Talman Home Mortgage Corp., has joined local builders in a $25 million mortgage program that will provide loans for the purchase of union-built homes.
The Pro-Loan/Illinois Program is part of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust`s $50 million initiative to stimulate housing construction and employment in Illinois.
The new program povides buyers with a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a maximum of 8 1/2 percent interest and a down payment as low as 5 percent. The funds will be available for both attached and detached construction in more than 35 subdivisions throughout the Chicago area.
Approval of the individual subdivisions is being coordinated by the Residential Construction Employers Council, an Oak Brook-based trade association representing 100 builders in northern Illinois. Home builders chosen to participate will begin taking applications this month.
”With unemployment levels in Illinois reaching the highest level among the nation`s biggest states, the AFL-CIO initiative is both timely and constructive,” said William E. Long, president of Talman Home Mortgage, a wholly owned subsidiary of Talman Home Federal Savings.
”While providing prospective home buyers rate protection during the period of construction, it also supports employment for building trade union members throughout metropolitan Chicago,” Long said.
The Washington D.C.-based union trust has been investing pension and benefit funds in union-built residential projects since 1965. Through the Pro- Loan program, the AFL-CIO has attracted additional investments from Illinois pension funds with the support of the state treasurer`s office.
Chicago is the second major housing market to participate in the program, said Willaim Tutt, financial manager for the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust. The program has already funded about $70 million in mortgages in St. Louis, he said.
Tutt said the trust has invested $130 million in Illinois in independent projects in the past, but was seeking to broaden participation with the Pro-Loan program.
