Housing and Economic Recovery Act

Down Payment Assistance Officially Dead, For Now 

It’s official. Down payment assistance — DAP or DPA to most industry participants — has gone the way of the Tyranosaurus Rex, independent Wall Street investment banks and the even textbooks that once suggested Pluto as the outermost planet in our solar system. That is to say that DPA is no more, effective today. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act, signed into law this past July by President George W. Bush, included a provision that banned downpayment assistance programs beginning on Oct. 1.