MINT HILL, N.C. – If you are buying or selling a home you could be impacted if there is a government shutdown.
The FHA backs loans and requires just a little bit of money down, but that popular way of financing the American dream would hit a snag with a shutdown.
Mitchell Kronenberg bought his Mint Hill townhome through a FHA loan a year and a half ago.
The FHA loans are popular because they require only three percent down, compared to ten percent or higher for a conventional loan.
“It’s the government backstop that allows the market to work,” says Elizabeth Barnhardt, with the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association.
“You have to be up to date on everything and if you are missing one thing they are on top of you to get it immediately,” Kronenberg says.
He says a shutdown could delay key dates that potential homebuyers have already set.
“You could be up on your lease and somebody could be planning to move into your rental property,” he says.
Barnhardt says a shutdown could also slow down a slowly recovering economy.
"These are first-time homebuyers, these are veterans, these are folks that are ready to move up in our marketplace, in our economy," she explains. "Even if we're looking at one day, we're still going to have that paperwork coming in because folks all over the country are sending that information to the government. So, just like when we go on vacation and come back to a full inbox, those folks are going to be coming back from an unpaid vacation to an inbox full of applications they are going to have to process."
