Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the timeline for when loans were taken out from the Summit Combined Housing Authority’s down payment assistance program and the timeline for the 5A ballot measure.

Amid interest rates being at more than a 20-year high and system changes, the Summit Combined Housing Authority has seen an unprecedented uptick in users for its down payment assistance program. 

Summit Combined Housing Authority executive director Corrie Burr described the newly revamped program to have “gone like wildfire” at a Sept. 24 Breckenridge Town Council meeting. She said they have been fielding phone calls daily from residents interested in the program and, as of the Sept. 24 meeting, the housing authority has 30 outstanding loans through the program.

The loan comes out of the Summit Revolving Loan Fund, which is financed by 5A tax dollars. Voters approved the 5A ballot measure in 2006 and gave the housing authority the ability to collect a percentage of sales tax within the county to put towards affordable housing efforts. In 2016, voters approved an increase in what the authority could collect, bringing it up to .6% of the sales tax from .125%.

Burr said while interest rates play a factor, recent changes to the system, she believes, are more of the driver behind the increase in program usage. The authority had a months-long lull before this summer and had not had someone tap into the program since July 2023. 

The Summit Combined Housing Authority said many factors play into this increase.

Namely, what people can use the loan for has expanded. Alongside down payments, the loans can also be used for homeowner association assessment fees, or a fee charged for unexpected expenses, for deed-restricted properties. People with properties that aren’t deed-restricted may also participate in the program, they just need to be apart of the local workforce.

Burr said extending the ways in which the loan can be used, in part, is providing a solution to a problem seen across the county’s deed-restricted properties. The problem lies in deed-restricted properties that have appreciation caps with limits regarding what they can be sold for. She said an issue that has arisen is people aren’t incentivized to upkeep maintenance on their homes, which endure inclement weather conditions, because they are restricted when it comes to what they can sell their property for.  

“That is a huge problem, and that is something that all of the towns collectively are talking about … Extending the down payment assistance was an answer,” she said

Council member Dick Carleton asked Burr at the Sept. 24 meeting whether she saw any trends in the usage of the loans when it came to whether people were taking them out for down payments or assessments and maintenance, and Burr responded the loan usage has been pretty split.

She said upping the amount of a loan people can take out from $25,000 to $40,000 is among the top reasons why the program has been taking off.

“Interest rates have a huge effect on whether somebody wants down payment assistance,” she said. “This loan is at 2%, so even if somebody is going to get a mortgage, which most people do, it’s in their benefit to reduce that by 40,000 and take 40,000 from the housing authority.”

Also, unlike before, people can now subordinate their loans, which she says is a game changer for people. Previously, when someone took out a loan and decided to refinance their mortgage, they had to pay back the loan then versus in 20 years, or whatever the terms of the loan were. Now, people can take out a loan, refinance the mortgage, and not have to immediately pay off the loan because they refinanced the mortgage.

“It makes it a lot more viable for people,” she said. 

“You’re incentivized to refinance when interest rates go down,” she added.

The housing authority also looks to shifting the area median income requirements to take out a loan as a reason for the uptick in program usage. It has now been set to 160% of area median income. 

Burr said the change was driven by increased costs of properties in Summit. The housing authority looked at what other assistance programs, like the child care assistance program which uses a figure cap instead of an area median income requirement, had for parameters and based its requirement off that. 

Burr said while demand continues to grow for loans, the housing authority has over $700,000 in Summit Revolving Loan Fund and doesn’t anticipate that fund running out anytime soon. 

At the Sept. 24 meeting council member Carol Saade applauded the housing authority for their “strategic initiatives” and how they made accessing their programs more accessible than ever before. The housing authority has made applications for housing lotteries multi-lingual and has bilingual staff members who can help walk Spanish-speakers through their numerous services.

To learn more about the program visit SummitHousing.us/lending/.