Washington State Likely Approaching 5,000 Mortgage Credit Certificate Homebuyers Since FY 2012, Oregon Maybe a Couple Hundred?

I looked at the annual reports from the Washington State Housing Finance Agency and culled out some surprising counts of MCC supported loans over the years FY 2012-FY2014. [FY 2014 annual report example is HERE]. 

Over those three years the count was 3,335 MCC supported loans.  Assuming FY 2015 production is at least as much as FY 2014 [1,582 loans], this would mean a count of 4,917 MCC supported loans in the last 4 FY's.  Using average loan amounts for these years that would total $779 million in home loans supported by the MCC over the last 4 years.

The only user of MCC's in Oregon has been the Portland Housing Bureau and the last data I can find for FY 2012 to FY 2013 shows a total of 89 MCC's .  Even if that has doubled to 200, that pales in performance compared to the nearly 5,000 MCC supported loans in Washington state.

Readers may recall my prior post HERE pointing out that Oregon used only 4% of their private activity bond cap in FY 2014; that cap can be used for MCC's. Washington state did significantly better at using their PAB cap @ 24% AND they added $480 million in bond cap to the MCC program at the end of the year.  

The search of my blog HERE shows my several prior posts about the MCC program.

Not sure why so little attention has been paid to this no cost to state or local government home ownership alternative, especially in suburban markets. It appears to me that the MCC could clearly help a significant number of young professionals in the workforce, including singles, buy a home. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.