Most Americans dont know this $0-down mortgage exists and 97% of the U.S. qualifies

The home affordability crisis rages on.According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, an unprecedented 43.5 million U.S.households were considered “cost-burdened” in 2024, which means they had to dedicate more than 30% of their monthly income to housing costs, an increase of 6.4 million households since 2019.Those costs were driven primarily by higher mortgage interest and insurance rates.

According to the U.S.Census Bureau, the median housing costs for homeowners with a mortgage rose from $1,960  to $2,035 in 2024.

But there is another barrier for people looking to buy a home — the down payment — and in 2026, that barrier is bigger than ever.According to recent data from the National Association of Realtors, the median price for a single-family existing home in the U.S.is now $434,800.

That means half of all existing homes sold in the U.S.in the second quarter of 2026 cost more than $434,900.

In some areas, the median is much higher.The markets with the biggest yearly price gains aren’t in expensive metros like New York City and San Francisco; they’re in places like Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas ( up 11.0%), Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, Mississippi (up by 10.3%) and Syracuse, New York, which is up by 9.6%.Fortunately, there is a solution that many prospective homebuyers either don’t know about or don’t know they qualify for: the USDA zero down payment mortgage.The roots of the USDA loan go back to the Great Depression when Congress under Franklin D.

Roosevelt was fighting the severe economic consequences battering farmers.The federal government realized that without intervention, the nation’s agricultural backbone would collapse, and rural populations would migrate to already overcrowded cities.

The loan program was created to incentivize people to stay in rural areas by providing them with a path to livable housing.In the decades since, the mandate of the USDA has expanded, as has the availability of the USDA guarant...