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Affordable Housing Opportunity

Affordable Housing Overview

Affordable Housing Lottery Overview

WHAT IS A HOUSING LOTTERY?

An affordable Housing Lottery is to give low-moderate income households, the opportunity of Home Ownership. This is a ‘First-Time’ home buyer program, through Mass Housing, in which Potential Buyers (Applicants) submit their application along with supporting documents to be reviewed and approved for the program. Once the application is reviewed and the applicant is deemed eligible for the Affordable Program, he/she will be submitted into a drawing for the next available affordable homes/condos.

Advertising for an Affordable Housing Development is conducted over a 60-day period in accordance with Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing rules and regulations.

Specific dates for the Submittal Deadline and Lottery dates are included in the Lottery Packet.

Applicants that meet the eligibility requirements including but not limited to:

  • First time homebuyer (a buyer who has not owned a home in the last 3 years *)
  • Household grow income cannot exceed maximum allowed income.
  • Household assets cannot exceed $75,000.

Applications are randomly drawn on the date of the Lottery in a public forum in accordance with the information in the Lottery Packet. Some developments due to the large number of housing units, may require more than one Lottery.

LOTTERY TYPES:

Active – These are lotteries where applications are being accepted on or prior to a certain actual lottery drawing date. A wait list is maintained in accordance with the applicants ranking in the lottery.

First come first serve – In addition post lottery applications may be submitted. These applicants will be place on a subsequent list. However, the sales prices of the affordable homes may change.

LOTTERY PACKET

Please refer to the Lottery Packet for specific information regarding a particular development. The packet will include a Q&A section and an Application.

*There are certain exceptions to the First Time Home Buyer rule, generally they are:

  • Displaced/divorced person.
  • Single parents where the individual owned a home with his or her partner or resided in a home owned by the partner and is a single parent is unmarried or legally separated from a spouse and either has 1 or more children of whom the individual has custody or joint custody or is pregnant.
  • Elderly households (where at least one household member is 55 or over).

Who Qualifies for
Affordable Housing
Lotteries

Affordable Buyers must be First Time Home Buyers as defined in the regulations with the exception of:

  • Displaces Homemakers
  • Households where at least one household member is 55 or older
  • Persons within a household who have not owned a home in three years

In addition to being a “First Time Home Buyer” the buyer must meet the income and asset limits.  That is, the buyers total household income cannot be too high, yet they must earn enough to meet the lenders underwriting standards.  In addition, they usually require a credit score of not less than 660 as well as not exceeding the asset limit.  We call this the 10% window which makes the task of finding Qualified First Time Home Buyers most difficult.