Today’s Orem Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates as of 9/15/2026
Mortgage rates as of 9/15/2026
Most of the people we finance in Orem are buying their first house, often on one income or one-and-a-half, with more people in the household than the loan officer expects. The question here is rarely jumbo pricing or investor cash flow; it is how to assemble a down payment and closing costs without draining every account the family has.
The good news is real and most Orem buyers have never heard it: Utah County holds the most generous Utah Housing income and purchase-price limits of any county in the state. If you were turned down for assistance by someone quoting Salt Lake County numbers, you were quoted the wrong numbers. The less good news: three Utah Housing programs still advertised across the internet are suspended, and the newest state program rules out most Orem houses.
Utah Housing sets its FirstHome income and price limits county by county, and the tiers are not intuitive. People assume the biggest, most expensive county gets the most help; it is the opposite.
| County | Income cap, 1-2 person household | Income cap, 3+ person household | Max purchase price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Utah County (Orem), Juab | $143,000 | $166,800 | $769,100 |
| Davis, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, Weber | $141,400 | $164,600 | $778,500 |
| Salt Lake | $126,100 | $145,000 | $666,600 |
| Tooele | $121,300 | $139,400 | $666,600 |
| Washington | $118,000 | $135,700 | $635,300 |
| Box Elder, Cache and eight rural counties | $118,000 | $135,700 | $566,300 |
Utah Housing Corporation FirstHome limits as currently published. UHC revises these without notice. We confirm the figure in force the day your file is submitted.
Side by side: an Orem household of three or more can earn $166,800 and stay inside the cap where the same household in Salt Lake City is cut off at $145,000. On price, Orem runs to $769,100 against Salt Lake City’s $666,600 n/a $102,500 more house, same state program.
The three-or-more column is the one that matters here. Orem households run larger than the pattern most program design assumes, and many families we pre-approve cross out of the one-to-two tier the moment a second child arrives, moving the ceiling $23,800. We regularly count a household correctly and find a borrower inside a cap they were told they had cleared.
One structural point: the $769,100 price cap sits above Utah County’s FHA loan limit of $601,450, so with an FHA first the FHA limit binds first. Reaching the top of that window takes a conventional first, HFA Advantage. Buyers who need it are usually told, incorrectly, that Utah Housing stops near $600,000.
Each product has its own credit floor, first-time rule and income treatment. Choosing badly costs money or costs the loan.
| Program | Minimum credit score | First-time buyer required? | Income limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| FirstHome | 660 | Yes: exceptions for single parents and veterans | By county: $143,000 / $166,800 in Utah County |
| FHA/VA | 620 | No | $165,200 statewide |
| Freddie Mac HFA Advantage | 680, or 700 on a two-to-four unit | No | $165,200 statewide |
Program parameters as currently published by Utah Housing Corporation. All three are primary-residence financing only.
660 minimum score, first-time buyers, and the county limits above are its limits, which is why Utah County borrowers do well here. First-time means no ownership interest in a primary residence in the prior three years, so a house you owned four years ago does not disqualify you. Two exceptions matter enormously in Orem: single parents and veterans are carved out of that requirement. A divorced parent who owned with a former spouse eighteen months ago is often still eligible, as is a veteran who already used VA entitlement, and both get told no by people who have not read the exception.
620 minimum, no first-time requirement, $165,200 statewide cap. Two groups use it: borrowers in the low-to-mid 600s who cannot reach FirstHome’s 660, and repeat buyers who owned in Orem, sold and are buying again. Because the cap is statewide, it is more room than FirstHome’s $143,000 for a small household and slightly less for a large one.
680 minimum, 700 on two-to-four units, $165,200 cap. For a borrower who clears 680 this is often the cheapest of the three: it carries reduced mortgage insurance at the same loan-to-value, and that coverage cancels at the usual equity threshold rather than riding the loan for life the way FHA’s does.
It also permits total loan-to-value up to 105% with the Utah Housing second layered on. That is the mechanism letting assistance cover more than the down payment: a first at 97% of value plus a second reaching 105% combined means the extra eight points go to closing costs and prepaid escrows. That is how a family with no savings reaches a closing table, and the trade-off is honest, since you start with negative equity. One caveat: Utah Housing’s own material has been inconsistent about whether HFA Advantage carries assistance, so we confirm it on every file. Our Utah Housing programs page tracks what is current.
Utah Housing assistance is a thirty-year fixed second mortgage. It is not a grant and it is not forgiven; anyone calling it free money is careless or selling something. The arithmetic below uses a $450,000 purchase with an FHA first mortgage, an illustration, not a claim about Orem prices.
Lends up to 6% of the first mortgage, capped at $27,500, at your first-mortgage rate plus one percent with a hard 8% ceiling, amortizing over thirty years.
On $450,000, FHA’s 3.5% minimum down is $15,750, leaving a base first mortgage of $434,250. Six percent of that is $26,055, under the cap. It covers the entire down payment and leaves roughly $10,300 for closing costs and prepaid escrows, for a family whose obstacle is cash rather than income, the whole problem solved at once.
The cost is a payment. Assume a 6.5% first mortgage; the second prices at 7.5%, and $26,055 over thirty years runs about $182 a month that enters your debt-to-income ratio on day one. On a single-income file that can decide approved or declined. Note where the cap bites: above a first mortgage of roughly $458,000 the $27,500 ceiling governs instead of the 6%.
Lends up to 3.5% of the first mortgage, same $27,500 cap, at 3.5% deferred simple interest with no monthly payment. Principal and interest come due at sale, refinance or maturity.
On the same purchase, 3.5% of the $434,250 first mortgage is $15,199 n/a slightly less than the $15,750 down payment, because 3.5% of the loan is not 3.5% of the price. You are about $551 short before a dollar of closing costs: easily bridged, but better planned for than discovered at closing. Interest accrues roughly $532 a year, so selling at year seven means owing about $18,900 and at year ten about $20,500. Nothing hits your ratio, which is why this option qualifies borrowers the traditional one cannot.
| On a $450,000 purchase, FHA first | Traditional (amortizing) | Deferred |
|---|---|---|
| Assistance amount | $26,055 (6% of first mortgage) | $15,199 (3.5% of first mortgage) |
| Rate | First mortgage rate + 1%, 8% ceiling | 3.5% deferred simple interest |
| Monthly payment | ≈$182 | $0 |
| Counts against debt-to-income? | Yes | No |
| Covers the down payment? | Yes, plus ≈$10,300 of costs | Falls ≈$551 short |
| Approximate balance owed at year seven | ≈$23,900, after paying in ≈$15,300 | ≈$18,900, after paying in $0 |
Illustration only, assuming a 6.5% first mortgage rate. Actual rates, program parameters and eligibility are determined at application. Amortization figures rounded.
The trade-off is plain: the deferred option costs nothing monthly, which is often the only reason a family can buy, but it is less money, it grows quietly, and it lands as a lump sum at exactly the moment you are trying to move. Our rule of thumb: if your debt-to-income has room, take the traditional structure. It covers closing costs and amortizes down the whole time you own the house. If your ratio is tight, or one income supports a large household, the deferred structure is what makes the file work. What we will not do is let you choose it because someone called it free. Run the numbers on our affordability calculator, then call 801-576-9336.
We keep having the same conversation: a buyer calls planning on HomeAgain, NoMI or Score, and has to be told the program is not currently available. Utah Housing lists HomeAgain, NoMI and Score as suspended. Not harder to get, not waitlisted, suspended, on Utah Housing’s own materials. The three active programs are FirstHome, the FHA/VA product and Freddie Mac HFA Advantage. That is the whole menu.
A great many Utah mortgage websites, some belonging to well-known lenders, still describe all six as available. Program pages get written once and nobody goes back, but the effect is the same: you build a plan around NoMI and the problem surfaces after you are under contract.
Two consequences in Orem. The NoMI route to avoiding mortgage insurance is closed, so the answers now are HFA Advantage with its reduced coverage or a conventional loan with enough down payment to skip it. And HomeAgain was the usual route for a repeat buyer needing assistance; with it suspended, that borrower goes to the FHA/VA product or HFA Advantage. If anyone quoted you one of the three, call and let us re-verify: 801-576-9336.
Separate from Utah Housing, the State of Utah runs a First-Time Homebuyer Assistance Program offering up to $20,000 for down payment, closing costs, or a permanent rate buydown. That third use being underappreciated, since a permanent buydown lowers the payment for the life of the loan.
Two restrictions define who it fits. It is new construction only, not a renovated resale, not a two-year-old house. That alone removes most of what an Orem buyer looks at, because Orem is substantially built out and most transactions here are resales. Buyers who can use it are looking toward the Vineyard and Lindon borders, the Geneva Road corridor, or newer attached housing. The second restriction is harder: a $450,000 purchase price cap, applied to new construction, which is not the cheap end of the market.
Repayment favors the borrower: at sale or refinance you repay the lesser of the assistance received or 50% of the home’s equity. Strong appreciation means repaying the full $20,000 and keeping the rest of the gain; little appreciation means repaying half of whatever equity exists, possibly well under $20,000. That caps your downside in a flat market in a way an ordinary second mortgage does not.
So a new townhome at $429,000 near the Vineyard line is worth a hard look and stacks with a Utah Housing first mortgage. A 1970s split-level on Sharon Park at $520,000, what many Orem buyers are actually shopping, is out.
In Orem, family help is not the exception, and the question we field constantly is whether a gift disqualifies you from assistance. It does not: a Utah Housing first mortgage, a Utah Housing second and documented gift funds are a normal, fundable stack. What matters is paperwork. Underwriting is confirming the money is a gift and not an undisclosed loan, a debt payment nobody counted in your ratios.
A signed gift letter naming the donor, the relationship, the exact amount and the property, stating explicitly that no repayment is expected. A text saying “we will help with the down payment” is not a gift letter. We provide the form.
Evidence the donor had the funds, typically a statement from the donor’s account. This is the requirement that surprises families most. It is not optional, and it is a common holdup on the way to clear-to-close.
A clean transfer trail. Best case is a wire or check from the donor’s account directly to escrow, with the donor’s statement showing the withdrawal and escrow showing receipt. Next best is a deposit traceable to that withdrawal, dollar for dollar, same date. Worst case, and it happens weekly, is cash handed over or three transfers from two accounts. Tell us before the money moves, never let a donor split it into small deposits, and note that acceptable donors are limited: a gift from a friend, an employer or an interested party is treated very differently.
Utah Housing is not the only route to a small down payment. Two conventional program families do the work, and both allow 3% down, less than FHA’s 3.5%. HomeOne is a 3%-down first-time buyer program with no income limits at all. If your household earns above the Utah Housing caps, over $166,800 for a large Orem family. You are outside assistance territory and HomeOne is often the answer, with no county tier to fall on the wrong side of. See our HomeOne page.
Home Possible and HomeReady are the income-limited 3%-down programs, and in exchange for the limit they deliver reduced mortgage insurance plus pricing adjustments in the borrower’s favor. For a moderate-income Orem household they frequently beat both FHA and standard conventional on monthly cost, and they are flexible about non-occupant co-borrowers. See our Home Possible page.
Here is the part almost nobody explains. Utah County’s FHA limit for a one-unit property is $601,450 against a conforming limit of $832,750: a gap of over $230,000, and the largest practical constraint on FHA in this market.
| Financing route in Orem | Maximum one-unit loan, 2026 | Minimum down payment |
|---|---|---|
| FHA, Utah County | $601,450 | 3.5% |
| Conventional conforming | $832,750 | 3% on qualifying first-time programs |
| Utah Housing purchase price cap | Price up to $769,100 | Assistance can cover it |
2026 conforming limit per FHFA; 2026 FHA forward limits per HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-23, effective for case numbers assigned on or after January 1, 2026.
So the received wisdom, FHA is the program for buyers with less money down, is only half right in Orem. FHA requires a larger minimum down payment than a 3% conventional program, tops out lower, and its mortgage insurance runs for the life of the loan under 10% down, where conventional coverage cancels at the standard equity threshold. FHA is genuinely better when your score is below the conventional sweet spot or your file has recent derogatory history it can absorb, see our FHA loan page. On zero down, Orem is not USDA-eligible, so the routes are a VA loan or a Utah Housing second covering the whole down payment: see our 100% financing and no-down-payment pages.
Two numbers get called “income” during an application. They are calculated differently and used for opposite purposes, and confusing them is the most common source of wrong answers here.
Utah Housing’s income limit is a ceiling: under it you are eligible, over it you are not. It is set by county and steps up with household size: $143,000 for one or two people in Utah County, $166,800 for three or more. It is an eligibility test only; it does not affect your rate or how much house you can buy. And it is a step, not a ramp. A household of three gets the same $166,800 as a household of seven, worth knowing in Orem where a family of five or six is unremarkable.
Debt-to-income is a ratio, and it does not care how many people live in your house. It compares qualifying monthly income against monthly obligations, including the new mortgage payment, taxes, insurance, HOA dues, mortgage insurance and any second mortgage payment. Underwriting adds no allowance for children and no food budget.
This is where the confusion does damage. A family of six hears their income cap is higher and concludes the lender is accounting for family size. It is not. The cap says you are allowed into the program; debt-to-income decides how much you can borrow. A single-income household of six and a dual-income household of two with identical income and debts are approved for identical amounts.
The implication for a single-income Orem family is uncomfortable: your qualifying number will usually exceed your comfortable number, and underwriting will approve a payment your grocery bill says you should not take. Two things help a tight file. The deferred assistance structure removes that $182-a-month second from the ratio entirely. And retiring a car loan before application, retiring it, not paying it down, removes the whole payment; a $450 car payment eliminated buys more qualifying power than $450 of extra income, because income is discounted by the ratio and debt is not.
These are not credit problems, but process mistakes that kill loans for buyers who were fully qualified when they started.
The instinct is tidy: consolidate the savings account, the credit union account and what the grandparents sent so the lender sees it all in one place. The effect is the opposite, because every transfer creates a deposit that must be sourced, and sourcing means statements for the originating account too. Instead: leave the money where it is. Two months of clean statements on four accounts underwrites more easily than one account of recent transfers.
You are buying a house, so you are buying a washer and a couch, and the store offers twelve months no interest. This is the most reliably damaging thing a first-time buyer can do between approval and closing. The new payment enters a ratio calculated with no room for it, and the inquiry plus a new account can move your score, your rate, or your eligibility, and lenders re-pull credit before closing to catch exactly this. Instead: open nothing, co-sign nothing, and close nothing either, since closing an old card shortens average account age.
Cash that cannot be traced to a documented source generally cannot be used, however legitimate it is. Side-job cash, money from selling a truck to a neighbor, cash your parents handed you: once deposited it is unsourced, excluded from available funds, and whole files stall over a single $3,000 line on a statement. Instead: stop depositing cash the moment you decide to buy, and sell things for a check with a bill of sale.
Employment is verified at application and re-verified within days of closing, so a change between those points, even a promotion, forces re-underwriting. If it changes the structure of your income, salary to commission or W-2 to 1099, it is worse, because those income types need a two-year history to be usable. A borrower who moves into a commissioned role two weeks before closing can go from fully qualified to no usable income at all, at higher pay. Instead: tell us before you accept; often the answer is to close first and start the following week.
First-time buyers shop with a payment number that came from a rate times a loan amount. The real payment is that plus three or four others, though in Utah the tax piece works in your favor. Utah exempts 45% of a primary residence’s fair market value, so you are assessed on 55%, covering the dwelling plus up to one acre. Utah County’s 2025 average total rate was 0.9621%, below Salt Lake County’s 1.0504% and Davis County’s 1.0108%.
| Component, $450,000 Orem purchase with FHA financing | Approximate monthly |
|---|---|
| Property tax: $247,500 taxable at 0.9621% | ≈$198 |
| FHA annual mortgage insurance on a $434,250 base loan | ≈$199 |
| Utah Housing traditional second, $26,055 at 7.5% | ≈$182 |
| Homeowners insurance | Varies by carrier and structure |
| HOA dues, if the property has them | Varies |
Illustration using the 2025 Utah County average total rate, the 45% residential exemption, and FHA annual mortgage insurance of 0.55% on a 30-year loan with minimum down payment. Tax areas within Utah County vary and a specific address can differ from the county average. Principal and interest excluded.
That is roughly $579 a month before a dollar of principal and interest, and it is why a pre-approval built on a generic calculator and one built on your actual address can differ by tens of thousands of dollars of purchase power. And note that Utah charges no real estate transfer tax, only a flat recording fee, held at $40 in Utah County under H.B. 38 in 2026 while most counties moved to $45.
We close in three weeks or less on a clean file, and a first-time buyer file is usually clean: no rental schedules, no partnership returns, no departing residence. What extends an Orem closing is almost never complexity; it is documents arriving late. Utah Housing programs also generally require a homebuyer education course, best completed early: it is a simple requirement that has delayed real closings.
Have these ready before you shop: two months of complete bank statements for every account you will use, all pages including blank ones; thirty days of pay stubs; two years of W-2s, plus two years of full returns if you have self-employment or commission income; photo identification; the donor letter and account statement if you are using a gift; and the complete divorce decree if that applies.
Axent Funding has brokered Utah mortgages since 2002. We are a broker, not a bank, so we shop your file across multiple wholesale lenders instead of fitting you to one institution’s product sheet, and on a first-time buyer file with assistance layered on, the spread between best and worst execution is wide. Our fees run about 25% below many competitors and we charge no processing or junk fees, which for a buyer whose obstacle is cash at closing is a few thousand dollars that stays in the account. Call 801-576-9336 or apply online and we will tell you which programs you qualify for: including, when it is the honest answer, that waiting three months to raise a score gets you a better loan.
We finance throughout Orem and northern Utah County: Sunset Heights, Cascade, Northridge, Sharon Park, Hillcrest, Windsor, Cherry Hill, the Geneva Road corridor, the State Street corridor, the UVU area, and the neighborhoods running out to the Vineyard, Lindon and Provo borders.
The loan questions shift across the city. The east-side neighborhoods below the mountain, Cascade, Northridge, Sunset Heights, bring older housing stock, meaning appraisal condition items and the occasional unpermitted basement finish. Sharon Park, Hillcrest, Windsor and Cherry Hill are the heart of the first-time buyer market, where most of the assistance described here gets used. The Geneva Road corridor and the Vineyard border carry the newest construction, where the state’s $20,000 program applies. Near UVU, expect attached product and HOA dues in the payment.
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No. Utah Housing currently lists HomeAgain, NoMI and Score as suspended, though many Utah mortgage websites still advertise all three. The programs actually available are FirstHome, the FHA/VA product and Freddie Mac HFA Advantage. If a lender quoted you one of the suspended three, that information is out of date.
Utah County has the most generous Utah Housing limits in the state: the FirstHome income cap is $143,000 for a one-or-two-person household and $166,800 for three or more, against a maximum purchase price of $769,100. Salt Lake County stops at $126,100 and $145,000 with a $666,600 price cap. The FHA/VA and HFA Advantage products use a flat statewide $165,200 cap instead.
It depends on the structure. The traditional option lends up to 6% of the first mortgage, capped at $27,500, at your first-mortgage rate plus one percent with an 8% ceiling, amortizing with a payment that counts in debt-to-income: on a $450,000 FHA purchase, about $26,055, roughly $182 a month, covering the down payment plus about $10,300 of closing costs. The deferred option lends up to 3.5%, same cap, at 3.5% deferred simple interest with no monthly payment, due at sale or refinance: about $15,199, accruing about $532 a year.
Only on new construction, and only up to a $450,000 purchase price, which together rule out most resale purchases in Orem. Where it fits, the $20,000 can go toward down payment, closing costs or a permanent rate buydown, and repayment at sale or refinance is the lesser of the assistance or 50% of your home equity.
Not necessarily. FirstHome requires first-time status, no ownership interest in a primary residence in the prior three years, but carves out exceptions for single parents and veterans. The Utah Housing FHA/VA product and Freddie Mac HFA Advantage are both open to repeat buyers under a $165,200 statewide income cap. HomeAgain, the traditional repeat-buyer route, is suspended.
Yes, and gift funds layer with Utah Housing assistance. Underwriting requires a signed gift letter naming the donor, the relationship, the amount and the property and stating no repayment is expected; evidence the donor had the funds; and a clean transfer trail, ideally a wire straight to escrow. Avoid cash and split deposits, and tell us before the money moves.
Conventional reaches further than most Orem buyers expect. Utah County’s FHA limit is $601,450 against a conforming limit of $832,750, and conventional first-time programs allow 3% down versus FHA’s 3.5%. HomeOne offers 3% down with no income limits; Home Possible and HomeReady offer 3% down with income limits and reduced mortgage insurance, which also cancels at the standard equity threshold where FHA’s runs for the life of the loan under 10% down. FHA is still better when your credit makes conventional expensive, but here it is a choice, not a default.
Four things break otherwise-qualified files. Do not move money between your own accounts, because every transfer creates a deposit that has to be sourced. Do not open credit or finance furniture, because the new payment enters your ratio and lenders re-pull credit before closing. Do not deposit cash, because untraceable deposits are excluded from available funds. And do not change jobs, especially into commissioned or self-employed income, which needs a two-year history to be usable.
At Axent Funding we take pride in our great customer service. Our staff is here for you, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a question, a problem, or a suggestion.
We are a Utah mortgage broker offering conventional, FHA, Utah Housing / no down payment, VA, jumbo and home equity lines, plus niche products for condotel, one-time close construction, home remodel, reverse mortgage and debt consolidation. See Loan Types for the full list.
We walk you through the whole mortgage process and make sure your transaction closes smoothly. We can close a loan in 3 weeks or less.
Every loan program we offer, described side by side, so you can see which one fits.
Payment, affordability, amortization, refinance break-even and bi-weekly payoff.
Loan limits, Utah Housing caps, property tax and USDA coverage, county by county.
Axent Funding is licensed statewide and closes loans in every Utah county. We publish in-depth local guides for the markets we work in most: loan limits, Utah Housing eligibility, property tax and USDA coverage all change at the county line.