The Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s newest mortgage program has served 255 first-time homebuyers and dispersed $8 million in down payment help its first year of operation.

“We are in one of the most challenging home purchase markets in decades,” MHP homeownership director Elliot Schmiedl said in a statement. “For too many prospective first-time homebuyers, getting the keys to their first home is only a dream, or they end up using every dime they have for a down payment. MHP is pleased to partner with lenders and organizations to deliver another innovative financing solution that’s putting homeownership within reach for hundreds of families who would otherwise be priced out of the market and putting them on the road to building generational wealth.”

The ONE+ Program provides a low-rate mortgage along with up to $50,000 in down payment assistance, closing costs support and interest rate buy-downs to low and moderate-income first-time homebuyers from one of 29 eligible Massachusetts communities – many of them the state’s traditionally working-class, industrial Gateway Cities.

The program launched in December 2024 with an infusion of money from the state and the Eastern Bank foundation. It builds on MHP’s existing ONE and ONE+Boston products, with the latter previously only available to Boston residents.

Researchers from Boston Indicators, the research center at the Boston Foundation, compiled data from the first 11 months of the statewide ONE+ program, along with interviews with program participants, to evaluate the program the program for a report released Thursday.

Researchers found borrowers using ONE+ had an average credit score of 733, and used the program to buy homes at an average purchase price of $433,725. Program participants purchased a mix of condominiums, single-family homes and small multifamily properties for their primary residences.

The participating households through October 2025 had incomes below their area’s median income for their household size, the report found, with 44 percent earning below 80 percent of the area median income. Additionally, a majority of those taking part in the program identified as Latino or Hispanic.

While the largest number of program homebuyers purchased their new homes in cities like Springfield, New Bedford, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, and Fall River, ONE+ homebuyers found new homes in over 60 communities across Massachusetts.

Twenty-three lenders from across Massachusetts have participated in the ONE+ program to date, including: one mortgage company, two credit unions and 20 banks.

“Homeownership is a gamechanger for creating a pathway to a thriving life, and we are proud to see the ONE+ Mortgage Program and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership making meaningful inroads for first-time homebuyers across Gateway Cities like Lynn, Lawrence and Lowell,” Turahn Dorsey, president and CEO of the Eastern Bank Foundation, said in a statement. “We need to take a regional approach to successfully close historical wealth gaps.”