Cheers Greet Low-Cost Mortgage Program

More than 1,000 people jammed the pews, aisles and halls of a Washington, D.C., church Monday to pay tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., sing hymns and applaud a new mortgage program.

Applauding a mortgage?

NationsBank and a Boston-based fair housing group, Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, held the event to officially kick off a program to lend $500 million in unusually flexible home loans.

“We’re not asking for anyone to give us preferential treatment. We’re asking for them to do the right thing,” Rev. Graylan Ellis-Hagler told a standing room only crowd at the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ. Some in the crowd answered back: “Amen.”

Young families, retirees and secretaries turned out to hear first hand about a mortgage program that features no downpayment, no closing costs, and no application fee.

The loans are targeted for low- and middle-income communities to increase home ownership and economic stability in the neighborhood.

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BOND MARKETS CLOSED Bond markets were closed Monday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. As a result, some mutual funds did not report prices, and the mutual fund listings on page A7 are incomplete.