Housing and Homeownership

FSS assists nearly 70,000 low‐income families who participate in the Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program or who reside in public housing. Families receive case management to gain employment coupled with asset accumulation to achieve independence. However, funding instability continues to threaten expansion of the program. SEVRA addresses this problem by making an important change in the way fees for FSS program coordinators are distributed, thereby stabilizing the program's funding stream. For more information, see the FSS Policy Brief.

CFED advances manufactured housing as an affordable, responsible vehicle for homeownership and promotes public policies that help owners of manufactured homes build and protect their assets.

For more information, visit the Manufactured Housing Advocacy Center.

Provide downpayment assistance that recaptures some of the subsidy to help current and future low-income homebuyers. Homeownership investment models should include investment recapture, shared appreciation or resale restrictions when appropriate so that current families can gain stability and build wealth as well as future families.

Align Intermediate Asset Purchase Regulations from Retirement Accounts

Expand Individual Development Accounts

Appropriations Priorities

CFED advocates in coalition for continued/expanded appropriations for the following programs:
• Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency
• American Dream Downpayment Initiative
• Community Development Block Grant
• Rural Housing and Economic Development
• Affordable Housing Trust Fund
• Section 502 Single Family Housing Loan Guarantees
• Section 504 Guaranteed Loan Program
• Intermediary Relending Program
• Assets for Independence
• ORR Individual Development Account Program

Between 1994 and 2005, the subprime mortgage market grew from $34 billion to $665 billion. During that period of growth, experts warned of the potential for a foreclosure crisis. As predicted, the eventual collapse of the housing market was fueled by high-cost, high-risk subprime loans that borrowers could no longer afford. States should restrict the terms or provisions of mortgage loans, strengthen regulation of mortgage lenders and brokers, require lenders and brokers to engage in sound underwriting practices and ensure that laws on the books can be enforced to protect consumers.

For more information, click here: Predatory Mortgage Lending Protections. Download the Predatory Mortgage Lending Protections Policy Brief here.

Housing trust funds are one way that states can help make homeownership affordable for low- and moderate-income families. They use dedicated public monies for a variety of affordable housing solutions, including preserving affordable rental housing, addressing homelessness, construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing, helping families become first-time homeowners, emergency repair and foreclosure prevention. States should establish a housing trust fund with funding coming from a dedicated and recurring source.

For more information, click here: Housing Trust Fund. Download the Housing Trust Fund Policy Brief here.

Low- and moderate-income families face a number of barriers to homeownership, including building up sufficient savings for a lump-sum downpayment and closing costs; accessing affordable and safe mortgage products; and basic information about what to expect from the homebuying process and how to protect their interests. States can help address these challenges by providing downpayment assistance; offering competitively-priced mortgage lending products directly to homebuyers; by investing in homebuyer education; and by providing other programs designed specifically to assist low-income renters who wish to become homeowners. States should offer a comprehensive package of products and services to assist first-time homebuyers.

For more information, click here: First-Time Homebuyer Assistance. Download the First-Time Homebuyer Assistance Policy Brief here.

Manufactured homes represent a pathway to affordable homeownership for millions of Americans, but their ability to be an investment or wealth-building vehicle remains tenuous in many states. Approximately one-third of owners of manufactured homes do not own the land beneath their homes. Owning a “home on the land of another” leaves families at the mercy of landowners regarding potential rent increases, community rules, infrastructure investment and maintenance, and potential community closure for a “change of use.” It means not having control over your home and biggest financial asset. Protecting fundamental freedoms such as Freedom of Association and Freedom of Speech; Freedom from Retaliation; Freedom from Eviction without Good Cause; and Protection of the Right to Sell the Home in Place, provide a family with security and the opportunity for asset building enjoyed by most homeowners.

For more information, click here. Download the Protecting Fundamental Freedoms in Communities Policy Brief.

Manufactured homes are a vital source of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income Americans. Currently, more than a third of manufactured homes are located in manufactured home communities, also called “parks” or land-lease communities, rather than on privately-owned land. Owning a home on rented land is a precarious situation. Long term control over the land on which the home sits can have a significant impact on its financing and appreciation as an asset. In order for low-income homeowners to benefit from lower cost financing and build wealth through asset appreciation, they must have long-term control over the land. Affording owners of manufactured homes in land-lease communities the opportunity to purchase their communities benefits the public at large by preserving affordable housing, fostering civic engagement and is a better alternative to increased displacement and homelessness that may happen when investor-owned communities close.

For more information, click here. Download the Promoting Resident Ownership of Communities Policy Brief.

Buying a manufactured home in a land-lease community provides a number of advantages over a site-built home on an individual lot. It offers high-quality housing at a lower cost, faster construction and a population density that permits more community amenities at a lower price. A primary disadvantage of manufactured housing, however, is its financing options. Most homes are financed with mortgages, but, most manufactured homes sited in land-lease communities are financed with chattel (personal property) loans, which resemble auto loans. The key disadvantages to chattel financing of homes compared with conventional mortgage financing include shorter loan terms, higher interest rates, different treatment in cases of default, fewer consumer protections and a more limited pool of lenders. To increase conventional financing opportunities for owners of manufactured housing living in land-lease communities, state policy must provide opportunity for classifying a home as real property, ensuring that a home and homeowners may remain in their community, allowing the transfer of the home to a new owner and protecting lender interests.

For more information, click here. Download the Financing Homes in Communities Policy Brief.

Manufactured homes are a significant source of unsubsidized, affordable housing in the United States. More than 17 million Americans call one home. Although a modern manufactured home may be indistinguishable from a site-built home to many an observer, a manufactured home is typically considered personal property, like a car or a television set, rather than real property, as site-built homes are. This classification as personal property, along with other issues common to manufactured housing, often keeps homeowners from enjoying the same security and potential for wealth creation enjoyed by owners of site-built homes. Improving a state's policy environment so that manufactured homes could be classified as real property would allow homeowners to enjoy increased access to financing at fair terms and protections and disclosures when purchasing or refinancing their homes.

For more information, click here. Download the Titling Homes as Real Property Policy Brief.

• Create a local housing trust fund to provide support to a range of housing and homeownership programs
• Fund home purchase subsidies and 1st-time homebuyer education
• Provide reduced property assessments for developers that rehabilitate buildings and keep rents affordable to low- and moderate income

• Provide funding for foreclosure prevention counseling and forgivable loans for at-risk homeowners
• Encourage banks to pursue workouts with homeowners at risk of foreclosure
• Enforce building code ordinances for blighted abandoned properties to maintain neighborhood property values
• Provide funding for 1st-time homebuyer counseling

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