HFA1 Affordable Homeownership Lender Toolkit Gets Update

The National Council of State Housing Agencies updated the HFA1 Affordable Homeownership Lender Toolkit. MBA collaborated with NCSHA and state housing finance agencies over the course of two years with the goal of standardizing specific aspects of down payment assistance to deliver solutions to help more lower-income families become homeowners.

The HFA1 Lender Toolkit is a digital resource that helps lenders to partner more easily with state housing finance agencies in providing affordable home mortgage loans and down payment assistance to lower-income home buyers.

The toolkit identifies the key features of HFA homeownership programs that are most important for lenders in determining how and where to partner with the agencies and reflects substantial progress by a growing number of agencies to align elements of their programs to support more efficient participation in them by regional and national lenders.

The HFA1 Affordable Homeownership Lender Toolkit helps lenders:
-Understand the key features of the states’ aligned programs.
-Assess opportunities to partner more efficiently with aligned state HFAs.
-Connect more easily to HFA1 Aligned state HFAs’ lender portals.
-More easily serve lower-income and underserved home buyers and communities.
-More easily access state HFA down payment assistance programs.

The 23 currently participating state HFAs are: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia. More HFAs are expected to participate in 2024.

David Battany

“As a longtime lending partner of state housing finance agencies around the country, Guild Mortgage sees significant potential to expand affordable mortgage financing opportunities for more lower-income borrowers through these tools,” said David Battany, executive vice president for Guild Mortgage and 2022 co-chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Affordable Homeownership Advisory Council.

The next HFA1 Affordable Homeownership Lender Toolkit update is expected in late January 2024.

Sign up here to receive updates on the HFA1 Affordable Homeownership Lender Toolkit from NCSHA. The toolkit is designed for use by mortgage lending professionals, and the terms outlined on ncsha.org apply. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact NCSHA’s Rosemarie Sabatino at rsabatino@ncsha.org or MBA’s Katelynn Harris Walker at khwalker@mba.org.