With housing prices continuing to skyrocket, many traditional buyers of starter homes have been frozen out of the Silicon Valley market.

Trying to bring a bit of relief to the situation, Housing Trust Silicon Valley is launching a program designed to help moderate and middle-income earners make down payments on houses. Bankrolled with $2 million of the Housing Trust’s own unrestricted funds, it is called the Homebuyer Empowerment Loan Program, or H.E.L.P.

“We have a big group of first-time homebuyers who are falling through the cracks,” said Adria Quinones-Masur, homeownership programs manager for the Housing Trust. “Maybe this kind of down payment assistance will help them get their foot in the door.”

For now, funds will be targeted at those looking to buy homes for up to $800,000 throughout Santa Clara County, as well as in East Palo Alto and Menlo Park in San Mateo County. If the program proves successful, the Housing Trust – which is a community development financial institution, basically a nonprofit bank – will likely try to expand its footprint.

To capture potential buyers who earn healthy salaries but still can’t get into the housing market, the San Jose-based Housing Trust will make loans to households earning up to 140 percent of the area median income. For a family of four in Santa Clara County, the median income is $113,300. Under H.E.L.P., a family of four could earn up to $158,620 and still be eligible for down payment assistance.

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“We’re hoping to help a lot of first-time homebuyers in the missing middle range,” Quinones-Masur said.

The program offers 30-year deferred loans covering up to 10 percent of the purchase price of a home. When the loan matures, the buyer pays back the principal loan amount plus a share of the home’s appreciation based on the percentage of the loan borrowed through H.E.L.P.

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The buyer can also pay off the loan early.

As an example, say a buyer pays $500,000 for a house and receives a H.E.L.P. loan for $50,000, or ten percent of the purchase price. If the buyer decides to pay back the loan after five years, he or she would return $50,000 to the Housing Trust along with ten percent of the home’s appreciation. If the house has gained $100,000 in value, then the buyer would pay an additional $10,000 to the Housing Trust, making a total payment of $60,000.

For 17 years, the Housing Trust has offered a variety of down payment assistance programs, though it hasn’t previously focused on the needs of buyers who earn more than 120 percent of the area median income. Once they get a foot in the door, many buyers find that their incomes grow along with their equity, Quinones-Masur said, and choose to pay back loans in three to five years.

Even with the Housing Trust’s assistance, buying a house in Silicon Valley is a challenge these days. The median sales price of a single-family home in Santa Clara County last month was $1,075,000, according to the CoreLogic real estate information service. In the first nine months of 2017, only 9 percent of homes sold in the county went for $500,000 or less.

Drawing on $950 million approved by voters last year in the “Measure A” housing bond, Santa Clara County is directing $25 million toward its own loan program to help first-time buyers with down payment assistance. Similarly, the Housing Trust figures it’s worth trying to put a dent in the affordability crisis.

“We think it’s an important thing to do,” said Julie Quinn, the nonprofit’s director of resource development. “It’s part of our mission, so we’re going to put out own money into it to get it off the ground. And if it proves successful, I will most likely be going out there to raise more money for it. We’re really excited to be servicing the moderate income up to the middle income market.”

To read about the program, go to http://www.housingtrustsv.org/help.