The California Housing Finance Agency is back in the taxable bond market to fund a new single‑family program called My Access, agency finance staff told the board. The board received a capital markets update describing a March taxable bond sale that financed initial My Access loans and explained how the agency plans to hedge reservations and issue bonds regularly.

Erwin Tam, CalHFA director of financing, said the agency completed a $50 million taxable bond transaction in March — the agency’s first “new‑money” single‑family bond deal since about 2011 — to support first‑mortgage financing tied to the My Access down‑payment assistance product. Albert Luong (RBC) described investor demand as about 2x oversubscribed for the $50 million deal and said the average bond yield across maturities was roughly 5.5%.

Tam explained that single‑family mortgage rates are set daily and that CalHFA will collect reservations for My Access and then hedge and deliver financing on a date‑certain schedule, rather than carrying market risk from reservation to bond issuance. “We will hedge those reservations and then issue bonds,” he said, describing the program’s execution model as a way to take market risk off the agency.

Albert Luong said investors included institutional accounts and separately managed accounts, and that the transaction attracted interest because CalHFA was returning to the market. RBC and CalHFA also prepared a social‑bond framework for the issuance; Luong said the transaction received an S&P second‑party opinion and a small ESG‑designated order participated in the deal.

Rebecca Franklin, CalHFA chief deputy director, told the board My Access opened for reservations March 17 and that the agency had issued roughly $50 million of taxable bonds to fund initial activity. Franklin said early reservations are concentrated in inland regions of the state (Central Valley 29%, Inland Empire 22%, Capital Region 20%) and that the product also permits financing of HUD‑approved manufactured homes, though take‑up of those purchases had not materialized yet.

Board members asked for follow‑up data on borrower profiles, loan‑to‑value distributions and actual loan outcomes once reservations convert to closed loans. Franklin and staff said they will provide additional reporting after more reservations have closed into securitized loans.

Tam also warned the board that recent volatility in U.S. Treasury and municipal markets (including a Moody’s downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt in March) has increased market uncertainty; staff said Treasuries and tax‑exempt yields affect both the taxable bonds CalHFA uses for My Access and the agency’s multifamily tax‑exempt issuance.

CalHFA said its financial risk management policy allows hedging and a hedge reserve; staff plan to use treasury hedges tied to reservation volumes and to execute bond transactions several times per year aligned with hedges to limit exposure.

The board heard that the My Access bond issuance was a pilot intended to “prime the engine” for future single‑family issuance, and staff said scaling will depend on pipeline volume. Staff also said they will present more detailed outcome metrics later, including reservation conversion, borrower geographies and loan terms.