Earth Equity News

Feds Pull Plug on Cities' Green Home Loans. By Robert Selna, San Francisco Chronicle, July 7, 2010. “San Francisco's new, $150 million program to help property owners finance solar and other energy-saving programs is all but dead, according to city officials, after a federal agency announced Tuesday that the program and others like it across the state are potentially risky and inadvisable for mortgage lenders. The programs have been widely championed as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills and to create green jobs. Generally, the programs allow a property owner to obtain a low-interest loan from local governments that are backed by bonds. The property owner then repays the loan over 20 years through a tax assessment, which is attached to the home, even if it is sold… The problem, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is that the local loans attach to the properties as liens if they are not paid off and those liens, because they are property taxes, trump banks for who gets paid back first from proceeds of a foreclosed home... San Francisco launched its version of the idea, called GreenFinanceSF, with great fanfare in April and $150 million in financing, making it one of the nation's most ambitions efforts.”