Celebration Blog

Shea and Michelle Carlin recently had their eye on a two-story home with an expansive balcony outside Brooksville. As is often the case with foreclosures, the prior owners pilfered the entire kitchen and all the light fixtures. The Carlins couldn't afford the $46,000 in repairs, and banks wouldn't lend them the money to buy the house until the repairs were completed — a catch-22 common in the foreclosure market. Their dream home could have slipped away. Then they heard from their Realtor about a government program that would allow them to buy the house without needing bundles of money in advance. It let them roll the repairs into their total mortgage. The little known and once seldom used program backed by the Federal Housing Administration has caught fire as of late. In 2006, just two people used the program to buy property in the Tampa Bay area. Last year, the number jumped to 135. Nationally, the numbers increased nearly 700 percent. [Source: St. Petersburg Times]