Home sweet (affordable) home

Glacier housing foundation tops 300 loans in 10 years

Peggie Waldusky planted flowers at her Columbia Falls home last week, just like she has every spring for the past five years. There was a time, though, when she doubted she'd ever be a homeowner.

The Glacier Affordable Housing Foundation made Waldusky's dream come true.

"It's awesome the program is there for people like me," she said. "I thought, no way, not on my income. I had good credit, but not much for a down payment."

Helping first-time homebuyers such as Waldusky is what Steve Van Helden, former Glacier Bank president, had in mind when he envisioned Glacier Affordable Housing Foundation and was instrumental in creating the foundation in 1995.

The foundation processed its first loan in 1996 and just passed a landmark of sorts, processing the loan on its 300th affordable home, said Lynn Moon, community development housing manager for the city of Kalispell and contact person for the foundation.

Before the formation of the housing foundation, grant funds received by local government agencies were provided on a one-time basis and then were gone.

"Steve's whole dream was that as people sell their homes you'd have a means to help someone else down the road," Moon said.

Van Helden chairs the foundation board.

THE FOUNDATION lends money to qualified borrowers, then recaptures the money upon the resale or refinance of the home. That money is, in turn, recycled to be used by more borrowers at or below 80 percent of median income who are buying their first home.

When a home is sold, the homeowner must pay back the original amount borrowed, plus a 1 percent maturity date fee and share in the home equity. The equity share is based on the percentage that the foundation's contribution represents of the purchase price. For example, if the foundation contributed $40,000 - the maximum allowed - on a $120,000 home, the borrower would share 30 percent of the equity.

Soaring real-estate costs prompted the foundation to raise the limit for down-payment and closing-cost assistance from $30,000 to $40,000 in November.

"Folks are finding that inventory in the price range they can afford is very limited," Moon said. "We're seeing people qualify for homes in the $90,000 to $100,000 range" and there are relatively few homes sold for those prices these days.

"It's challenging for borrowers," she said. "They have 90 days to shop for a home. We're financing many townhouses and condominiums, because we're seeing borrowers coming to the realization that a single-family home is out of their price range."

A few qualified applicants have been unable to find homes in their allotted price ranges; others have been "pleasantly surprised" about the homes they've found within the city of Kalispell, Moon said.

Waldusky, a kitchen and bath designer for Moore Cabinets in Whitefish, said she chose Columbia Falls because homes were more affordable there than in Whitefish.

"Columbia Falls seemed like the better commute," she said. "I looked at a ton of houses. This one was actually out of my price range."

Waldusky drove by her home on Beth Road "about 20 times" as she was house hunting. She knew it was the one for her, but her loan limit was $92,000. The seller was asking $105,000. He accepted an offer of $97,500 and Waldusky was able to tap into another housing program to make up the $5,500 gap between what Glacier Affordable Housing was providing and what she could afford.

Moon tracks 13 different grants and taps into a variety of resources to help homebuyers.

"We have a lot of partners," Moon said. "We couldn't work in a vacuum."

WALDUSKY SAID a required homebuyer-education course gave her plenty of valuable information about how to proceed as a homeowner.

"You learn about budgeting and home maintenance," she said. "My fear was getting into an older home and not being able to afford to fix it up. What I looked for was low maintenance."

Because older homes are often more affordable for first-time homebuyers, it creates a conundrum for applicants, Moon said, because of the high maintenance and remodeling costs.

"We don't want folks to get in the position of doing home-equity loans to take care of their debts," she said. "It speaks well of the program in that there's less than 1 percent delinquency."

Glacier Affordable Housing is a secondary lender and relies upon first mortgage financing through the federal Rural Development direct loan program or the Montana Board of Housing set-aside program.

"The local Rural Development staff has been an incredible partner," Moon said. Its loans can be as low as 1 percent, and range as high as 5.75 percent based on income.

The Montana Board of Housing set-aside allows borrowers at the higher end of income limits to take advantage of lower interest rates. That rate goes to 5.5 percent on June 1.

Local lenders include Glacier, First Interstate and Mountain West banks.

Glacier Affordable Housing serves nine counties, including Flathead, Lincoln, Sanders, Glacier, Lake, Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark, Broadwater and Jefferson.

AT 1,100 square feet, Waldusky's home is cozy. An ample back yard has allowed her to dabble in landscaping.

"It's a real comfortable place," she said. "It's the first house of my own where I could paint and texture it how I wanted, I could plant whatever I wanted in the yard. It's home."

For more information about the Glacier Affordable Housing Foundation, call 758-7741.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.