Bad or Poor Credit and want to be a Homeowner?

Be careful if you are offered a deal like this.

A mortgage company called Commonwealth Capital Funding Corporation ("CCFC").advertised a "wonderful" deal from September 1996 to August 1997. During that time they took in over $1.2 million in fees from over 300 customers. Only 17 ended up in a home.

The person behind this scam was sentenced to over two years in jail on Federal mail fraud charges. 

CCFC advertised that they could guarantee home ownership and 100 percent financing to homebuyers with poor or marginal credit.

They charged clients a fee of one month's gross income, paid in advance. They claimed that they would negotiate to buy a home for clients at 94% of the home's fair market value and then resell the home to them for 100% of market value with 100% financing.

CCFC also offered a lease-to-own program in which a non-profit corporation was supposed to purchase the home with a Federal Housing Authority (FHA) loan guarantee, and then lease the property to the client until the client could assume the loan.

They closed down in August 1997 when the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office filed a civil injunction action against it for unfair and deceptive trade practices.

Be VERY careful if you are offered a deal like this. Make sure you speak to people who have been successfully put in a home by the company.

Please let us know if you have been taken in by a scam like this.