For Colorado public school employees
You can own a home in the community you serve.
Colorado built a fund for exactly this. It puts a full down payment in your hands now, with no monthly payment and no interest, and you settle up when you sell.
You do not need to be a first-time buyer. You do not need years of savings. If you work full time for a Colorado public school, district, charter school, BOCES, or innovation zone, this was built for you.
And the trade is not buried in fine print. You share part of the home's gain when you sell, and that share goes back into the fund for the next school employee. Everything below explains exactly how.
What Schools To Home actually is
Two loans, closed at the same time, on the same house.
The first is an ordinary 30-year fixed mortgage. Same rate structure, same monthly payment, nothing unusual about it.
The second is your down payment. It is a second mortgage of up to 25 percent of your first loan, and it behaves nothing like a normal loan. No monthly payment. No interest. Ever. It sits quietly behind your first mortgage until the day you sell, refinance, pay off, or move out.
On that day you pay back the amount you borrowed, plus a share of however much the home went up in value. That share is the entire cost of the program.
Where the money actually goes
The assistance is 25 percent of your first mortgage. Put all of it toward your down payment, and the arithmetic comes out somewhere familiar.
Purchase price $500,000First mortgage $400,000Assistance $100,000
Two ways to use it
The assistance can go toward your down payment, your closing costs, or both. That is a real choice, and it changes your monthly payment.
Most people, most of the time
Put it all toward the down payment
You end up at 20 percent down, which means no mortgage insurance and the lowest monthly payment the program can produce. You bring your own cash for closing costs and prepaids.
When cash is the constraint
Use some of it for closing costs
You can bring close to nothing to the closing table. Your down payment is smaller, so mortgage insurance comes back and your payment is higher. For some people that trade is exactly right.
We will run both for you side by side. There is no version of this where you guess.
What you pay back
Your share of the gain is the assistance divided by the purchase price. Take the full 25 percent of the loan and your share is 20 percent of whatever the home gains, paid when you sell, refinance, pay off, or move out. If the home does not gain, you owe no share at all. You will never owe more than you borrowed.
Who this is built for
The eligibility list is short, and shorter than most people expect.
- You work full time for a Colorado public school. District, charter, institute charter, BOCES, or innovation zone, preK through 12. Any role, not only teaching. Only one person on the loan needs to qualify.
- Your qualifying income is at or below $178,920. Statewide. It does not change by county or household size.
- Your credit score is 620 or better, and the home will be the one you live in.
- You put in at least $1,000 of your own, which can be a gift from family.
- You finish two short courses. A homebuyer education class, and CHFA's own course on what you are signing up for. We will point you to both.
When it makes sense, and when it does not
This program rewards staying. The longer you own the home, the more the monthly savings add up against the share you give back at the end.
If you expect to sell in two or three years, say so early. The share on a short, hot run can outweigh what you saved, and we would rather tell you that now than after closing. There is no version of this conversation where we talk you into it.
What this is really about
Colorado did not build this fund to move mortgage volume. It built it because school districts keep losing good people, and because a community works better when the people who run its schools can live in it.
For you it is simpler. When you rent, someone else decides what next year costs. A fixed-rate mortgage ends that. The loan payment is the same in year one and in year twenty, and nobody can raise it or decide you are leaving. Taxes and insurance move a little. The loan does not.
Ending up closer to your school is the bonus, not the point.
The share you pay back at the end is not a fee. It is how the next school employee gets the same footing you did.
This is a conversation, not an application
Booking a consult does not start a loan. It does not pull your credit. It does not put you on a list that calls you for the next two years.
It is a conversation where we run your real numbers both ways, tell you what the appreciation share would likely cost you, and tell you plainly if a different program would serve you better.
If the answer is not yet, that is a fine answer. Plenty of people leave this conversation with a plan for next year instead of a house this year. That is still a good outcome.
So let's look at your numbers together. Three questions below, and they are not qualification questions. There are no wrong answers. They just make the conversation a better use of your time.
Or call us at 303-929-4700.
CHFA Schools To Home℠ is a program of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. Program terms are set by CHFA and are subject to change. Figures on this page reflect the CHFA program matrix effective July 1, 2026 and CHFA income limits effective June 15, 2026. All examples are illustrative. Appreciation is not guaranteed. This is not a commitment to lend.