{"id":143504,"date":"2025-07-02T22:29:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T02:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=143504"},"modified":"2025-07-02T22:29:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T02:29:34","slug":"freeman-lease-to-purchase-bill-would-expand-affordable-home-ownership-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=143504","title":{"rendered":"Freeman lease-to-purchase bill would expand affordable home ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, July 2 \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>To assist families with less wealth in accessing sustainable home ownership, state Rep. Robert Freeman has introduced legislation that would establish the Pennsylvania Lease with Guaranteed Purchase Option Home Ownership Program, modeled after a lease-to-purchase concept.<\/p>\n

Home ownership has dropped significantly since 2000, decreasing from 68% in 2003 to 63% in 2016, its lowest level since 1965. Access to credit has become increasingly limited, especially for first-time homebuyers. Combined with the impacts of rents and housing prices rising faster than incomes, an inadequate inventory of affordable homes, high levels of student loan debt, and demographic shifts, young families are increasingly locked out of the homeownership market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlternate models are especially needed to ensure that lower-income households have access to sustainable homeownership. One such model, the lease-to-purchase mortgage, allows a household to rent a home for a period before taking on the mortgage and ownership of the property with a portion of each month\u2019s rent set aside in an escrow account and used to cover the down payment and closing costs. This rental period allows households to build a positive credit history and increase their savings before taking on the responsibility of a mortgage, while at the same time \u2018locking in\u2019 lower interest rates and house prices,\u201d said Freeman, D-Northampton.<\/p>\n

\u201cLease-purchase programs can also contribute to neighborhood stabilization, providing a means for low-income families to build wealth through equity in their house and bringing the stability and investment associated with home ownership to neighborhoods experiencing the potential negative effects associated with a lack of owner-occupied properties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Freeman\u2019s H.B. 1696, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency would administer a program which would specify the dates within which the option to purchase may be exercised, the amount of the purchase price, estimated closing costs, and the percentage of the purchase price needed for downpayment. The bill also includes protections for lessor liability, prohibited contract provisions and a process for reinstating the agreement should a default occur.<\/p>\n

To be eligible for the program, the applicant\u2019s household income would have to be at or below 80% of the area median income for the metropolitan area. Further, at least 30% of program funds would be allocated for lease-to-purchase housing projects that benefit households with incomes that are less than 50% of the median area income.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy legislation would help to expand access to affordable home ownership and assist local governments with revitalizing neighborhoods throughout the commonwealth,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n

The bill is expected to be referred to the House Housing and Community Development Committee.<\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nTom Andrews<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARRISBURG, July 2 \u2013\u00a0To assist families with less wealth in accessing sustainable home ownership, state Rep. Robert Freeman has introduced legislation that would establish the Pennsylvania Lease with Guaranteed Purchase … Continue reading Freeman lease-to-purchase bill would expand affordable home ownership<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Freeman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}