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The loan rules are designed to stretch and bend traditional underwriting requirements: Down payments on loans up to $333,700 can be almost zero -- a $500 minimum cash contribution may be all that's needed -- and gifts from relatives, friends or organizations to help with closing costs are freely allowed. Credit standards also will be custom-tailored for community professionals.

This means that young teachers, firefighters or newly minted police officers with scant credit histories and minimal financial assets may be eligible to qualify for a mortgage, when they might not under standard home loan rules.


Borrowers will need to document a favorable 12-month rent payment history and have at least two other records of on-time payments of monthly bills, such as cable TV, utilities or telephone.

Income standards will be more generous than under traditional mortgage lending guidelines. The new program recognizes that many community professionals supplement their regular incomes with sideline jobs -- police with extracurricular employment as private security guards, or teachers with tutoring or working during vacation periods, for example. Applicants will merely have to state where and how much sideline income they earn but not document it with tax filings or other evidence.

The program will attempt to remove as many barriers to home buying for the target workers as possible.

"We want to make sure the professionals who make the neighborhood a better place can live there, too," said Kevin Shannon, Bank of America Consumer Real Estate president.

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