That designation will allow the CUSO to make loans more easily and not have to keep them in the portfolio waiting to satisfy Fannie Mae’s requirements, he said. “It’s an experimental product,” he said, “that Fannie Mae decided to buy after being reassured about the quality of the loans and the organizations holding the liens.” The CUSO was now working on arranging for low-income families to be able to purchase another 30 similar properties and was nearing recognition as a Fannie Mae qualified loan originator. The CUSO took the primary lien but Garcia said that, through working with Fannie Mae, the CUSO had guaranteed that there would be a market for the loans even with two liens. The public agency loaned the families money for down payments and took a second lien on the properties. The original 28 families were able to make their purchases, he said, only with the help of the El Paso Housing Authority. “We have among the poorest census tracts in the nation,” he said, adding that when the CUSO started making the housing efforts they often found that they would have households with three incomes making barely $20,000. “There is no way they could have ever afforded to have purchased their own homes.” Garcia said that many people from outside the El Paso area fail to understand how badly off the region is economically and what a key role credit unions can play in addressing it, Garcia explained. “Essentially, the 28 families were renters – lifetime renters,” he said. “Yeah, I told them it’s an unwieldy name but that’s the one the board chose,” said Garcia, who added that the CUSO had managed to dramatically change the living circumstances of the 28 families in a way that would not have been possible otherwise. EL PASO, Texas – A credit union service organization, founded by a coalition of local credit unions with help from credit union foundations, has enabled 28 low income El Paso families to own their own homes and is arranging to help an additional 30 attain the same goal, according to Larry Garcia, president of the El Paso Credit Union Affordable Housing (EPCUAH).
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