By purchasing $125,000 in Vermont Housing Tax Credits last Friday, Union Bank supplied the equity needed to help approximately 125 households buy their first homes in Vermont this coming year. These households will receive up to $5,000 to help cover their down payment and closing costs through a statewide program when they qualify for a Vermont Housing Finance Agency mortgage.
June is a terrific time to reflect on the importance of homeownership in this country, especially in Vermont where residents are more likely than in most states to own their homes. VHFA is working with local lenders across the state to extend the opportunity to own a home to even more Vermonters through low interest loans from a trusted non-profit source.
First-time home buyer Dorothy Pfende told us that what she likes most about the home she recently purchased with a VHFA mortgage is the freedom and feeling of achievement. Moving to the U.S. five years earlier, Dorothy is proud of how quickly she was able to reach her goal of homeownership. "If you aim high, the sky is the limit" she remarked.
Black and Latino mortgage applicants from New England continued to experience much higher denial rates than whites and Asians in 2013 and 2014, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s recent study. The disparity occurred at every income level. Even at the highest income level tracked in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data set used for the study ($150,000+), blacks and Latinos, respectively, were almost 2 times and 1.3 times more likely to be denied a loan relative to whites with equivalent earnings.
After sitting vacant for six years, the Gevries mobile home park in Addison County has started redevelopment. VHFA provided housing tax credits that will cover an estimated 60 percent of the project’s costs and ensure that the new 14-home community will be affordable for low-income renters of all ages. By installing VERMOD high-performance duplex homes, developers Cathedral Square Corporation and Addison County Community Trust anticipate that the neighborhood will achieve net-zero annual energy costs, another critical component of its long-term affordability.
Watch Local22’s story last week about the project.
Five years after opening its doors to homeless veterans, Canal Street Veterans Housing is celebrating its success in moving residents to permanent housing and employment. Eighty-seven percent of all residents moved into permanent housing after leaving Canal Street and all of those who were able to work were employed.
Canal Street is a two-year transitional housing program for formerly homeless veterans. It is the only VA housing provider in Vermont that allows families of veterans to join them in their program. In 2015, the residents of Canal Street's 28 units included 8 children and two spouses.
Vermont's House Committee on Ways and Means learned this morning about opportunities to transform a temporary statewide down payment assistance program enacted last year into a self-funding program that can help first-time home buyers for years to come. VHFA's Executive Director, Sarah Carpenter, met with the committee this morning to explain how a legacy program could be created with the addition of four years of state housing credit funding.
About 4 percent of Vermont's households move out of the state each year, replaced by about the same number of people moving into Vermont, according to a new study of IRS data from the Public Assets Institute. This new data confirms that younger households are the most likely to move, but that those moving out are replaced by about the same number of young households moving into the state.
VHFA intends to consider new projects for the federal 9% Housing Credit and Vermont State Housing Credits at the April 2016 VHFA Board of Commissioners meeting. In order to provide sufficient time to review the proposals from developers, VHFA must receive a complete application by January 29, 2016.
A recent report from Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) concludes that HFA financial profiles demonstrated solid improvement in FY 2014. The report predicts that national wage growth and lower unemployment, which have caused an increase in household formations, will enable HFAs to retain their strong financial positions in the future. Read more.
With 40+ years of experience lending to home buyers and developers of affordable rental housing, VHFA looks forward to 40 more years serving Vermonters through economic up and down swings.
Steve Davis, owner of the Wilder-based VerMod company is becoming recognized not just for his company's high quality modular homes but for the employment opportunities he has created for residents of the Hartford Dismas House. Dismas provides group-setting affordable housing to people recently released from prison. Read more in Sunday's Valley News.