WASHINGTON -- Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros said the government will unveil in January details of its plan to increase homeownership to an "all-time high" by the year 2000.
The exact target is still being determined, but Mr. Cisneros told reporters it would meet or exceed 66% of U.S. households and bring millions of new homeowners into the market.
The target is "attainable" but still a "sufficient stretch," Mr. Cisneros said last week.
The initiative, which has been in the works since August, was the subject of a speech by President Bill Clinton to a convention of the National Association of Realtors in Anaheim, Calif., this month.
In an era of constrained budgets and public skepticism about government programs, the administration will rely, in large part, on its persuasive powers to push private and nonprofit housing groups to do more.
An August memo from Mr. Cisneros to the White House indicated the program would consist of an array of already announced low-income housing, consumer education, and fair-lending initiatives by organizations such as the Federal National Mortgage Association, the Federal Home Loan Bank System, lending trade associations, and community groups.
Without its initiative, the government estimated that the homeownership rate would increase modestly, putting 5 million Americans into their own homes for the first time by the end of the decade.
The nation's homeownership rate fell through most of the 1980s after hitting a high of 65.6% in 1980. In 1993, the rate was 64%.
The memo to the White House pitched the program as a commitment to the President's "broad middle-class constituency."
Mr. Cisneros told reporters the government is relying on three paths to its goal:
* First, cuts in closing and down payment costs and other changes that make it easier for the average person to negotiate the complexities of finding and buying a home.
* Second, reductions in regulations and fees that raise the cost of homes, and the elimination of discriminatory practices that lock out many minority borrowers.
* Third, education of potential homebuyers and counseling initiatives.
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WASHINGTON -- The National Association of Realtors said its housing affordability index fell 3.5 points in the third quarter, to 127.8, from 131.3 in the second quarter.
The decline in the index reflects rising interest rates, the association said. The index measures the ability of a typical American family tO buy a home.
The figure of 127.8 means a family earning the median annual income had 127.8% of the income needed to qualify for a conventional mortgage covering 80% of the median price of an existing home.
The median home price in the third quarter was $111,000, up less than 0.4% from the second quarter, the group said. -- Dow Jones
