Home Purchase
Santa Fe's three primary nonprofit single-family home developers are Habitat for Humanity, Homewise, and The Housing Trust.
Through its general-fund contracts with three local nonprofit housing agencies – Habitat for Humanity, Homewise, and the Housing Trust -- the City supports comprehensive homebuyer services. They include homebuyer training and individual counseling, primary and secondary financing, down-payment assistance, and general financial-fitness assistance for clearing up credit issues and budgeting.
What is "affordable"? Affordability depends on YOUR income. You should pay no more than 30% of your monthly income for your housing costs, including utilities. The City of Santa Fe's house pricing guidelines for its inclusionary zoning program and eligibility for many downpayment assistance products uses your income to determine house price and eligibility. Click on the 2022 AMI Table to see which AMI (Area Median Income) and pricing category applies to your household. This data is derived from HUD income limits for Santa Fe County. Most federal mortgage products are geared towards assisting homebuyer households earning no more than 80% AMI, while the City's Affordable Housing Trust Fund serves homebuyer households earning up to 120% AMI.
Why buy a home? Not only does homeownership provide shelter for you and your family, but it is also a long-term investment strategy. Often, you can get a monthly mortgage payment of about the same amount as you would pay for rent. The difference, unlike rent, is that your mortgage is never raised, locking in your housing cost for the duration of the mortgage term.
To get started on your journey to homeownership, contact the providers at the links below to decide which option is best for you.
Resources
Like all Habitat affiliates, the Santa Fe office develops homes through a self-help model that brings together the future homeowner, a licensed contractor, and a team of volunteers to build each home. The price of the home is thereby reduced by the 500 hours of "sweat equity" earned by the homeowner in helping to build the home. Habitat clients earn less than 50 percent of the area's median income.
Homewise was founded in 1987 as a nonprofit agency helping homeowners repair and renovate their homes. Since then, the organization has expanded into a full-service homeownership center, offering homebuyer training and counseling, financial-fitness classes, mortgage financing, and refinancing, ongoing home-repair services, and assistance with energy efficiency retrofits. The organization has also built many affordably priced homes in Santa Fe.
Formerly known as the Santa Fe Community Housing Trust, the Trust was established in 1991 to use the land trust model to increase affordability. Since then, the organization has expanded its model to provide a full range of homebuyer and homeowner services, including homebuyer training and counseling, reverse mortgage financing, rental assistance for special needs populations, and real estate development.
Homeownership
The City and its partners support homeownership through rehabilitation and home repair, energy efficiency upgrades, foreclosure prevention, and legal assistance.
Home Improvement Loans
Rehabilitation and home repair activities are funded primarily through CDBG, CIP, the City of Santa Fe Affordable Housing Trust Fund, state and federal rehab funds, and some local funds.