WHEN ANGEL LOPEZ and his wife Martha heard about a program that would help them with the down payment for a home and also provide funds for improving it, they thought it was too good to be true.

But Lopez and his family are now living in a 2,700-square-foot home in Wildomar that has been completely refurbished inside and out. The house has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a three-car garage.

“It is true. It is real and it does work because I’m living it,” said Lopez, a 38-year-old detail manager for Volkswagen who had been looking for a house for more than eight months. “I’m always telling my friends this program works and it is great.”

The Neighborhood Stabilization Homeownership Program (NSHP), run by the Riverside County Economic Development Agency (EDA), helps first-time buyers purchase foreclosed homes in certain areas of the county. The idea is to address the problem of abandoned and foreclosed homes by helping people buy them.

The home Lopez bought had been a foreclosure and vacant for more than two years. The lawn and plants were dead and the kitchen appliances and toilets needed to be replaced.

“It was ugly inside and outside,” Lopez said. “The outside had two colors. They started to paint it and I guess they knew they were going to lose it and they stopped painting the outside.”

The program, launched in March 2009, is available to anyone who has not owned a home in the last three years, has an annual income that is not greater than 120 percent of the area median income and is purchasing a foreclosed home in the targeted areas of the county.

The program will provide downpayment assistance as a silent second loan in the amount of 20 percent of the purchase price of the home. EDA down payment assistance will be secured by a deed of trust recorded in second position. The first loan must be a fully amortized, fixed rate, 30-year mortgage.

Energy-efficient improvements, curb appeal and landscaping are part of the program’s home repair assistance. Home repair items will be identified prior to closing. For Lopez, that was huge.

“When we came to see it, it was very ugly,” Lopez said. “But with the help of the program, it’s a brand new house.” “Every time I come to my house, I can’t believe it,” he said. For more information, please visit www.rchomelink.com