St Louis MO - In recognition of its innovative approaches in serving the hard-hit housing market, Missouri Housing Development Commission is the recipient of two awards for excellence, presented at the 39th annual conference of National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA).

The national conference was held in San Antonio, TX October 3 though October 6. Housing Finance Agencies from numerous states were in attendance to learn about the latest programs and trends in the affordable housing industry. The conference hosted ten program focus areas including communications, finance, governance, homeownership, human relations, information technology, legal, management innovation, rental and special needs housing.

NCSHA hosted an awards ceremony on October 5, where housing agencies were recognized for excellence in six categories.

In the category of Homeownership: Empowering New Buyers, MHDC won the excellence award for its Tax Credit Advance Loan (TCAL) program, which monetizes the first time homebuyer tax credit for use as down payment and closing costs. MHDC was the first housing organization to implement such a program, and it has subsequently been used by numerous other housing agencies.

MHDC’s submission entitled Innovative Private Placement Provides Capital for Homeownership Program During Critical Economic Times won in the category of Management Innovation: Financial. In 2008, MHDC partnered with Federal Home Loan Bank Des Moines to develop a private placement of taxable bonds for its homeownership program. The arrangement has proven to be an imperative capital resource that has financed the MHDC homeownership program during exceedingly difficult times in the capital market.

MHDC is an instrumentality of the state of Missouri, which constitutes a body corporate and politic. It is governed by a board of directors that includes the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state treasurer and six commissioners appointed by the governor. The commission makes funds available for rental housing developments, preservation of affordable rental housing, home mortgages, home improvement loans, grants to neighborhood housing groups and other housing programs. MHDC functions as a bank, providing financing directly to developers or through a network of private lending institutions.

The number of St. Louis-area properties at some point in the foreclosure process dropped more than 10 percent in 2009 compared with 2008, new data show.

A total of 19,465 properties, or one of every 63 homes, were in the foreclosure process in 2009, down from 21,645 in 2008, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac, an Irvine, California based online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

For December, 2009 St. Louis foreclosure filings dropped nearly 15 percent to 1,828.

The metro area examined includes the City of St. Louis and the surrounding 16 counties in Missouri and Illinois.

Nationwide, there were nearly 4 million foreclosure filings in 2009, a 21 percent increase from 2008.

Included in the counts are properties that received default notices, auction sale notices or were repossessed by the bank during the month.