Sound Off
From November 2006
Community Comments
Spark a community dialogue. Be the first to contribute by adding your comments.
Encouraging Mortgages
I read your Affordable Housing cover story with great interest (The New Starter Home, Sept. 2006). Homeownership is a keystone of the American dream, but the news about increasing interest rates and out-of-reach home prices can be discouraging to Californians seeking their first homes.For more than 30 years, CalHFA has been creating opportunities for low- and moderate-income, first-time homebuyers through specialized below-market-rate loan programs and unique products, including down payment assistance.
CalHFA offers three kinds of mortgages: a traditional 30-year fixed rate mortgage, a 40-year fixed rate mortgage and a 35-year fixed rate interest only PLUSSM loan, which allows borrowers to pay interest only in the first five years.
Most borrowers who use CalHFA mortgage insurance also get something extra: HomeOpeners, which pays their mortgage payments for up to six months if they lose their job.
So far this year, more than 500 first-time homebuyers in our area used a CalHFA loan to buy their first home.
Ken Giebel
Marketing Director, CalHFA
BLOG HITS
On Perspectives’ “What Did You Think?”
Caroline says...Lance Armstrong perhaps would have given this ho-hum afternoon the X factor it needed. We can turn on the evening news to hear what these speakers had to say.
I guess my point is when I see a GREAT movie I will pay the $10 to see it twice with a friend the next day. Would all of you go back?
Next year I suggest Lance Armstrong and Tony Blair. If they come, I am there for sure.
On Ed Ring’s “Outlaw Public Employee Unions”
Alex says...I am the person who updates the stop the arena tax website with the endorsements every night and we have not had one single public employee union as of yet endorse or give money to our campaign. Most of these public employee unions have their own issues to worry about right now and do not have the time, energy or resources to get involved in the arena tax campaign.
Ed Ring replies…
I wouldn’t know whether or not this union has made direct monetary contributions to your specific group. But clearly they are endorsing your campaign, for reasons having nothing in common with yours.
It is unfortunate that anti-tax crusaders, who I agree with on fundamentals, lack the resolve to attack the real cause of deficits and push for higher taxes, which is almost solely attributable to the cost of public employee pensions.
Where I part company with the anti-tax folks is that I oppose decimating taxpayer-funded public services and foregoing investments in public works simply because public employee unions have negotiated benefits that are destroying the solvency of public institutions.
Sacramento needs a railyard arena now. Let them build it, and focus your efforts on tax reforms where they are really needed, rolling back unsustainable public employee pensions. The railyard arena may cost half a billion. California’s public employee pensions cost taxpayers well over $10 billion, year after year.
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Community Comments