Long Island Housing Partnership visits Stony Brook Southampton

Dedicated to helping local people buy local homes, the Long Island Housing Partnership is reaching out to area institutions and businesses to educate people about the pitfalls, and benefits, of the troubled real estate and mortgage markets.

On Wednesday, October 1, LIHP Executive Vice President Diana Weir visited Stony Brook Southampton to explain some of her organization’s programs and advise students about preventing foreclosure, but because of a scheduling error—classes were closed for Rosh Hashanah—no students attended the seminar. Despite the setback, Ms. Weir sat down with library Operations Manager Steve Berbig, shared details about LIHP programs and discussed the potential for future collaboration with the university.

“We’re holding our values,” she said, noting that Long Island homes are never going to be as affordable as homes in less desirable areas. “We went from $450,000 to $415,000,” she added, describing a somewhat insignificant drop in the average price of a home on Long Island, though most East End homes cost more. And building new affordable homes is difficult here because “there’s no more land.”

Despite land issues and the fact that home prices have not seen significant decreases in the region, Ms. Weir said the costs are down, interest rates are low and “now is the best time to buy.”

Ms. Weir said LIHP has created several programs to help ease the financial pressures on first-time home buyers, including free mortgage counseling and home buyer education, employer assisted housing benefits and default and foreclosure prevention counseling. “The foreclosure counseling is a big thing,” she noted, explaining that the program helps home owners facing default as well as ensuring that new home buyers don’t spend outside their means. “If you’re going to buy a house, come in for counseling,” Ms. Weir urged, pointing out that LIHP brings information that isn’t typically taught in school.

When called, counselors will drive to local municipalities and meet potential home owners, guide them through the buying and mortgage processes and assess what they can realistically afford, Ms. Weir said. She said the meetings usually occur in a municipal office and counselors will pull a home buyers’ credit report and review that person or couple’s income, bills and credit history.

“We go through your whole financial picture and talk it out,” Ms. Weir added, stressing again that everything LIHP offers is completely free. On both the North and South forks and Riverhead, the program is funded through a $100,000 grant from Citibank and LIHP is already working with the Village of Sag Harbor, which will make its offices available for residents to meet counselors.

Mr. Berbig said he requested that Ms. Weir visit Stony Brook shortly after LIHP asked to put up posters advertising its programs this spring, and since then both the school and LIHP has considered how they can benefit one another. Ms. Weir said her organization is encouraging Stony Brook to participate in the Employer Assisted Housing Program, which aims to recruit and retain a skilled workforce on Long Island by helping them purchase homes. The program does this by requiring participating employers to provide a benefit contribution to help employees buy homes.

According to literature Ms. Weir left at the Stony Brook Southampton library on Wednesday, the Employer Assisted Housing Program can improve employee retention, reduce training and recruitment costs, stabilize the business’ workforce and “increase your competitive edge.” Ms. Weir said the Southampton Hospital is already on board with the program and “We already have two people who have bought homes.” She said the hospital joined immediately and noted that it makes sense because nurses, for example, are in high demand and can go anywhere.

Ms. Weir pointed out that young doctors don’t make a lot of money at first and they often get “sticker shock” when looking at homes on the East End. Employees of the college face similar problems, and while Stony Brook is a state school, the LIHP executive vice president said it could be funded through the Stony Brook Foundation, rather than taxpayer money.

There are currently about 400 students enrolled at Stony Brook Southampton, according to Mr. Berbig, who said LIHP’s counseling is “something that’s needed” on campus.