AUDIO: Shanta Bland's home buying experience
• Forgivable loan may help city employee buy home

Shanta Bland's quest for the perfect house took three years.

The 24-year-old finally found a three-bedroom home on Lightwood Court in Chesterfield County and bought it last month.

"Buying this by myself was a lot of responsibility," said Bland, a medical technologist.

But she wasn't exactly alone.

Bland got financial help to buy the house from an unlikely source -- her employer.

Virginia Commonwealth University Health System provided $5,000 in a forgivable loan to help her with the down payment. Bland is the first person there to take advantage of the new benefit.

The academic medical institution isn't unique in offering such help.

Though employer-assisted housing programs are not a common benefit, interest is gaining among employers who see it as a way to retain good workers and to help employees.

Down-payment assistance is offered by 9 percent of companies nationally, according to a 2008 benefits survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management. In 2004, 8 percent of companies offered the benefit. In 2002, it was 4 percent.

Large and small employers, private and public, offer the benefit.

The city of Richmond, for instance, has helped at least nine employees since March 2007 with down payments and closing costs. Three more employees are expected to close on their homes soon using the program.

Citizens Financial Group Inc., the Providence, R.I.-based bank holding company, has granted $17 million in forgivable loans since 2002, helping more than 3,000 employees buy homes.

The University of Chicago and its medical center as well as Harley-Davidson Motor Co. also have programs.

"There has been much greater emphasis in helping employers understand how to do it in the last three to five years," said Kathryn St. John, director of communications for Homes for Working Families, a Washington-based agency that recently published an employer-assisted housing guide.

The benefit helps employee and employer, St. John said. Owning a home rather than renting adds to family stability -- school districts, doctors and friends don't have to change every time a lease ends, St. John said.

. . .

Employers get a little help with retention, too.

"We found for employers that it helps their employees become more loyal," said Patricia Boerger, spokeswoman for Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage company that worked with VCU Health System to create its benefit.

For five years, Freddie Mac has worked with companies across the nation to come up with employer-assisted housing programs. VCU Health System, which had the equivalent of 7,082 employees at the start of the year, is one of the biggest employers Freddie Mac has worked with in Virginia.

The Freddie Mac programs are a mix of benefits including homebuyers education courses, repayable and deferred loans and matched savings accounts. All have differing eligibility requirements.

In VCU Health System's case, employees must receive benefits, have a base salary of no more than $40,000 a year and be first-time homebuyers. The program is only for those working for the health system, not VCU academic campus employees.

Employees also must attend homebuying seminars, go through a one-on-one counseling and budgeting session and secure a mortgage from a lender approved by Freddie Mac. Post-purchase assistance also is offered.

In return, the workers get forgivable loans of $5,000. They could get a $7,500 down payment assistance if a home is purchased in a revitalization project area within 3 miles of the Medical College of Virginia campus.

After two years of service to VCU Health System, the loan is forgiven, as if it never happened.

"We're really taking employees from pre-ownership and helping them to own," said Deborah Slayden, VCU Health System's director of work-force development and strategy.

The health system budgeted for about 12 to 20 people to get the down payment assistance during the first year, with money coming out of its operating funds. So far, more than 100 people have expressed interest in the program. VCU declined to provide the number of employees who meet the salary requirements.

. . .

Richmond offers two similar programs to its employees to help with down payment and closing costs.

The income cap for one of the programs is 80 percent of the area's average median income. A one-person household could earn only up to $38,800. A family of four could make not more than $55,450.

That loan is forgiven after five years of living in the home, said Regina Chaney, community-outreach coordinator for Housing Opportunities Made Equal, the organization administering the Richmond program.

The city set aside $225,000 to fund the program, which offers up to $7,500 in assistance per person.

The other program offered for city employees is similar but it is run by the Southside Development Corp. and has higher income allowances.

Like the VCU program, applicants must go through seminars and one-on-one counseling.

"Many [employers] have forgivable loans, and most do require some sort of homebuyer education program, which is very important," St. John said. "In this environment, it's really important that people be excited about homeownership but also understand how to be a responsible homeowner."

. . .

Budgeting is a key point.

"They take everything that you can possibly think of and put that into reality," Bland said about the counseling and classes that she took during the last couple of months.

Discussed are mundane topics many people wouldn't consider, such as having enough money to replace or fix a broken refrigerator. "They want you to plan for everything and plan for your savings," Bland said.

They also want you to know the reality of your dream.

"It doesn't need to paralyze you, but it is the largest single financial transaction of your life," said Pearl Anderson, president and chief executive of Vision Integration Services, the company conducting seminars and counseling for VCU Health System.

Jacqueline Little, who looked for a house two years ago, is back hunting for a house because of the program.

"This might be my chance to buy a house, a reasonable house," Little said.

On June 20, Bland closed on her house, which was last assessed at $155,900 this year.

The last step took less than an hour. She signed more than a dozen documents, handed over a check and got her keys.

Since then, she has focused on removing wallpaper, painting and also moving furniture from her parents' house where she has been staying and into her own home.

Decorating her 1,300-square-foot house will take a bit more time.

"The hard part for me is choices. I always wanted freedom to make my own choices, but when you actually have the opportunity to make a choice you realize sometimes choices [are] the hardest thing to do."
Contact Emily C. Dooley at (804) 649-6016 or edooley@timesdispatch.com.