GJGNY Residential Financing – Interest Rate Changes

To: Residential Contractors
From: Residential Financing Team
Programs: EmPower+, Comfort Home, Residential Energy Assessment Program
Summary: GJGNY Residential Financing – Interest Rate Changes
Questions: [email protected]

Dear Participating Contractors:

NYSERDA will be making the following updates to the GJGNY Financing Program’s interest rates to support the program’s objectives of increasing efficiency, reducing cost, and making GJGNY residential loans more accessible to low-income households and disadvantaged communities.

   1) Change eligibility for the lower rates to only customers that meet the New York State Disadvantaged Community Criteria or reside in a US Census Block Group identified as where 50% or more of the population of the group has a household income of less than or equal to 80% Area Median Income (AMI) (“Designated Areas”). Customers living outside these Designated Areas, and who can provide household income documentation to show their household income is less than or equal to 80% AMI, would also be eligible for the lower rates. Customers not in a Designated Area or unable to show household income of lower or equal to 80% AMI would only be eligible for the higher interest rates. NYSERDA will update the web based geographic eligibility map to reflect this change. We anticipate this update to be completed by November 1, 2024.

   2) Recalibrate interest rates to better reflect market conditions. Interest rates for customers within a Designated Area or with household income of less than or equal to 80% AMI will increase from 3.99% to 4.5%, with the option of a 0.5% discount for Smart Energy Loans (SEL) when using automatic payments (ACH). Similarly, for customers outside of Designated Area or with household income greater than 80% AMI, interest rates will increase from 7.49% to 8.00%, with the option of a 0.5% discount for SEL when using ACH.

   3) Remove the 0.5% interest rate discount for On-Bill Recovery (OBR) loans. OBR loans have several fees associated with filing documents and title searches, which up until now had been paid by the Program. To date, the Program has incurred fee expenses of over $6.7 million. Removing the 0.5% discount will allow GJGNY to offset some of these expenses and fund additional loans.

These changes will come into effect on November 1, 2024, and will apply to all loan applications received on or after this date.

Thank you,

NYSERDA’s Residential Financing Team