New Indian Nations Mortgage Program Assists Those Over HUD Guidelines by Lew Sichelman Christmas came a little earlier for Jim and Mary Cooper than it did for most other people last month. Their three children, too. They were the first members of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma to take advantage of an innovative mortgage assistance program that allows Native American families to purchase homes with as little as 1 percent of the purchase price from their own funds. But it wasn't a federal handout. On the contrary, the Cherokee initiative is just the latest expansion of a year-old, private sector collaborative to help Native Americans who might otherwise be precluded from obtaining affordable financing to buy, rehabilitate or refinance their homes because their incomes are above that allowed for government-backed funding. The Oklahoma Indian Nations mortgage program is the first to take advantage of money available under the 1996 Native American Assistance and Self-Determination Act, which was created to promote affordable housing opportunities on and off Native American lands. The Cherokee tribe is the fourth to sign up for the program, which gives their members access to financing with just a 3 percent downpayment. It also permits borrowers to put up just a third of the downpayment from their own cash, with the balance coming from a revolving loan fund stocked by the proceeds from the sale of homes offered by the various nations. The mortgage assistance plan allows the Housing Authority of the Cherokee Nation "to offer home ownership opportunities to Tribal members without them having to spend time on our waiting list," said Executive Director David Southerland. The housing authority also will be able to assist a group of tribal members it has never been able to assist before, "those who are over the HUD income guidelines." By taking advantage of the low-downpayment option, the Coopers needed less than $900 of their own savings to purchase a five-bedroom, three-bath house in Bartlesville for $89,900. "This has been like a holiday miracle for my family," said Jim Cooper, a self-employed truck driver. The Cooper's financing package included a 97 percent, 30-year fixed mortgage at 7.875 percent from First Americans Mortgage Corp., a Native American lending and consulting company dedicated to supplying first Americans with quality, safe and affordable homes. The Coopers also obtained a 1.9 percent, five-year second mortgage from their tribe's housing authority to cover the rest of the downpayment and their closing costs. The first mortgage was insured by PMI Mortgage Insurance of San Francisco, funded by Washington Mutual, a Seattle-based financial services company, and purchased by Freddie Mac, a federally-chartered, stockholder-owned enterprise created by Congress to create a continuous flow of capital to primary lenders. Headquartered in Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation is the country's second largest Native American tribe with about 210,000 members. The other three nations are the Choctaw, the third largest tribe with some 110,000 members, the Chickasaw and the Potawatomi. In total, the collaborative will help about 700 tribesmen buy, fix-up or refinance their homes. | 
