Lenox to offer home buyer assistance program

LENOX – Buying a first home may become much easier for some in town.

The Affordable Housing Board and Trust has approved plans to develop a mortgage grant program that works with local banks to make buying a home more affordable for those with low to moderate incomes.

“I am very excited to begin a program that will truly put people in affordable housing,” said Affordable Housing Trust Member Jo Anne Huntley Magee.

The program will combine the state’s MassHousing RightRate Mortgage with No MI loan with additional funding from the trust to cover up to 10 percent of a home purchase for those who qualify.

The board will offer five of the grants in the first round of funding this year as a “pilot program.”

Each applicant, once approved by a participating bank, receives five percent of the cost of the home up to the maximum that each mortgagee can receive of $10,000 from the trust, and the next five percent of the purchase price would come through the bank from state funds.

This first round of funding would cost the trust at most $50,000.

The loans are then run through the banks as part of the first-time homebuyer program and the mortgagee takes out the loan for the rest of the purchase price at four percent interest with no private mortgage insurance, to make the homes as affordable as possible.

The town will be working with banks that take part in the MassHousing package, and last year, that program was offered by both Lee and Hoosic Banks locally. Banks had until March 1 to apply for the program this year and banks that are awarded funding will be informed on March 13.

At that time, interested purchasers could then begin to contact banks to apply.

The board also discussed how much housing would be available in the town that would be affordable for couples making less than $52,000 a year.

“There are a good number of homes right now that we could help people obtain,” said Jackie McNinch, Affordable Housing Board member.

Mrs. McNinch calculated that, in Lenox, the maximum housing price applicants could purchase would be $245,500 and after the grants, the homeowner would pay less than $1,500 a month.

According to Realtor.com, there are 31 homes currently listed in Lenox under that maximum price. Many of these homes are located in Morgan Manor and at Rolling Hills.

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on March 7, 2013. Filed under Community News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry