Last Wednesday I wrote this story about people using nonprofit buyer assistance, usually for the Federal Housing Administration’s 3 percent down payment rule. At least one person disliked the story, saying it was biased. Other commenters said, “Living paycheck to paycheck does not qualify you to own a home,” and “And the taxpayers are left holding the bag.”  Read on:

With rising food and gas prices, saving 20 percent for a down payment on a house isn’t an option, said Ann Hamilton, a wife and mother with two small children in Tracy.

“We live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “We couldn’t come up with a $30,000 down payment.”

Hamilton, a 33-year-old medical scheduler, and her husband, Orlando Flintroy, 48, wanted something they could afford with no surprises.

After a few years of shopping for homes and loans and refusing to use “some crazy loan with an adjustable rate,” they worked with a broker that informed them of AmeriDream Inc., a buyer assistance program approved to work with Federal Housing Administration loans where the seller can give back up to 6 percent of the purchase price usually in the form of a down payment, closing costs or both.

Not surprisingly, buyer assistance has its foes, some of whom are in Congress. Yet I’m not totally convinced having some seller incentives is the downfall of the housing market. FHA loans are based on credit scores and income. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, about a third of all FHA loans use buyer assistance in the form of a nonprofit (others use family “gifts” of cash.) HUD also asserts that those who have buyer assistance are more likely to default, something that is challenged by nonprofits. Ann Ashburn, president of AmeriDream quotes the GAO which reported it has a 94 percent success rate.

As one poster said, “This is not what created the problem.” I have to agree.