Bank of America to offer $17,500 in down payment and closing cost grants for homebuyers in Des Moines and West Des Moines

Heidi Parkhurst, president of Bank of America Iowa, has good news to share with prospective homebuyers who may be struggling to raise the down payment needed to buy a home in Des Moines and West Des Moines.

“It’s about access,” Parkhurst said. “We want to give more and more people access to homeownership in a sustainable, responsible way. And so we’re out there in the community looking to assist.”

Along with an existing Closing Cost Grant program, the bank is now offering a Down Payment Grant program in Des Moines and West Des Moines. The programs can be stacked or used separately. When eligible homebuyers combine the programs, they’ll have up to $17,500 in grants to use toward a down payment and closing costs. The money doesn’t need to be repaid. 

“We hear very frequently that the mortgage payment isn’t the problem. It’s saving enough money as you go through life to make the down payments or the closing costs,” Parkhurst said. “So when we identified those as kind of barriers to home ownership, those are the things that we identified where we felt like we could really have impact.”

Bank of America lending specialists will work with borrowers who want more information about the grant programs. Borrowers can call and visit the bank’s local financial centers to see if they qualify or visit the bank online. The bank has many tools to assist borrowers on their path to homeownership, she said. 

According to the bank’s Homebuyer Insights Report, today’s market is challenging for prospective buyers due to high prices and interest rates, lack of cash reserves for down payments and low credit scores. Home prices also rose 4.1% from 2022-2023, according to the bank.

Parkhurst said the program helps borrowers in low-to-moderate-income communities. The average grant has been about $14,000, she said. The program is part of the Bank of America Community Homeownership Commitment, which is designed to help homebuyers build personal and generational wealth through homeownership. The bank rolled out the $15 billion program in 2019, and it has helped about 40,000 borrowers across the country so far, Parkhurst said. 

“I was very excited, super excited to see that both Des Moines and West Des Moines got added to the program,” she said.

According to a study by the Urban Institute, two-thirds of renters said affording the down payment served as a barrier to homeownership.

Black homebuyers face additional burdens. In 1960, there was a 27-point gap between rates of homeownership between Black and white homeowners, 38% and 65% respectively, according to the institute, a nonprofit research organization centered around economic and social policy research. Today, the gap is more than 30 percentage points due to structural racism, among other barriers, the institute found.