2025 guide to teacher home buying programs

If you’re a teacher, you know that finding a home with a mortgage payment you can afford can prove challenging. Many teachers don’t earn incomes that are high enough to cover the cost of buying homes in the communities in which they teach.

A report published in May of 2025 by the National Council on Teacher Quality said that, from 2019 to 2025, home prices in the United States increased by about 47%, outpacing the average growth of 24% of beginning teachers' salaries during the same time.

The report also found that in 2019, 29 U.S. school districts were unaffordable for teachers with 10 years of experience who had a bachelor's degree, and 22 districts were unaffordable for those with 10 years of experience and a master's degree. By 2025, those numbers shot up to 47 unaffordable school districts for teachers with 10 years of experience and a bachelor's degree and 44 for those with a decade's worth of experience and a master's degree.

There is help, though: Teachers struggling to make the move to homeownership can apply for home buying programs designed to make it easier for educators and public servants to afford a home. Most of these programs provide down payment assistance or help cover closing costs, both of which could ease the financial stress of buying a home.

Home buying assistance for teachers overview

7 home buying assistance programs for teachers

Teachers who are looking for lower down payments, savings on closing costs, lower mortgage interest rates or grants can explore the following seven options.

1. Teacher Next Door

Since 2008, the Teacher Next Door program has offered grants and down payment assistance to help teachers and other school employees purchase homes. The program is open to everyone who works in a prekindergarten-through-12th-grade school, including bus drivers, counselors, office staff, custodians, cafeteria workers and paraprofessionals.

Next Door Programs, the organization that runs Teacher Next Door, also offers Next Door programs for firefighters, police officers, nurses, active duty and retired military personnel, and public servants.

The Teacher Next Door program offers teachers up to $8,000 in grants that they can use to help cover mortgage closing costs and other expenses of buying a home. The program also offers up to $15,000 in down payment assistance, a boon to teachers struggling to scrape together enough cash for a down payment.

The program offers teachers discounts on title fees and a $545 credit that they can use to cover the cost of a home appraisal.

How to qualify for the Teacher Next Door program

Here are the requirements you’ll need to meet to qualify for one of these assistance programs.

• You must work with a real estate agent who is registered with the program as a TND agent. The Teachers Next Door Program will assign a TND agent to you.
• You must work with a lender in TND’s lender network. Once you complete the program’s online pre-application, a lender from the TND network will contact you.
• You must be a pre-K through 12^th-grade teacher to qualify for assistance.

You can receive assistance from the Teacher Next Door program while also working with other assistance programs such as Fannie Mae’s HomeReady, Freddie Mac’s Home Possible or the Good Neighbor Next Door program.

Rocket Mortgage® is not affiliated with or sponsored by the Teacher Next Door program.

2. Good Neighbor Next Door

Teachers are part of a group of public servants who can participate in the Good Neighbor Next Door program run by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Under this program, these public servants can buy HUD homes in revitalization areas at a discount of 50% from their list prices.

To participate, you must first check the listings of Good Neighbor Next Door homes for your state. If you find a home you like, you can follow the instructions in the listing to make an offer. If more than one person makes an offer on a listed home, HUD officials will select the winning bidder through a random lottery.

HUD requires that you sign a second mortgage and note for your home's discount. Say your HUD home is listed at $200,000 and you purchase it for 50% of that, $100,000. You'd have to sign a second mortgage for the $100,000 discount, though you won’t have to make any payments on this second mortgage if you fulfill the requirements of the program.

And the main requirement? HUD requires that all homes it sells through this program be owner-occupied for at least 3 years. You will make no payments or pay any interest on this second mortgage, known as a "silent second mortgage," if you live in the home as your principal residence for at least 3 years.

Rocket Mortgage is not affiliated with or sponsored by the Good Neighbor Next Door program.

Good Neighbor Next Door program requirements

To participate in this program as a teacher, you must meet certain requirements.

• You must be a full-time teacher in a state-accredited public or private school serving children from prekindergarten through 12^th grade.
• You must work full-time at a school that serves students from the area in which the home you are buying is located.
• You must commit to living in your new home for at least 3 years.
• You must live in the home you are buying as your principal residence for these 3 years.

3. Homes for Heroes

Teachers, both current and former, are one of the groups served by the Homes for Heroes program, a program that helps these professionals pay for the closing costs and other fees associated with buying a home and taking out a mortgage.

Homes for Heroes says that teachers can save an average of $3,000 on these costs when participating in the program.

This program is open to former or retired kindergarten through 12^th-grade teachers, post-secondary teachers and professors. Homes for Heroes is also available to firefighters, law enforcement officers, members and veterans of the U.S. Military, and health care professionals.

To participate in the program, you must work with one of Homes for Heroes’ real estate or mortgage specialists. If you do, you'll receive a check after closing for 0.7% of the home's purchase price. You can also save an average of $500 on lender fees at closing by working with one of the program's mortgage specialists.

Rocket Mortgage is not affiliated with or sponsored by Homes for Heroes.

4. Your teachers union

Are you a member of a teachers union? If so, you might be able to participate in home-buying assistance program offered through it.

Teachers unions are designed to protect the financial interests of teachers. That might include providing programs that make it easier for teachers to make the move to owning a home.

AFT

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a large teachers union, offers two mortgage options to its members.

Under the Union Plus Mortgage Program, teachers can receive a gift of $500 when purchasing a home or $300 when refinancing with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Union members might also participate in Wells Fargo's Dream. Plan. Home program that provides a credit of up to $5,000 that union members can use to help pay for their mortgage's closing costs.

With the Amalgamated Bank Mortgage Program, union members can receive $700 in discounts on their loan's origination fees when taking out a mortgage through Amalgamated Bank.

NEA

Members of the National Education Association can participate in the First National Bank of Omaha Home Mortgage Program. Under this program, mortgage borrowers don't have to pay loan application fees, loan processing fees or a loan origination fee. The bank says that this is equal to an estimated savings of $1,280.

United Federation of Teachers

Presidential Bank Mortgage offers Educators First mortgage loans to members of the United Federation of Teachers. If you are a member and apply for a mortgage with this bank, you won't pay any application, processing, underwriting, lock-in, commitment or broker fees.

5. Educator Mortgage Program

Supreme Mortgage offers the Educator Mortgage Program, a way for employees of private and public schools, including those working in higher education, to save money on closing costs and real estate agent fees.

Supreme Mortgage offers these professionals up to $800 in discounts on mortgage closing costs and a credit of up to $800 to help cover real estate agent fees. Supreme also says that it gives priority to its Educator Mortgage Program, closing these loans quickly.

The program is open to retired educators, too. You will need a credit score of at least 620 to qualify, and the program requires a down payment of at least 3.5% of your home's purchase price.

6. Teacher credit unions

If you’re an educator, you might consider joining a credit union that serves teachers. These credit unions operate much like banks, but they’re member-owned and operate as nonprofit agencies. These credit unions might offer lower mortgage interest rates, down payment assistance programs or credits that you can use to help cover your mortgage's closing costs.

Two examples of credit unions dedicated to teachers include:

• Teachers Federal Credit Union. Though this union is based in Hauppauge, New York, it’s open to anyone in the United States, including those who are not teachers. The credit union offers fixed-rate and adjustable-rate mortgages, low-closing-cost mortgages, jumbo loans, VA home loans, Home Ready mortgages, and other products.
• Educators Credit Union. Based in Racine, Wisconsin, Educators Credit Union is open to people – not just educators – who live in the credit union's 15-county service area in Wisconsin and Illinois. The credit union offers fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages with down payments as low as 3% of your home's purchase price and flat closing costs of $1,600.

7. First-time home buyer assistance programs

If you’re a first-time home buyer, you might qualify for financial assistance from your state or municipal government. You might also qualify for assistance from national or local non-profit agencies.

These programs might offer grants to help you cover your down payment or closing costs. Others might offer low-interest-rate loans that will leave you with a lower monthly mortgage payment.

Search the area in which you are buying to see if your local or state governments or non-profits offer these programs. And remember, you might qualify as a first-time homebuyer even if you’ve already owned a home. Many programs consider you a first-time buyer if you haven’t owned a home in the last three years.

Mortgage options for teachers

While there aren’t many mortgages designed specifically for teachers, there are three government-insured home loans that can help educators who are struggling to save money for a down payment. FHA, VA and USDA loans all require low or no down payments for qualifying borrowers.

Rocket Mortgage® offers FHA and VA loans but does not offer USDA-insured mortgages.

FHA loans

An FHA loan, insured by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Federal Housing Administration, requires a down payment of just 3.5% of your home’s purchase price if your FICO® Score is at least 580. If your score is 500 to 579, you can qualify for an FHA loan that requires a down payment of at least 10% of your home’s purchase price. You can’t qualify for an FHA loan if your FICO® Score is lower than 580.

VA loans

Insured by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA loans require no down payment, a benefit to educators who haven’t built large financial nest eggs. To qualify for a VA loan, though, you must be an active-duty or veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces or the unmarried widow of a veteran.

USDA loans

Insured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA loans also require no down payment. But you must purchase a home in an area that the department considers rural.

Conventional loans

Teachers can also turn to conventional mortgages, ones not insured by a government agency, if they are looking for a home loan that doesn’t require a higher down payment. Many lenders offer conventional mortgages that require down payments as low as 3% of a home’s purchase price. Again, this can help educators who haven’t saved as much money for a down payment.

Are you eligible for home buying programs for teachers?

To qualify for many home buying assistance programs designed for educators, you’ll need to be a teacher working with students at the prekindergarten through 12^th-grade level. However, this isn’t always a specific requirement.

Many programs provide financial assistance to anyone who works in a public or private school, whether they are teachers, bus drivers, custodians, nurses or administrators. Others help teachers who also work in colleges or other post-secondary institutions or former teachers who have left the field.

You might need a minimum FICO® credit score to qualify for some programs or agree to live in your new home for a minimum number of years. The key when searching for an assistance program is to do your research. There is help. You just need to make sure you can qualify for it.

The bottom line: Teachers have options for help buying a home

Ready to make the move to homeownership? Home buying assistance programs can help, whether you need money to cover closing costs, are searching for a mortgage with a lower interest rate or are pursuing a grant that you can use to pay for part or all your down payment.

If you’re a teacher, you’ll have access to several of these programs, including the Teacher Next Door program that could provide you with a home buying grant that you won’t have to pay back, and the Good Neighbor Next Door program, which lets you buy HUD homes at big discounts.

If you’re looking to reduce your costs, it helps, too, to educate yourself on the mortgage-lending and home buying process. You can start by reading the many educational resources offered by Rocket Mortgage. And once you’re ready to apply, you can start the mortgage process by filling out Rocket Mortgage’s online application.