Home Buyer Guide

Purchasing a home is a big decision and responsibility.  The Springfield Community Land Trust is here to support you every step of the way.

Home Buyer Guide

For more information on the Community Land Trust Model, click here.

Accessing your Credit Score

  • Credit Karma provides truly free credit scores to consumers direct from the credit bureau.  Your scores are retrieved securely with no hidden fees. www.creditkarma.com
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Down Payment Requirements

Springfield Community Land Trust requires a $1500 down payment on your home purchase.

Apply for a SCLT Home

Is purchasing a Springfield Community Land Trust home a good option for you? Once your SCLT application has been submitted and reviewed, SCLT staff will help you find out if you qualify now to purchase a home or help you make a plan to get on track to buy a home in the future.

How much of my income should I spend on housing? As a rule, your housing costs shouldn’t exceed 30% of your take-home income.

Your monthly housing payment is made up of your mortgage principal and interest, property taxes, insurance, ground lease fee and a stewardship fee and maintenance.

There’s no easy way to determine what upkeep will cost you, but most homeowners spend 1%–4% of their property’s value for maintenance every year.

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Qualified land trust applicants submit a loan application and supporting financial documents to include:  last three months of pay stubs, bank statements for last two months, W-2’s for last two years to a participating lender.

Visit Bank of Missouri or Guaranty Bank to apply for a home loan. Applicants that have steady income for at least two years and a credit score of 640 are good candidates for approval.  Applicants can still qualify if they have a bankruptcy or foreclosure that has been discharged for two years.

Applicants must complete a  HUD-approved Homebuyer Education Course and a one on one follow-up counseling session to purchase a SCLT home

The Homebuyer Education can be online, one on one or a classroom training.

Online Homebuyer Education Options:

Financial Education Programs: Make your Move

Ches, Inc. : For Home Buyers

One on one and classroom sign up is done through a referral with our HUD certified counseling partner at no cost to you.

Buying and selling a home comes with paperwork; there’s no avoiding it.

A realtor helps navigate the buying process of exchanging the rights to a home and will draft the sales agreement for you and work with the title company or attorney to prepare the closing documents.

In a Community Land Trust model, the improvements (home, outbuildings, etc) are sold and the Land Trust retains ownership of the ground beneath the home and for an affordable amount, leases it to the home owner with a ground lease which is a long-term lease that separates ownership of the land from ownership of the building . Our agreement is a 99-year renewable lease.  By retaining ownership of the land, the Trust benefits the community by dictating that the home must be maintained as affordable for future families as it is sold and repurchased.  This gives working families the opportunity to build assets and financial stability.

A ground lease is a legal document and to insure understanding of the agreement, the buyer will meet with an attorney.  The buyer can choose and pay for their own attorney or we can refer buyers to our partner agency Legal Services of Southwest Missouri at no cost. 

The purchase transaction concludes with a closing at a title company. A title company makes sure that the title to a piece of real estate is legitimate and then issues title insurance for that property.

Ownership is transferred to the buyer at the closing. The buyer leaves the closing with the keys to their new home

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