because no one should feel the hurt of hunger. Thank you for your generosity. Ace is the place with the helpful hardware, folks. Fire up. Better grilling for less. Save $100 on the Weber Genesis E315 Gas Grill. 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