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| Perfectly matched: Program unites qualified buyers with foreclosed homes |
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“It really is exactly what I wanted,” Lane said.
Lane, 46, is one of four residents so far to buy homes through the Loveland Housing Authority’s new program called Home Match, initiated nearly a year ago.
The Housing Authority purchases and rehabilitates bank-owned and foreclosed homes in Loveland and Larimer County and sells them to homebuyers who qualify for the program.
Prospective homebuyers are required to make 80 percent or less of the area median income, which for one person would be $42,100 and a family of four, $60,150, according to the Housing Authority’s Web site, www.lovelandhsg.org.
The prospective homebuyers have to submit an application and pre-qualify with a lender to demonstrate their readiness to purchase a home, said Amy Irwin, manager of home ownership programs for the Housing Authority. They then fill out a survey identifying where they want to live in Loveland or Larimer County, the size of the house they desire and what amenities they are seeking, she said. They also have to sign a commitment letter, she said.
If prospective homebuyers do not qualify, the Housing Authority has steps and programs in place to help them through the process to prepare them for homeownership, Irwin said.
Lane, who is legally blind and on disability, was renting a home through the Housing Authority when she found out about the Home Match program.
At first, she thought she did not earn enough to own a home, she said. “I’m thrilled because I was clueless, and they walked me through it,” Lane said. “They went in and rehabbed it, and I had so much input into what I wanted.”
Lane, who paid just over $128,000 for her home, helped pick out the carpeting, cabinetry, countertops and other features for the three-bedroom ranch-style home in southwest Loveland, she said. She moved in Jan. 8.
“We saw a need both in the city wanting to clean up foreclosed and bank-owned properties, because they were driving down property values in neighborhoods ... and lenders wouldn’t lend them (homebuyers) money because they were in such bad shape,” Irwin said.
The Housing Authority finds a home at a price less than the homebuyer’s pre-approved loan amount in order to put in the repairs and keep the home at a price the buyer can afford, Irwin said. “We buy them well below market value,” she said. “By the time we put the money into them to bring them up to code, they may be below or at market value.”
By Shelley Widhalm
Loveland Reporter-Herald
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