A non-profit organization that has helped middle-income New Yorkers find housing for more than 30 years is moving into the mortgage business, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Housing Partnership, which has helped place 30,000 New York City residents in homes, will now be writing mortgages for middle-income first-time homebuyers and those in need of refinancing. The mortgage arm of Housing Partnership will be for profit, the paper said.Dan Martin, president of Housing Partnership, said the transition made sense as funding for government housing programs, usually the organization’s bread and butter, has been shrinking.
Still, the new mortgage unit will not compete with traditional banks; it will stay focused on middle-income earners.
“We certainly need as much expertise and attention to the affordable housing sector as we can get,” said Kathryn Wilde, who heads an affiliated non-profit, the Partnership for New York City. [WSJ]