IHT HOAP:
Home Ownership Assistance Program

The Home Ownership Assistance Program was established in 2010 in an effort to meet a demand among IHT’s clients for a program that offered assistance in the purchase of an existing residential property on Mount Desert Island that would become their year-round home and would otherwise be unaffordable to them without IHT. Viewed by the Island Housing Trust Board of Directors as a form of “infill,” HOAP (pronounced “hope”) provides an opportunity to negotiate a willing seller-willing buyer agreement for the purchase of a year-round residential property in any of the four MDI towns.  A working family can apply for IHT assistance in making a down payment, often the only hurdle to purchasing a house that would otherwise be affordable. In return, the approved applicant agrees to IHT’s affordability covenants, which keep the property affordable to future working families and individuals.