Commissioners Court, 2/24/09, Travis County Housing Finance Corporation  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/common/stylesheets/global_print.css" type="text/css" media="print" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/common/stylesheets/global_screen.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <meta http-equiv="expires" content="-1" /> <meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache" /> <meta http-equiv="robots" content="all" /> <meta http-equiv="manager" content="Information & Telecommunication Systems, Travis County, Texas" /> <meta http-equiv="robots" content="all" /> <meta http-equiv="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" />  <meta http-equiv="author" content="Information & Telecommunication Systems Department, Travis County, Texas" /> <meta http-equiv="Keywords" content="Commissioners court, February 24, 2009, Item Travis County Housing Finance Corporation " />  </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> <div 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future.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> good morning.<br />i'm harvey Davis, manager of the corporation, and I wanted to give you a final review on this grant.<br />it ended on October 31, 2008.<br />the plan was to assist 25 families with a forgivable loan, and the amount of down payment and closing costs assistance we gave to each family was $10,000.<br />the program fully originated and so it was very successful.<br />these are for families that buy a home in Travis County but outside the city of Austin.<br />the grant was for $200,000.<br />that came from Texas department of house than and community affairs.<br />it's part of the home program.<br />and the match portion that the investment of the corporation was $50,000.<br />so -- and the corporation did receive an administrative fee totaling $8,000.<br />the average income of the families that were assisted was 33,847 -- $33,847.<br />the highest family income was $57,751, and the lowest family income was $18,807.<br />so you can see that the families were in the low and moderate income categories.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> that's exactly the ones we were trying to help, right?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> those were the ones we were trying to help.<br />we assisted five families whose income was below 80% of the Austin area median income and 20 whose income was below 60% of the Austin area median family income.<br />i'm association we assisted ten families below 80 and 15 below 60.<br />the original grant was for the -- what I mentioned earlier, and we asked them to make changes to the grant so that we could assist more of the higher income.<br />the average cost of the home was $115,167.<br />the highest cost of a home was $145,000.<br />and the lowest cost was $90,169.<br />and three -- three of the homes that were purchased were under $100,000.<br />the homes -- the location of the homes, seven were in zip code 78724.<br />eleven were in manor, the manor area, not the city of manor necessarily.<br />three were in the del valle area, and three were in the Pflugerville area.<br />one was in -- in the buddha area, but in Travis County.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> remind me of where 78724 is.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> it's the eastern part of the county -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> lbj high school and all -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> yeah.<br />yeah.<br />i think beyond -- north -- kind of northeast.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> do we know why the number of hispanics was unexpectedly low?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> I think that in the other category, that a lot of those home buyers were hispanic origin but for some reason were classified as others.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> hmmm.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> I noticed that too.<br />but -- because I looked to some of the name -- the last names of the people that were classified as other, and they look like hispanic -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> you might ask them why other.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> yeah, so -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> is this a program that's totally administered in-house?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> no, we had a consultant that -- that we hired and this consultant is on our current program -- that she will receive the files.<br />she will make sure that the home buyer is income-qualified and then she does -- registers the loan with the state, gives them the paperwork and then I will approve it.<br />it's a double approval of the home buyer.<br />so -- and then she is compensated per -- per contract.<br />in other words, each closing, then she gets -- she receives her fee.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> do we provide any assistance in helping them identify mortgage lenders or appropriate mortgage package for homes?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> no -- well, we don't -- we give them a list is what we do.<br />we -- we receive phone calls every day from home buyers wanting to know about our programs, our other programs.<br />so we refer them to a list, and we -- really, we have directed them towards the state-approved list of participating lenders.<br />i mean, it's a -- it's a list of lenders that has been signed up with the state.<br />they're a list of lenders that have serviced first-time home buyers, and so that seems to be a good resource to direct them.<br />and obviously we don't direct them to, you know, any one lender.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> do we provide them with any education in identifying what home product is appropriate for their ability to service a mortgage on?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> each home buyer has to complete an eight-hour class, and we have a -- and that's one of the requirements of the program.<br />and we have a contract with consumer credit counseling that they have to complete there an eight-hour class, which includes post-home buyer purchase clowng counselin.<br />so if they're in financial difficulty or have questions about maintaining their home, then they have consumer credit counseling as a resource.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> I guess one of the qualifications is that, of course, the folks are new home buyers, and that does not necessarily mean it has to be a new home.<br />it can be an existing house, and so they have options to deal with both, I guess, the new and also an existing -- you know, older home.<br />and I guess if -- this is a good program.<br />i applaud what Travis County is doing in this regard.<br />but how could -- someone that make a chance here -- this particular -- may hear this presentation, how could they get in touch with you for directions if we would like to be a part of the program in the future?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> well, they can contact me at 854-4743, and we're happy to provide them with information.<br />our -- we -- we're awarded a grant subsequent to this one, a $300,000 grant, and we have run out of funds.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> yep.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> so it is -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> it goes pretty quick.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> it has gone very quick, as I reported to you last week.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> exactly.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> but we do have on our web site a central Texas flier, and with that -- that flier is the goal of providing the home buyer a list of programs that government entities in central Texas are offering to home buyers, because the city of Austin has programs, the Texas department of housing and community affairs has their programs.<br />the Texas state affordable housing corporation, which is a state-sponsored housing corporation, has their programs.<br />the capital area housing finance corporation, which serves all the counties surrounding Travis County, has programs.<br />so unfortunately for the home buyer, it's a little confusing, and so we -- we've prepared this -- the flier that we update regularly, and then offer that to the home buyers to kind of, well, here's -- you know, if you buy at a certain location, here's where you can go to get assistance as a first-time home bierg.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> as far as the grant is concerned, of course it's $10,000 here, each particular individual family.<br />what is the requirement of satisfying the grant?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> these are forgivable loans.<br />they're forgivable over ten years.<br />so 10% of the loan is forgiven for each four years the home buyer remains in the home.<br />so if the home buyer -- and they're zero interest, of course.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> exactly.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> and so if a home buyer sells a home after living in it five full years, then they would have to repay $5,000, or half the grant.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> I want to make sure that's pointed out because -- you explained it very well.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> right.<br />and in this program, we've already had -- of the 25 that we've assisted, we had one individual had his home condemned because of the 130 highway they didn't know about, but he -- that one was repaid our portion of it, and the state's, and then a few weeks ago we had a short fail situation where the corporation received half the payment.<br />so there have already been two -- two of the homes that have left.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> Commissioner Eckhardt?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> picking up on what you were talking about as far as the -- the credit counseling in order to help individuals identify the debt load, the debt capacity that they have, could you tell us -- we know up here but it's really for the audience, the rationale for requesting the adjustment to the grant provisions where we were originally to provide services to five individuals at 80% mfi and 20 individuals at 60 and we switched it -- we adjusted it?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> well, we were having -- we were having difficulty in locating qualified home buyers whose income was below 60%, and so we -- we asked for -- we asked for the change and the state granted that as far as our design.<br />we originally had that design to be competitive in the scoring, and then it ended up nobody -- nobody else applied for these funds.<br />and so we were able to request the change and more easily or fully originate the program.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> is it fair to say that 60% of individuals at mfi -- because of the high cost of houses in our region, that was -- that was the region for us having to recalibrate?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> that's right.<br />i would say that was fair and -- accurate, yes.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> have we -- considering the recalibration and also the assistance in credit counseling, have we had any foreclosures in the program?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> not that I'm aware of, no.<br />we had the short-sale, and other than that, no.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> that's -- </p><p><strong>>></strong> and I'm sure I would be aware if there was a foreclosure, because on each loan there is a lien on the loan, and that would have to be dealt with in some way.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> that's wonderful news.<br />and in regard to your -- one of your last bullets, the coordination with other governmental entities is critical to achieve synergy and affordable housing.<br />what are we doing to pursue that kind of coordination.<br />you mentioned the central tks flier and the difficulty for the average citizen to figure out who's doing what and who they're supposed to contact.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> well, what we could do, and considering as far as applying for new funds, is to coordinate with the capital area financing corporation to say -- because they don't have -- they have not applied for the fund for several years.<br />they had some difficulty when they had a program.<br />and so the goal would be to -- to collaborate with them and say, well, we're going to apply.<br />why don't you-all apply for the -- these funds at the same time and let's design the program so that they're the same.<br />and so then if a home buyer -- then they wouldn't have to worry about well, is this in Travis County or hays county or Williamson county?<br />they could access a program that was similar and we would -- and we would then -- perhaps instead of using the state's approved list, we might develop our own participating lender list since we had -- we would have a large -- larger pool of money, being the two -- the two grants.<br />but since capital area serves multi-counties, they could apply for a grant for as much as 500,000.<br />we're limited to a grant application for 300,000.<br />and so that -- that's quite -- quite a bit of money that would be available to stimulate the economy in central Texas.<br />and so I think that would be a good service and a good coordination between entities.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> a worthy pursuit.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> no.<br />2, consider and take appropriate action on request to approve minutes of board of directors meetings of December 2, 9, 16 and 23, 2008.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> approved.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> second.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> all in favor?<br />that passes by unanimous vote.<br />by the way, next time we have a program to look at we can consider what changes we need to make to improve it.<br />okay?<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> okay.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> that's item no.<br />1.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> okay.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> no.<br />3 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve minutes of board of directors meeting of January 6, 2009.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> move approved.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> second.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> discussion?<br />all in favor?<br />that passes by unanimous vote.<br /></p><p><strong>>></strong> move a a.<br /> </p> <p><br /><p>The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.<br /></p> </p><p><br /> Last Modified: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 2:17 PM</p> <p> </p></div>   </body> </html>