Location Efficient Mortgages
Sandwich Man posted this:
What's more, homes hold or appreciate in value while cars only lose theirs, and financing a home is cheaper than a car--the interest rates are lower, and there's no deduction for interest on car loans. The mortgage interest deduction is the biggest one in the federal tax code. You're far better off putting your money into a higher priced home instead of cars. St. Louis should be using location-efficient mortgages to help people do this, too.
A location efficient mortgage program was started in St. Louis about a year ago. I doubt it gets much publicity from the real estate agents and lenders. The way the program works, is that people who live near transit are eligible to barrow more money since they will use less of their income on transportation. I believe the cap on the program is $375,000, plus the entire city of St. Louis qualifies for the program. Fannie Mae is a backer of the program. Metro and the City of St. Louis should be promoters as well.
What's more, homes hold or appreciate in value while cars only lose theirs, and financing a home is cheaper than a car--the interest rates are lower, and there's no deduction for interest on car loans. The mortgage interest deduction is the biggest one in the federal tax code. You're far better off putting your money into a higher priced home instead of cars. St. Louis should be using location-efficient mortgages to help people do this, too.
A location efficient mortgage program was started in St. Louis about a year ago. I doubt it gets much publicity from the real estate agents and lenders. The way the program works, is that people who live near transit are eligible to barrow more money since they will use less of their income on transportation. I believe the cap on the program is $375,000, plus the entire city of St. Louis qualifies for the program. Fannie Mae is a backer of the program. Metro and the City of St. Louis should be promoters as well.
Labels: tranist and housing
posted by CMT at 6:14 AM
2 Comments:
Great!
The developers building lofts, condos, etc. near MetroLink stations also have something to gain by promoting LEMs in their advertising. I think a lot of cities in the US have them now, but they rarely get much publicity. Putting ads in the rail system seems like an obvious thing to do, too.
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