First-Time Condo Buyers Get a Boost from the Government
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Here's your Money Briefing. I'm J.R. Whalen at The Wall Street Journal in New York. If you've been priced out of the housing market, your opportunity to buy a condominium may be closer than you think. We'll have details in a moment. First, some money and market news that you should know. A Wall Street Journal report on business leadership looks at the pros and cons of increasing work engagement. Employees who are engaged at work tend to stay longer on the job, and they're more productive and self-motivated, and they're happier coming into the office. And academic research has shown that engaged employees are more likely to see their job as a calling and derive deeper meaning from the day-to-day work.
But there is such a thing as too much work engagement, and new research shows that employees who are too engaged are likely to have difficulties in their personal lives and could take part in actions that negatively affect the company. Plus, the research has proven that such workers can become more difficult to manage over time and produce worse results.
How will new government rules make entry-level condos more affordable for first-time buyers?
At Washington University in St. Louis, zookeepers were studied and how they derived meaning from their work. The researchers learned that many tend to look at their jobs as a calling, but that made them tougher to manage than less engaged employees. They also expected more from those above them.
What down payment and credit-score changes are being proposed for condo loans?
And the zookeepers objected to placing a carousel at the zoo because they saw it as trivializing the zoo's mission that was until it was repositioned to promote conservation. Groups that research work engagement say that one way that companies can find a balance is to skip the emphasis on engaging workers through corporate social responsibility, which often takes place outside of an employee's direct job description. See the full story at WSJ.com and the WSJ app.
The entry-level condominium market is about to get a jumpstart. In Wall Street Journal reporter Laura Casisto is here with some details on how condo purchasers can be eligible for lower down payment loans. So Laura, this expansion of the market by the Trump administration would be for first-time condo buyers.
It's aimed at first-time condo buyers because it would require only a 3.5% down payment and a credit score potentially in the 500s. So that's like a great, very appealing product for people who are buying their first home.
That's a low end on the credit rating scale.
It definitely is. These are somewhat riskier loans that are backed by the government. So, of course, that is the concern here.
Yeah, people you spoke to said this might not be the best time for the government to get involved in these types of loans.
Yeah, I mean, there's obviously an argument on the one side that this is a great time for the government to get involved because we do have first-time buyers who are facing a real challenge finding affordable inventory. And condos in a lot of cities, not so much New York, but in a lot of other cities, are very kind of affordable options for people. But the argument against it is, of course, we're at a time where the housing market is slowing. Prices are falling in some places. And these are riskier loans. Condos are a riskier venture to riskier borrowers.
We're not talking about condos in every U.S. city. We're not talking about necessarily luxury condos in this story.
Yeah, exactly. I think when people, particularly people on the coast, maybe think about condos, you think about ones being bought by Russian billionaires. But these are really more your run-of-the-mill condos. I talked to one guy in Seattle who totally priced out of the housing market in Seattle for a single-family home, but he can afford a $300,000, $400,000 condo in Seattle. That's the kind of market we're talking about.
Why are condos seen as so risky?
So there's this sort of ripple effect where if your neighbor in a condo building goes into foreclosure, they stop painting their balcony, they stop washing their windows, they stop paying their maintenance dues in particular. There's a very kind of quick cascading effect.
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