Conference 7.286::digital

    Or even better, have DEC provide housing (small towns) for the
    employees.  There's a song about this (16 tons) with a line:
    "St. Peter don't call me, I can't go, I own my soul to the company
    store."
    
    Sounds like a _bad_ idea to me.
    
    /s/ Jim Williams

    
    I was not proposing for digital to loan the whole amount for the house
    just enough for the deposit.  If the loan is then paid back in a
    year, the advantage to digital then becomes, not that I owe them
    money, but that I would be settled here.
    
    :J

    Also banks generally aren't amused if you borrow the down payment,
    as a matter of fact is is one of the questions I have to answer
    at the closing.
    
    The source of the downpayment is usually required as part of the
    application process.  They want you to have a stake in the house
    and they want a pad on their loan versus what they could get if
    they had to auction the house due to default.
    
    /s/ Jim Williams

    .0
    
                   Thanks for asking because I myself was wondering
                  about the exact same thing. I NEED to either get
                  settled with a place here or leave a good work area
                  and move on to where it's more affordable and without
                  a bit of help from DEC it looks like the latter will
                  win out. It's very ridiculous pricing houses and/or
                  land in the kingdom of Dukakis and it's time the
                  peasants got some help!!
    
    Tom 

    .0

		I don't know if you were transfered to Mass. from another
	state but I was.  As part of the decision process before accepting
	the position I had to consider the housing market.  Digital makes
	it possible for  transfered employees to have part of the closing costs
	paid by them.  But Digital is not in the business of "helping" each
	employee enter the houseing market.  

		To ask Digital to help with the down payment by "loaning"
	the money is not a good idea.  Each person has to make decisions based
	on their financial situation and see if the area is affordable for them.
	Placing the burden of housing on the company is not a fair expectation,
	if after the transfer I found that I could not afford to buy a house my
	wife and I were prepared to move to another state where housing was more
	affordable.

		If you were moving to New York city you would not ask the
	company to pay or help with security devices or personal body guards.
	Part of your decision has to be the ability of your family to cope
	with financial, social, and moral issues of the area.

		I do hope that you find the means to purchase your house
	because I know it is difficult.  Good luck,
		

				Jose

    
       No transfer involved. I opted for an honorable discharge from
     the army after 10 1/2 years of service because I was tired of the
     military politics and foolishness and luckily got in to DEC while
     someone wasn't paying attention. If I hadn't been so lucky we would
     have moved to another area, preferably where you didn't need to be a
     megabucks winner to own your own home. We did take into consideration
     where it was that we would have to live while living up to a commitment
     with Dec and now that I'm relatively happy with my work location I'm
     still very dissatisfied with the housing arrangements in and around
     our area. 
         From Boston to Athol rent and housing is too expensive and
     I don't think asking DEC for a "help me out loan" to pay a down
     payment on a house is too much to ask for. You can't save alot
     of money in the military because you don't MAKE enough money to
     begin with!! I'm not from Massachusetts, I'm from Florida where
     housing is beginning to be just as expensive. What would you have
     done after giving up 10 years of life to your country? Go back
     to Florida and pay what we're paying to live in Mass? Why not stay
     here where we're almost established and attempt to pull up our
     pants and make a decent living? I love New England but I can't afford
     to buy a house because I don't have enough geld to compete in the
     real estate market. That's not a fair expectation? I beg to differ!!
    
    Tom
    
     what real estaters
    
    

    Hey, you may be better off than you think, if you are a veteran!
    You can probably qualify for a low-interest, low-down-payment loan
    on that basis; I've known people who got away with less than 5%
    down! -- I was very jealous at the time since I am NOT a vet and
    had to come up with more than 25%(!! - I live in Mass. too) in order
    to qualify for a loan at a bank, which was real, real tough.  Also,
    there are low-rate mortgages for people buying their first home.
    You should call up your veteran's administration, and a few banks
    to get the info, since I don't know the details.  I was jealous
    at the time because with the low rate, my veteran friends bought
    a much bigger house than mine, on more land, with a much smaller
    down payment and monthly payments that were quite a bit less than
    mine; having been shot at in Vietnam causes their living costs to
    be much lower than mine for the next thirty years - hardly seems
    fair to me, but you deserve something for working for your country
    (well, I am a bit undecided about what we were really doing there
    in Vietnam, too, but that doesn't change the danger my friends faced
    when he was stationed over there).
    
    If that doesn't pan out, the other thing you can do (I assume that
    DEC is really unlikely to loan you the money) is swallow your pride
    and ask your relatives to help with some of the down payment.  It's
    tough, but people will usually come through for you, if you ask
    them.  I borrowed a bunch of money to lend to my sister-in-law for
    their down payment (my credit is better than hers anyhow), as did
    several other relatives, and they were able to buy their first home.
    I can manage the payments on the loan I took out, and some day when
    they are able, they will pay me back - actually, I told her to put
    the money she offered to pay back in a college account for my little
    niece and nephew, so it may not be soon, but that's OK with me.   It
    would be OK even if they are never able to pay it back - they're
    family, after all.

       VA mort. can be had for $0 down. I believe the current rate is 9.5%
   Also seller pays the points. (You may have to make an 'arrangement'
    on this'). 
                                                         Denny

    
    
     RE.8.
    
                       Thank you kindly, I will look into it asap!!
    
    Tom

    Don't you believe that the SELLER pays the points - they will be
    added on to the price of the house.  It's just like taxes: the ultimate
    consumer is the one who ultimately pays it - that's YOU.
    
    Good luck!  Hope you find a hou$e!

    As has been pointed out in a previous reply, a house downpayment
    cannot be funded from a loan, so this DECloan issue is moot. 
    
    Many insights on first home purchasing, especially in NE, can be found
    in TALLIS::REAL_ESTATE. 

       When I said the seller pays the points, I ALSO said you might
    have to make an 'arrangement' This will depend on how bad they want
    to sell. In my case they paid half. The other half was added to
    the cost.
                                                     Denny

    You only can't borrow your down payment if your bank or mortgage
    lender won't let you.  One of my old managers bought here first
    house by taking the maximum allowable cash advance from both hers
    and her husband's MasterCards - a total of $8000 (that was a lot
    of money in those days) - because they didn't have a down payment
    otherwise.  They bought the house, and lived VERY frugally for the
    first year or so while they paid off the credit card bill along
    with the mortgage.  Of course, if one or the other of them had ended
    up out of work, they would have been in big trouble, so it wouldn't
    surprise me if most lenders would disallow this scheme these days
    - they really do NOT want you to default on your mortgage.... I
    don't think that borrowing from relatives who don't care when you
    repay them counts as borrowing the down payment to most banks, though
    - at least, it worked for my sister-in-law, as I said, and they
    bought their first home last summer.

    My husband and I got a VA loan in November 1986.  The formula used
    at that time was --
        0% down on the first $110,000
       25% down on the amount over $110,000.
    
    For example, the required down payment on a $150,000 home was $10,000.
    
    The VA guaranteed $27,500 of the mortgage, the interest rate was
    lower than the going rates and we qualified for a higher monthly
    payment due to their methods of calculating what we could afford.
    
    The main disadvantage is that the whole loan process tends to get
    slowed down significantly which makes sellers hesitant to accept
    your offer (we had to state that we were obtaining VA financing
    and that the sellers were responsible for paying the discount points
    in the purchase and sales agreement).
    
    Please feel free to contact me by mail for more details.
    Ruth Lowell