Downpayment Assistance = Economic Impact
I received a good amount of blowback after my last "Bring Back a Revised DPA" program post from folks who see DPAs one of the if not a major factor playing into our present housing situation.
The argument that DPA as it "was" represented nothing more than a "money laundering" scheme is not one I can get behind. Did folks misuse the process by raising home prices to cover seller concessions? Yes. Do I support this practce? Absolutely not. This is but one reason some have for wishing to keep Downpayment Assistance programs out of the picture.
I did however, want to provide a bit of data that not everyone out there has seen - especially since what we've received via the public media channels from HUD has and continues to be largely if not grossly inaccurate garbage pulled as much from conjecture as from aged and completely out of sync databases.
Here's Everyone Should Know About DPAs
Downpayment assistance (DPA) programs in the U.S. had a major beneficial impact on the economy last year, creating $38.6 billion in revenues, 235,000 jobs, and $4.6 billion in total tax revenues, according to an economic-impact study done by two well-respected California economists, Dr. Robert Waste and Dr. Robert Fountain.
Some highlights of their research:
- More than 200,000 new and existing homes were sold last year with DPA. (The research covered the 12 months from December 2007 through November 2008.) Roughly 40% of all loans originated by the Federal Housing Administration used DPA.
- Nehemiah's DPA program helped families purchase more than 78,000 new and existing homes last year. More than 25% of those sales were on foreclosed homes, effectively taking them off the market.
- About 40% of the borrowers were households headed by minorities and more than one-third were headed by females.
- Of 235,000 new jobs created last year, 195,000 came from new-home construction and the rest from new-home sales. DPA also accounted for $4.6 billion in total tax revenues last year.
Support H.R. 600
Send a letter to your elected officials in support H.R. 600 and DPA.
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I agree with your observations, as well as with the Waste/Fountain report. We are currently looking for something that would help stimulate our economy AND create jobs. HR 600 would help in both of those areas. Thank you for posting these clarifications. It is important that everyone who has an "opinion" about DPA make sure that it is an "Informed Opinion." Thank you for bringing clarity to an often misinterpreted subject.