“Some of these areas are smack in the middle of a freeway, shopping, businesses and schools,” says Charles Vamadeva, a senior loan executive in Riverside County, California, with American Financial Network. “It’s not rural by any sense of the imagination.”

REUTERS-

By Michelle Conlin and Janet Roberts

Dotted with swimming pools and golf courses, the thriving seaside enclave of Ewa Beach perches just down the coast from bustling Honolulu, Hawaii. The island-style homes fronting palm-fringed streets offer views of two mountain ranges and proximity to some of the best big-wave surfing in the world.

This resort community, where houses sell from around $200,000 to more than $1 million, enjoys another perk: easy access to no-money-down home mortgages, guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The guarantees are provided to qualified homebuyers courtesy of the farm agency’s rural housing program, created in 1949 to help lower-income Americans in rural areas who lacked access to “safe and sanitary dwellings” and couldn’t get credit any other way.

[REUTERS]

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