LOS ANGELES, CA – The Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) announced today that the City’s Low- and Moderate-Income Purchase Assistance First-Time Homebuyers’ Programs have increased their loan assistance amounts .

The low-income purchase assistance loan amount has increased from $90,000 to $140,000. The moderate-income purchase assistance loan amounts have increased from $75,000 to $115,000 for households earning between 80%-120% Area Median Income (AMI) and from $50,000 to $90,000 for households earning between 120%-150% AMI.

For over 25 years, LAHD has operated first-time homebuyer assistance programs, providing eligible first-time, low- and moderate-income homebuyers with purchase assistance in the form of a deferred-payment “soft second” loan to be used toward down payment, acquisition and closing costs. Cumulative, the City’s First-Time Homebuyers program has awarded a total of $167,239,427, assisting 2,734 families acquire their first home.

With low inventory of affordable homes and rising home prices, the path to homeownership has become even more increasingly difficult, especially for low- and moderate-income, first-time homebuyers. LAHD’s resources for first-time homebuyers are primarily through federal grants. With these limited resources, LAHD can typically assist fewer than 100 home buying low-income households a year and thus continuously seeks other funding sources.

First-time homebuyers can learn more about the programs by visiting the LAHD first-time homebuyer website at housing.lacity.org/housing/housing-programs/first-time-homebuyers. To get started, applicants should contact one of LAHD’s Participating Lenders listed at: housing.lacity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/English-Lenders-list.pdf. 

The First Time Homebuyers Program supports the City’s goal to stabilize neighborhoods and remedy socio-economic inequities by providing access to low-income homebuyers to build wealth through owning their own homes and to secure permanent housing in the City of Los Angeles. To learn more about the City’s First-Time Homebuyer Programs, please visit: housing.lacity.org (housing.lacity.org/housing/housing-programs).