Affordable homeownership is a lottery system in Boston

In a Boston Globe blog piece, Megan Johnson writes about the experience of the affordable homeownership lottery process in Greater Boston. She writes of her own experience trying to purchase a condo as a single self-employed person as well as that of Youssef Haijjia, a married father trying to find a place large enough for his family.There is a finite number of affordable ownership units in the Boston area - some are mixed in with market rate condos and some are all-affordable developments. The demand for these units is so high that there is a lottery system in place. Applicants have to repeatedly apply and submit documentation to show that they still qualify. A raise can put the applicant over the income limit and a cut in hours can put them under the income range. Unlike income-restricted apartments, however, the owners are not then evaluated for income-eligibility, meaning that as long as the applicants qualify at the time of the loan funding, they can go on to earn market-rate incomes.Not addressed in Johnson's piece is that although the owners get all the burdens of homeownership - like the broken washing machine that flooded her and a neighbor's unit in the first few weeks of her condo owning journey - they don't enjoy one of the great benefits - normal accrual of equity as the home increases in value.Affordable ownership units come with an agreement that maintains permanent affordability and any equity that the same unit would accrue on the open market is shared between the non-profit developer/manager of the unit and the owner. Owners in affordable programs can see a profit when they sell their home, but it is far less than a non-restricted unit. The wealth-building aspect of shared equity programs tends to come more from paying down the mortgage rather than from gaining from the house's increase in market value.  Of course, the owners don't have to sell it; they can live in the home for their lives and may will it to their heirs upon death.