First-time home buyer loan-program bill eyed for East End

Looking for ways to create affordable homeownership opportunities on the East End, Assemb. Fred Thiele (I-Sag Harbor) has sponsored a bill that, if approved, would allow the five East End towns to create unique loan programs to help first-time home buyers.

The Community Housing Revolving Loan Funds, which would be funded through a half-percent tax on high-end East End real estate transfers, would provide home loans that wouldn’t need to be repaid until the owner sold the property. The property owner would also have to then pay a quarter of the profits back to the fund.

“We need to have a tool that brings the existing housing stock within the financial reach of middle class and working class East Enders,” Thiele said in a news release. “We cannot survive as balanced communities without a range of housing opportunities that includes the middle class.”

On the South Fork and Shelter Island, sales of $1 million or less would be exempt from the tax and on the North Fork, sales of $750,000 or less would be exempt.

Sen. Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) is co-sponsoring the bill in the State Senate.

If enacted, the program would be available to one- or two-person households making less than $132,960 and three or more person households making less than $155,120.

If passed by state lawmakers, the law would still need to be approved by voters in their respective towns.

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.