Maine SaluteME and Salute Home Again Mortgage Programs

MaineHousing runs the state's first-home mortgage programme, and SaluteME is the veteran and military version of it: a 0.5 per cent discount on the interest rate of a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Half a point does not sound like much until it is compounded over thirty years. On a typical Maine purchase price it is worth tens of thousands of dollars across the life of the loan, which makes this one of the larger benefits in this catalog measured in dollars, and one of the least publicised. Eligibility reaches active duty service members, retired service members, and veterans with an honorable discharge and 180 or more days of service. No disability rating is involved, so a rating filter never hides this entry. The first-time homebuyer rule is where the two names come apart. MaineHousing's ordinary first home loan requires that the borrower has not owned a home in the past three years. Salute Home Again waives that requirement for a veteran or service member who has owned before, which is the variant most mid-career service members need. Neither variant can be used to refinance. This is purchase money. Eligible properties are new or existing single-family homes, owner-occupied two to four unit buildings, condominiums, and permanently attached mobile homes twenty years old or newer. Little or no down payment options are available, and the loan can combine with FHA, Rural Development, VA and conventional structures. Two options are worth asking about by name. The Advantage option provides $5,000 toward closing costs and down payment. The Purchase Plus Improvement option folds between $500 and $35,000 of home improvements into the mortgage payment, which is the route for a house that needs work before it is habitable. MaineHousing also includes MaineHOPE unemployment protection on its mortgages, which may pay up to four mortgage payments including taxes and insurance if the borrower becomes unemployed. Income and purchase price limits apply and they vary by household size and by location, so the figure that matters is the one for the county being bought in. Applications go through an approved MaineHousing lender rather than through MaineHousing directly, and through the Bureau of Veterans' Services not at all. A veteran using the VA home loan guaranty should compare rather than assume. SaluteME and the federal guaranty are different instruments with different costs, and a lender can price both.