A program to assist first-time homebuyers in Pima County will continue next year after the Pima County Board of Supervisors approved $100 million in bond authority.
Supervisors voted 4-0 this week for $100 million in bond authority to the Industrial Development Authority for single-family mortgage revenue bonds for the upcoming year.
Pima Tucson Lighthouse was launched in August with county and city funding of $25 million in bond authority. It is intended to help homebuyers amid rising home prices and mortgage rates.
Those funds were quickly exhausted and an additional $25 million in bond authority was approved in November. As reported by the Arizona Daily Star, Lighthouse 2.0 participants worked with approved lenders to lock in a below-market, fixed-rate mortgage and down payment assistance equal to 4% of the loan amount. In that program, the down payment becomes a grant if the buyer remains in the home for at least five years.
The passed resolution also included an emergency clause that allows funds to be “immediately effective,” according to attorney Michael Slania, who represents the Pima IDA and spoke to the board Tuesday. He said issuing such an emergency forgoes a 30-day period so bonds can be sold “immediately,” which didn’t happen in November’s round of funding.
“If we would’ve priced on the original schedule which assumed that it would’ve been immediately effective, the loan rate would’ve been about 6.25,” Slania told the board. “ By waiting, as people know interest rates were going up in that time period. We secured it, for the 2023-B program, at a 6.89 rate.”
Tucson city council is expected “to consider the Tucson IDA’s participation” at their Jan. 9 meeting, according to a Dec. 18 memo from Pima County administrator Jan Lesher.
