By year-end, there were purchase agreements on all six homes. As of late January 1998, the initial HOME loans and one of the unassisted loans closed. Due to good media coverage of the groundbreaking, the non-profit received several hundred calls inquiring about the housing. HOME financing was involved in four of the six homes. Emphasis was placed on quality, while keeping the sales price within an affordable range.
Plans are now in the making for the construction of another group of homes.
OCD was also instrumental in providing pre-qualification reviews for prospective buyers and coordination with private lenders for loan packaging and approvals. General Health System underwrites MCRA' s overhead and salary costs, including all the MCRA staff work for project predevelopment planning. In collaboration with Fannie Mae, General Health System established an employee assistance program that will provide small grants to employee homebuyers in the MidCity area. Repayment is deferred until the properties are sold. Evan Graves Engineers provided all engineering services in order to keep all pre-construction costs to a minimum.