1. Half Price Homes (50% off value) - Only HUD’s Good Neighbor Next Door program offers homes at 50% of the current appraised value. If there is a Good Neighbor Next Door home available in your work area, and you meet the other eligibility requirements, you may be able to purchase the home for only $100.00 down, using an FHA loan and you may use the Teacher Next Door GRANT to help pay all or part of your closing cost. 2. Housing Grants - Teacher Next Door is the National Home Buying Program that offers participants the opportunity to receive GRANTS and other home buying benefits. Good Neighbor Next Door is not a grant program and HUD does not offer grants for single family home buyers. 3. Down Payment Assistance - Teacher Next Door has down payment assistance programs available on any home purchase, in all 50 states. These programs include, Home in Five Advantage, Home Plus, Georgia Dream, Golden State Platinum, Florida First, Military Heroes, First Home, Chenoa and Unison, just to name a few. Your Teacher Next Door representative is trained in all the various programs and will explain your eligibility. Programs are each structured differently and eligibility varies by city and state. Good Neighbor Next Door offers no down payment assistance, outside of the $100.00 down plan on the Good Neighbor homes. 4. Eligibility - The Good Neighbor Next Door program requires that all buyers have one of four very specific job titles: Law Enforcement Officer (with arrest powers), Classroom Teacher (Pre-K through 12th grade), Firefighter or Emergency Medical Technician. (EMT) The Teacher Next Door Program, on the other hand, is much more inclusive. Teacher Next Door provides GRANTS, down payment assistance and other benefits to all teachers, law enforcement, firefighters and EMT’s, but also includes all their support staff. In addition, Teacher Next Door extends these benefits to Nurses, other medical professionals, government employees and Military personnel. If you are an eligible public service professional, you may use Teacher Next Door benefits to purchase any home on the market, not just Good Neighbor homes or other HUD homes. For a complete list of eligible professions, CLICK HERE.5. Location – Good Neighbor Next Door homes are all HUD owned and located in revitalization areas, chosen by HUD. To bid on a Good Neighbor home, you must work in the same area where the home is located.Since Teacher Next Door is a national home buying program and not operated by HUD, you may purchase any home on the market and are not required to work in the same area as the home. 6. Availability – Good Neighbor Next Door homes are extremely limited in their availability, as you might imagine, being half price. In some states, there are urban areas with several Good Neighbor homes available. Whereas, many other states may have zero Good Neighbor homes at any given time. When you bid on a Good Neighbor home, it is a lottery style bid. So, if there are 20 bidders, you will have a 1 in 20 chance of having the winning bid. With Teacher Next Door, there are usually plenty of homes available, because you may choose any home, in any neighborhood. 7. Residency Commitment - If you are the winning bidder on a Good Neighbor Next Door home, HUD requires a three-year residency commitment. Teacher Next Door does not have any limitations when it comes to residency.
This week, Teacher Next Door, the nation’s largest home buying program for teachers, held a three-day, down payment assistance summit in Tempe, Arizona, aimed at increasing the amount of assistance provided to teachers.
“Our focus this week was expanding our national matrix to be more inclusive and offer larger assistance amounts and benefit more program participants,” said Steve Parks, Teacher Next Door National Director. “We now have over 30 different down payment assistance programs nationwide, that can be used in conjunction with our closing cost grant.”
Teacher Next Door already helps teachers in all 50 states navigate the home buying process, provides closing cost grants and arranges down payment assistance for qualified applicants. Now, by increasing the number of programs they utilize and dialing in the specific requirement of each plan, they have no less than three potential down payment assistance sources for any area. The down payment assistance programs include Georgia Dream, Home in Five Advantage, Home Plus, Chenoa and Unison, just to name a few.
“Despite rising home prices, I feel teachers and other service professionals should be able to live wherever they want, not just in certain neighborhoods. Between our grants and the down payment assistance programs we utilize, teachers and their families enjoy far more buying power when they go to choose their next home,” Parks continued. Through the Teacher Next Door program, you may purchase any home on the market.
This is not the first time Teacher Next Door has demonstrated their desire to help and strengthen communities. In 2015 the program was expanded to include law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMT’s and nurses.
To check grant availability, visit the official website www.teachernextdoor.us/grant
Housing grants are currently available for nurses and other medical professionals through the Nurse Next Door Program. Nurse Next Door is administered by the National Home Buying Program, Teacher Next Door.
Through Nurse Next Door / Teacher Next Door, nurses and medical staff are eligible for closing cost assistance grants ranging from$1,000.00 to $6,000.00. In addition to the closing cost grant, program participants may also be eligible for one of several different down payment assistance grants offered by various agencies.
For example, Teresa Gilkey, a nurse from Tucson, Arizona used Nurse Next Door to receive a total of $14,709.00 in grant funds for closing cost and down payment assistance, with the Down payment portion funded by the “Home Plus” program and arranged by Teacher Next Door’s preferred mortgage lender.
Along with the Teacher Next Door / Nurse Next Door Grants and Home Plus, we also work with many other grant programs from coast to coast. Some of the grant programs may include Arizona Home in Five, Chenoa, SHIP and many others.
Because Teacher Next Door / Nurse Next Door program in not a government agency, you may purchase any home on the market, not just HUD homes or homes in certain neighborhoods. The many different government grant programs we work with, may have certain income and other restrictions and vary in different states.
To see how much you qualify for, simply complete the pre-application at www.teachernextdoor.us , and a mortgage and program specialist will reach out to you, to help you get pre-approved for your mortgage and let you know what assistance programs are available to you. Once you have your pre-approval, a Teacher Next Door / Nurse Next Door Realtor® will contact you so you can go shopping.
The Teacher Next Door National Home Buying Program helps arrange the mortgage, Realtor, Grants and other assistance and helps the following public service professionals: teachers and all school personnel (instructional and non-instructional), Nurses, EMT’s and medical staff, law enforcement and support staff, firefighters and support staff, military and government employees. In most states, Teacher Next Door Realtors® contribute a portion of their commission towards the buyers closing cost grant.
If you have questions about Teacher Next Door / Nurse Next Door, please email info@teachernextdoor.us.
To LaShonda Mack, Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to send us this heartfelt thank you email. It means a lot to us! Congratulations on your new home! To Albie Anderman, April Lichfield and Suzette Hernandez of Teacher Next Door:Hi gang! I wanted to let you know that I am so thankful for having the opportunity to have had you all in my corner. You made the process of buying a new home, a cake walk. To April,
for getting me started on what turned out to be a fairly painless journey. Suzette,
Your patience with me during it all was impeccable. As you all probably learned really quick, I am sooo not technology savvy! So
for not cursing me...
Maybe what I should be focusing on next is updating my technology skills! Nevertheless, you guys were AWESOME! And finally Albie, where do I begin...from day one, you assured me that you would be there whenever I needed you. You were always available to answer any of my silly questions. You also reminded me that no question was silly, especially for someone that had never purchased a home before! You took the worry out of every step & for that I will be forever grateful to you
So just in case no one has ever told you guys before, you are
Teachers Next Door is a WONDERFUL program & I'm glad to say I've shared an unforgettable experience with such an outstanding group of devoted, nurturing & passionate individuals.
& finally,
Sincerely, LaShonda Mack New Homeowner?? Sent from my iPhone
Aaron helped me with my mortgage through the Teacher Next Door program. It was a very smooth process. Aaron worked fast and hard and got the loan done super quickly with a nice interest rate. My favorite part about working with Aaron was his responsiveness. If I had a question, he was always available to contact through email, text, calling etc. and always got back to me super quickly... even after hours. He was positive and also kept me informed of every step of the process. I would definitely work with Aaron again when I buy my next house. I'm grateful that I had him on my team.
Loan StatusClosed Apr 2017Closed Apr 2017
Loan TypePurchase
Close on timeYes
Interest RateLower than expected
Fees/Closing costsLower than expected
NO application fees.Easy application process and up-front pre-approval.Lowest down payment options available for first time home buyers.Work with a Loan Officer who specializes in first time home buyers.Work directly with a Teacher Next Door Agent Partner in your community who's received special training.Eligible to receive Teacher Next Door closing cost grants.