Wells Fargo Down Payment Assistance Recipients Still Struggling To Buy Homes

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Hundreds of hopeful homeowners were promised help buying a home, but the so-called Neighborhood LIFT program appears to be falling flat for the majority of them.

Seven million dollars in down payment assistance from Wells Fargo was meant to be injected into the local housing market, but most of that money is still on the sidelines.

"It'll be exciting to have my own place, and have my kids grow up in there and stay there," Rosie Padilla told CBS13 when she was applying for the program.

That was an excited Padilla in October; now, she is irritated.

"Myself and my kids, we've been with high hopes we were going to buy a house within a timeframe that they gave us, and unfortunately we didn't find anything," said Padilla.

Just three months ago, Padilla was one of 400 people in Sacramento who qualified to receive $15,000 for the down payment of a new home through Wells Fargo's Neighborhood LIFT program.

That day, CBS13 even went on a tour with Padilla as she looked for a new home.

But every offer Padilla has made since then has been rejected. Buying a home for her family in Sacramento, even with a $15,000 grant, has been impossible.

Why?

"Because these people are coming from out of town, coming into Sacramento, buying these houses with cash," Padilla said.

In fact, of the 400 families who qualified for the Wells Fargo grant in Sacramento last November, only 15 are now in homes and another 77 have pending contracts.

"It's just, you have to be persistent, diligent in looking," said Padilla.

Low inventory and all-cash offers are keeping qualified buyers like Padilla from becoming homeowners.

"It's really frustrating. I mean, it's really disappointing," she said.

Sacramento isn't the only market that Neighborhood LIFT money is being sidelined. Wells Fargo reports similar statistics in Las Vegas, Miami, and Orlando.