Santander bids adieu| Middle-class housing – not | Missed opportunities | Thank you, Quentin Palfrey
State homeownership programs hit by Santander’s sudden exit
Popular lending programs for moderate and low-income home buyers in Boston and across Massachusetts are scrambling amid the departure of one of their key lenders.
Spanish banking giant Santander this week informed state and nonprofit affordable housing organizations that it will stop taking applications for new mortgages after next Friday.
Symone Crawford, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, said she has been fielding calls from anxious buyers in the process of closing Santander mortgages offered through various affordable lending programs.
Some have complained they have been unable to reach their loan officers at Santander, she said. The bank has issued hundreds of millions in mortgages to low and moderate-income home buyers over the past two decades.
“This was very much unexpected and something that we wished we had been given more time on,” Crawford said. “It is a very short turnaround time.”
In a letter this week to members of a community advisory panel, Santander, which is shutting down its residential lending operations in the U.S., set an end date of Feb. 11, though it pledged to continue to process mortgage applications already in the pipeline and service existing loans.
“They have been a great partner for MAHA over the years,” Crawford said, adding that Santander has “been very accessible and communicative as they try to mitigate the negative impacts that this decision brings.”
The move effectively puts an end to Santander’s two-decade role as one of the top providers in Massachusetts of affordable mortgages, while potentially lowering the amount of financing available to low- and moderate-income buyers.
Santander over the course of the past decade wrote more than of 2,340 low-interest-rate mortgages totaling $460 million through programs first-time home buyers of modest means run by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.
Santander had also further ramped up its involvement over the past two years, helping roll out affordable mortgages targeted at Hub home buyers through the ONE+Boston program.
Santander also had a strong track record in another key area as well.
The bank “was one if not our most successful partner lender when it came to reaching home buyers of color,” said Elliot Schmiedl, MHP’s homeownership director. “The biggest losers here are prospective home buyers and the bank’s community partners.”
Middle-class squeeze: Mass. home sales under $500,000 plunge
Speaking of housing, the number of homes sold worth half a million dollars or less fell 14 percent in 2021, a new report finds.
There are simply fewer homes on the market in this crucial category for middle-class families, according to the latest Pinnacle Report by Elaine Bannigan, founder and owner of Pinnacle Residential Properties.
Only a modest number of new single-family homes are built each year in Greater Boston, with the going-rate, even in traditionally middle-class communities like Natick, now topping $1 million.
By contrast, sales of homes worth more than $3M rose 14 percent last year, following a 33 percent jump in 2020 amid the pandemic price surge.
And what about luxury condos? Sales of units over $3M doubled in 2021, according to Bannigan.
Missed opportunities: Asking the wrong questions of Healey
There was clearly no way Maura Healey was going to play along with the interviewer on WBUR’s Radio Boston when asked whether she would describe herself as a “moderate.”
It was a fruitless exercise, leading the state attorney general, who recently launched a bid for governor, to counter that she is a “proud progressive,” detailing all the social issues that she contends she’s out front on.
Given we live in a blue state, Healey’s response wasn’t at all surprising. What else was she supposed to say in the middle of an activist-dominated primary race? In the end, we didn’t learn particularly much from Healey’s radio appearance on Thursday.
But we could have learned more if the right questions had been asked, such as: What’s Healey’s stance on the millionaire’s tax and efforts to bring back rent control? What about Gov. Baker’s proposal for a $700 million tax cut targeted at seniors, parents and those working- and middle-class families?
And given the concern Healey has expressed concern about the high cost of living, does she have a plan to rein in runaway home prices?
That might have told us a bit more how “progressive” or “moderate” Healey is or isn’t on key, quality-of-life issues.
File under: Missed opportunity.
Race for attorney general heats up
Quentin Palfrey, a former Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, automatically wins brownie points in our book for opting to pass on the ridiculously oversubscribed LG race.
The race for lieutenant governor, arguably the most useless job in state government (other than as a stepping stone for the politically ambitious) has already attracted 10 or more candidates. Frankly, we’ve lost tracked of who’s who in the race.
So, it was kind of refreshing to hear that Palfrey, a lawyer and a former assistant state AG, announce Friday morning he will be running for AG.
He joins labor attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan and former Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell in the Dem race.
Quick Hits
-- It was a busy week of rhetorical outrage, punishment and apologies etc., as it gets harder and more treacherous these days to open your mouth in public. Just ask Whoopi Goldberg (CNN), Joe Rogan (CNN) and Georgetown Law School professor Ilya Shapiro (Washington Post).
-- Speaking of free speech (or lack thereof): “Free speech concerns for Olympic athletes voiced after China warns of ‘punishment’” (ABC News). More on the Olympics controversy at the NYT.