PLACENTIA : City Agency May Alter Its Plan for Home-Buying Aid

In an effort to help the city’s lowest-income residents become homeowners, the Redevelopment Agency will consider a plan tonight to reduce the income ceiling on its assistance program for first-time home buyers.

The program helps provide down payments for first-time buyers. Successful applicants receive a 30-year deferred loan for up to 15% of the home price, to a maximum of $25,000. The applicant must put up at least 5% of the home price.

Currently, those who make up to 120% of the federal median income guidelines, considered moderate income families, are eligible. The new limits would make the median income level the upper limit.

The guidelines are based on the total income of up to eight family members per household. Income for a family of four, for example, must be between $29,400 and $58,800 a year.

Placentia Development Director Joyce Rosenthal said that in the first two years of the program, most of the applicants were in the lower and middle portions of the eligibility range, but this year most of the applicants have been at the upper end of the range.

“We’ve never had people right up to the maximum as we have this year,” she said. “We want to ensure that the money we have is still available for the lower end of the scale.”