In February 2014, President Obama signed the Agricultural Act of 2014 (the Farm Bill), to protect more than 900 communities that were at risk of losing access to federal rural housing programs. Many of these communities are protected through 2020; however, some communities will fall out of eligibility starting on February 2, 2015 if:

  1. the area was eligible prior to Oct. 1, 1990, or deemed to be eligible between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2010 AND the population exceeds 35,000 per the 2010 decennial census, or
  2. the area has been annexed into a larger ineligible area and has become part of the larger Census Data Place.

Some state REALTOR® associations expressed concerns about communities falling out of eligibility based solely on a third criteria of "rural in character." Rural housing directors in each state have the discretion to determine whether a community is "rural in character." Due to concerns by REALTOR® members about the subjective nature of these determinations, USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack issued a letter suspending work on determinations and any designations that would make a place ineligible based solely on "rural in character" criteria. Communities that were slated for ineligibility on February 2, 2015 due to “rural in character" criteria will be reinstated as eligible through Sept. 30, 2015; however, if your community now falls above the population threshold or has become part of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), it may still be deemed ineligible by your state.

RHS provides a property eligibility site where the public can look up any community in the US to determine eligibility.

Property Eligibility Site

Letter from Secretary Vilsack to Senatory Pryorpdf

Rural Development Notice on Eligibilitypdf

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