Home Ownership Month

National Homeownership Month. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Yesterday we talked about some new programs that USDA is providing to help people get into a new home in rural areas. The big push on these home ownership programs comes as June is National Homeownership Month. Tony Hernandez, Rural Housing Administrator says as part of the celebration USDA Rural Development has been offering advice for would be rural home buyers on ways to make the process easier.

HERNANDEZ: Own your future. Own your home. Buy your home today. Let USDA be your partner. The purpose of what we’re trying to do at USDA is to help move people from the poor to the middle class. The best way to do that is to buy a house.

Nearly 3.4-million people have been helped buy a home since the program began back in 1949. Hernandez talks about how to get the ball rolling.

HERNANDEZ: Talk to a lender because we have a guarantee product that lenders actually administer for us to get them into home ownership. Or they should talk to a realtor. Realtors are a great partner to help them find, not only a house, but a product that makes sense for them that are our products. Or you can talk with a non-profit that does home buying counseling. We call them packagers. Somebody will spend some time and give them hope for home ownership so they can own their future by owning their home. And the last thing is they can call one of our rural offices and we have lots of offices all other the United States in rural America.

Hernandez says they are looking at a lot of new programs as well including an employer assisted housing.

HERNANDEZ: At the same time we’re having a refinance product. We have people that are in a rural development loan, if they want to finance to get a lower interest rate we have a great pilot working there that help folks get lower payments, lower interest rate.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.