If you can’t afford a home, then you’ll never qualify for a mortgage. It’s based on your credit rating, credit history, and steady income, not with some gift from a total stranger. That’s not seen as sufficient for getting a mortgage. The housing market also just crashed in the U.S. and lenders will be weary about unstable clients.
Plus you’d need to make the monthly payments, the utility payments, upgrades, repairs, seasonal maintenance, property tax, real estate lawyer fees, land transfer tax, title insurance, (presumably you would be a high-ratio investor) so you would need lender’s insurance as well, and water bill, hot water tank monthly rental (you can’t really buy them), condo fees if you live in a condo project….
and it’s very hard to qualify on your own. You either need a co-applicant with a good credit history and probably a guarantor as well, like a parent or relative etc.
It’s a huge responsibility and not something that can be “given” like a toaster. Unless someone buys it for you entirely and it’s in THEIR name, but then they could kick you out whenever they wanted, especially if you couldn’t pay monthly payments to them if you were planning on buying them out of the mortgage so that you could eventually assume the mortgage or own the house.
With a high-ratio investment in a home (i.e. you put no money down for a down payment or you put 5 to 25% down, instead of putting 25% or more) you would probably also have a very long amortization period, like 30 years or something, which would mean on a $130,000 home with a $600 monthly payment, you could end up paying $145,000 in interest alone (without any fees or upkeep costs factored in yet)… which would already be a total expenditure of $275,000!
Yeah… I would recommend renting a home until you have very good credit and making smaller investments (in mutual funds, bonds, stocks, securities, dividend funds, etc.) with low risk or guaranteed interest so that you can build up the capital for a healthy down payment and have time to arrange financing for monthly payments etc. Ask your bank for advice on the steps you should take before trying to take on a mortgage (even with some random money-gift)..
Lavo