CHFA Schools to Home for Colorado Charter School Employees

Charter staff keep being told to check with their district. CHFA names charter and institute charter schools directly, and 266 Colorado charters are on the list.

Matt WentzAugust 17, 2026

Colorado charter schools

Matt Wentz, Speak Straight Mortgage
CHFA Participating Lender, licensed statewide in Colorado

We work with agents across the Front Range, so wherever you buy, you get someone local on the house and us on the loan.

Charter staff get the runaround on this one. The program is described district by district, so anybody working at a charter reasonably assumes it is not for them, or that it depends on who authorized their school.

It does not. CHFA names charter schools and institute charter schools directly in its own definition, alongside districts and BOCES. There are 266 public charter schools in Colorado on the state's list, across 30 counties. 54 of them are authorized by the state Charter School Institute and the rest by their local district, and it makes no difference to your eligibility.

One thing to be clear about, because it is the question behind the question: this covers public charter schools. Colorado charters are public schools by law, funded publicly and authorized either by a district or by the state. A private or parochial school is a different thing and its employees are not eligible, no matter how the school is run.

"CHFA Schools To Home is for any individual employed by a preK-12 Colorado public school, school district, charter school, institute charter school, board of cooperative educational services, or innovation zone, provided they are classified as a full-time employee by their employer."

CHFA, Schools To Home program page

Your lender confirms it the same way CHFA tells them to, by checking your employer against the Colorado Department of Education's schools list and making sure the school type reads Public. That check takes about a minute and it happens before anything else.

How the money actually works

The assistance arrives as a second mortgage with no monthly payment. Nothing is due on it while you live in the house. It comes due when you sell, refinance or pay off the first mortgage, or the home stops being your primary residence.

At that point you repay the assistance plus a share of the home's appreciation, which goes back to Colorado's Public School Permanent Fund. Your share of the gain matches the share of the price the fund put in, so if it covered 20% of the purchase you keep 80% of the growth. If the home has not appreciated, the appreciation piece is zero. We put your own numbers on paper before you sign anything, and the statewide guide walks through a full example.

What Colorado charter schools employees need to qualify

• Household income at or below $178,920
• Credit score of 620 or better
• A Fannie Mae conventional 30-year fixed on a home you will live in
• Single-family, PUD, condo or double-wide manufactured
• No first-time-buyer requirement, so a previous owner is fine
• CHFA homebuyer education plus the program's financial-commitment course

What this is worth to charter staff specifically

Charter pay scales tend to sit below district scales at the same years of experience, and charter staff turn over faster, which means fewer people have been in one place long enough to save $90,000. That is exactly the gap the assistance closes, and the shorter your tenure the more it matters.

Two practical notes. Your employer of record is the school or its management organization rather than the district, so bring a recent pay stub and your offer letter, since that is what makes the full-time classification obvious. And if you moved between charters recently, that is fine, the program looks at your current full-time employment rather than your history.

Start with the numbers, not an application

Schools to Home runs through CHFA participating lenders and it starts with a short conversation. We confirm your employer is on the list, run your income against the cap, and show you the assistance and the appreciation share side by side at the price you are actually shopping. Nothing is submitted anywhere until you say so.

See your Colorado charter schools numbers →

Then go to your market

Wherever you land, the numbers change with local prices, so we wrote a page for each district we cover.

• Colorado Springs and El Paso County, nine districts
• Aurora, Aurora Public Schools and Cherry Creek
• Denver, plus Jeffco, Douglas County and the north metro
• The statewide guide lists all of them in one place

What the assistance actually costs you

Schools to Home is not a grant. The state second mortgage is repaid in full when you sell, refinance, pay off the first mortgage, or stop living in the home — and on top of that you repay a fixed share of the appreciation. That share is the original second divided by the original purchase price, and it is locked at closing.

On a $400,000 purchase the first mortgage is $320,000 and the state second is $80,000, so the share is 20%. Sell seven years later at $491,950 and the gain is $91,950 — you repay the $80,000 plus $18,390 of appreciation. Against a conventional 3% down loan, which costs you $12,000 at closing and carries mortgage insurance until year 12, Schools to Home still leaves you roughly $31,652 ahead in that scenario — $12,000 you never put down, $55,014 of lower payments over seven years, less the $35,361 of equity the appreciation share costs you. A home that loses value owes no appreciation share, but the second is still repaid in full.

The balance shifts with how fast the home gains and how long you stay. At 3% a year the assistance stays ahead for the full thirty years; at 6% a year it stops winning between years 10 and 15. Put your own price, rate and timeline in below.

CHFA Schools to Home

What the down payment help really costs you

Colorado pays your down payment and you skip mortgage insurance entirely — in exchange for a fixed slice of every dollar your home gains. Here is the trade, in your numbers.

Your situation

Change anything — everything below updates as you type.

Purchase price

Assistance taken All of it — nothing down Three quarters Half A quarter

Schools to Home rate

3% down rate

3% down PMI / yr

Property tax / yr

Insurance / yr

HOA / mo

Years in the home

Home gains / yr

After giving back the assistance and its share of the gain, Schools to Home still leaves you ahead by

$31,652

Selling in year 7 at 3.0% a year. That counts the $12,000 you keep at closing, $55,014 of lower payments and no mortgage insurance, against $18,390 of appreciation owed on top of the $80,000 you borrowed.

What makes up that number

Cash you keep at closing

+$12,000

Lower payments over 7 years, incl. no PMI

+$55,014

Equity given up at sale

-$35,361

Schools to Home ahead by

+$31,652

Your payment starts about $662 a month lower, and you bring $12,000 less to the closing table. Set against that, you hand back $18,390 of appreciation on top of the $80,000 you borrowed, which is why the equity line runs the other way.

Priced at 6.875% on Schools to Home and 6.625% on the 3% down loan — a CHFA bond-funded first mortgage prices above a market conventional loan, which is the trade you make for the assistance — with PMI at 0.50% a year. These are illustrative, not quotes. Change any of them above and every figure on this page moves with it.

Schools to Home Ahead

80% first mortgage, no mortgage insurance, state second covers the rest.

Cash at closing

$0

Monthly payment

$2,399

Mortgage insurance

none

Your appreciation share

20.0% of the gain

Equity when you sell

$103,629

Conventional 3% down Behind

You fund the down payment and carry PMI until you reach 80%.

Cash at closing

$12,000

Monthly payment

$3,061

PMI, drops off

$162/mo, gone year 12

Your appreciation share

none — you keep it all

Equity when you sell

$138,990

Where it flips

How far ahead Schools to Home leaves you, by how fast the home gains and how long you stay. Green means it wins.

Schools to Home advantage by appreciation rate and years held

Read across a row and the pattern holds: the assistance is worth most when the home gains slowly, and least when it climbs fast. At 3% a year it stays ahead for the whole thirty. At 6% a year it stops winning around year 15, and by year 30 the share has cost more than the help was worth.

Schools to Home ahead 3% down ahead Everything else held at your inputs above.

The 0% and −2% rows match on purpose. A home that has not gained owes no share either way, so below zero the advantage stops moving — the assistance costs you nothing but the repayment.

How the share is figured

CHFA sets your share once, at closing, and it never changes.

1. You buy at $400,000. The first mortgage is 80% of that, $320,000 — the reason there is no mortgage insurance.
2. The state second is $80,000. That is 25.0% of the first mortgage, and 20.0% of the purchase price.
3. Your share is that second divided by the price: 20.0%. It is locked at closing and never moves.
4. Sell in year 7 for $491,950 and the gain is $91,950.
5. You owe the $80,000 back, plus 20.0% of that gain — $18,390. Total $98,390.
6. Nothing is due until you sell, refinance, pay off the first, or stop living there.

What this assumes

• The first mortgage is 80% of the purchase price, which is what keeps mortgage insurance off the loan. The state second covers up to 25% of that first mortgage — 20% of the price. Take less and you bring the difference in cash.
• Your appreciation share is the original second divided by the original purchase price, applied to the gain between your purchase price and your sale price. A home that loses value owes no share, but the second is still repaid in full.
• Both loans are 30-year fixed and amortized properly, so the payoff figures sit slightly below CHFA's own illustration, which uses the opening balance.
• PMI on the 3%-down loan is removed once the balance amortizes down to 80% of the purchase price. That is the automatic rule. If the home climbs quickly you could cancel earlier by paying for an appraisal, which would narrow the gap — so this assumption leans slightly in Schools to Home’s favor.
• Taxes, insurance and HOA are identical in both columns, so they change the payment but never the comparison.
• Rates and mortgage insurance are assumptions, not quotes: 6.875% on the Schools to Home first mortgage, 6.625% on the conventional 3% down loan, and PMI at 0.50% of the loan balance per year. A 97% loan-to-value loan carries pricing adjustments an 80% loan does not, which is why the two rates differ. Your own quote depends on credit score, loan amount, property and the day you lock.
• Cash you keep at closing and each month of payment difference are counted at face value — no investment return, no tax effects.
• Selling costs are left out. They are the same either way.

Estimate only, not a commitment to lend or a quote. Rates, mortgage insurance and program terms change. CHFA sets Schools to Home terms — including income limits, a 620 minimum credit score, full-time employment at an eligible Colorado public school employer, and two required education courses — and verifies eligibility at application. Speak Straight Mortgage · Company NMLS 2426226 · Equal Housing Opportunity.

Prefer it on its own page? Open the Schools to Home estimator.

Keep reading

• Read the statewide guide to CHFA Schools to Home
• Read how it works for D11, Academy 20 and El Paso County school employees
• Read how it works for APS, Cherry Creek and Aurora school employees