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Program aids home sellers affected by base closings

Listen up. Here’s the situation: You bought that great house near your current duty station several years ago, hoping to serve a couple of tours there. The housing market was booming, and you figured you might come out ahead even if you were only there for a few years.

Then the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission list was announced, and your base was on it. Not only will you have to sell your house, but so will a lot of other people. What does that do to your housing market? Will you get enough from the sale to pay off the mortgage balance?

If you are lucky, the answer is yes.

But if you do take a loss, you need to apply for the Homeowners Assistance Program, which can help federal workers, both military and civilian, including Coast Guard, who face losses on the sale of their primary residence because of the closing or pending closing of all or part of a military installation. The program will reimburse homeowners who qualify for up to 95 percent of the prior fair market value if they have to sell at a loss.

Since 1988, the program has approved more than 50 communities and helped more than 17,600 homeowners, program manager Don Chapman said.

The key is that the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the program for the Defense Department and Coast Guard, must determine that real estate prices in the area have dropped as a direct result of a BRAC announcement.

Officials are monitoring some areas of the country that they think may qualify: Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi Army Depot and Naval Station Ingleside, Texas; Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine; Umatilla Army Depot, Ore.; Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D.; Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska; and some Army communities in Germany affected by the repositioning of forces. Officials are watching other areas, but do not anticipate that they will qualify.

People on overseas tours who are affected by base closings, who transferred within three years prior to the announcement of changes and who are homeowners may qualify for the program with some limitations, too. Chapman said no one has yet applied for assistance related to the 2005 BRAC round, but officials have had phone calls from some homeowners.

Here’s what the program can do for you, if your area qualifies:

•Reimburse you for part of your loss from selling your home (up to 95 percent of the fair market value of the home prior to the BRAC announcement).

•Help you if you don’t make enough from the sale of your home and don’t have enough personal funds to pay off the mortgage. It will go to settlement with you.

For example, let’s say you had a mortgage for $100,000 and sold your house for $75,000. The program will reimburse you $20,000 and provide the check at the settlement table to help pay off the mortgage. The $20,000 plus the $75,000 equals $95,000, which is 95 percent of the fair market value. If you’ve paid down more on the mortgage, you can pocket the difference.

•Buy your home by paying off the mortgage (except overseas locations). The government can pay the existing mortgage balance at the time of the announcement or 75 percent of the prior fair market value, whichever is higher.

•Help you if you default on your mortgage.

You must own and occupy the home at the time of the BRAC announcement to qualify.

If you think you may be affected when you try to sell your home, Chapman has some advice:

•“Go ahead and apply [for the program] before you put your house on the market,” he said. “There is a lot of information you have to collect. We can get you in the system, then contact you when things change.”

•When you have an idea of when you will be leaving the area, put your house on the market as soon as you can. A key part of the process is your effort to sell your house privately at the best possible price. You have to have your house on the market for a certain length of time, and you may have to drop the price a number of times to sell it.

The process takes years in some cases, so you may qualify after leaving the area, and HAP officials want to be able to reach you. It took several years for the effects of an earlier BRAC round to surface at Fort Devens, Mass., Chapman said, because of a general downturn in housing prices in the region.

It took 11 years at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where 3,000 people lost their jobs. “By the time it went through, we had four applicants” out of possibly 300 people who may have qualified, Chapman said.

For more information, call toll-free (888) DODHAP1 [363-4271] or go online to http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/hap. The application is available online. You can also send an e-mail to dodhap1@usace.army.mil.

Officials are working on updating the Web site and will include a link to properties available for sale that have been acquired by the government through the HAP program.

Chapman said no properties are there now, but you might find a bargain in the future.

Got that? You’re good to go.