Banking might not strike most people as a calling, but for Joe Tomaceski, it’s exactly that. As the Residential Community Lending Manager at First Commonwealth Bank, he provides counsel, direction, and oversight to the entire mortgage team in order to serve the lending needs of low-to-moderate-income (LMI) borrowers and communities.
His speciality is making the seemingly impossible possible, guiding those who never thought they could own a home to achieve their dreams. Through First Commonwealth’s first-time homebuyer mortgage products and creative financing strategies, he has helped secure over 8 million dollars in grants and investments to help make homeownership not only affordable but also sustainable for hundreds of homeowners. In 2021, Tomaceski received the Black Excellence in Real Estate Award for his community banking work in the City of Pittsburgh, and he was named a Five Star Professional by his peers in 2021, 2022, and 2023. 92% of his production is either with LMI income borrowers or in LMI census tracts.
ELDI has had the honor of working with Joe on many projects over the years. He has been instrumental in our work at Enright Court where we are turning renting residents into homeowners, helping secure financing for Joan King, Tracey Hopkins, Kia Buchanan, and many others. His work demonstrates the role intentional, community banking can play in closing the racial wealth gap and increasing minority homeownership rates.
Learn more about Joe’s story and work in our Q&A below. He shares his unique approach to banking, what differentiates First Commonwealth’s mortgage products, and what it will take to increase affordable homeownership nationwide.
To start, can you tell us about your background and how you got into banking?
I started banking on November 4, 2004, so I’m going on 20 years in this profession. I didn’t see myself as a banker. Initially, I thought I would be in academia most of my life. I went to undergrad at Duquesne University and was a history and philosophy major. I was looking at PhD programs, but I was tired of being broke. My friend just got a job at US Bank, and the rest is history. I accepted a position there as a collector in their mortgage division, and at the time, I had no idea what a mortgage was or what a banker did. I grew to love it, because whether I was in collections or I was helping someone obtain a loan, it was always a way to help.
During Hurricane Katrina, I was talking to hurricane victims trying to help them save their house. I look at it from both sides; I help people in the best of times when they’re trying to purchase a home, but I also help them maintain that home and protect it after they purchase it. We’re here from start to finish, and that’s what I love about organizations like ELDI and the other partners we work with—there’s a support network that doesn’t end when the deal is closed. It’s not transactional; it’s a long-term relationship.
Do you find that approach to be common across banks, or do you think it is particular to where you are?
I do think it’s unique. To me, if you’re not out there telling the story, if you’re not working in the community, then you’re not really making an impact. It’s not just about doing the work; it’s about actually being present as well. This is truly a vocation, and that’s how I view it. But the thing is, not everyone’s willing to go to Homewood at 8 pm to get a closing disclosure signed or sit down with someone at their home to go through bank statements to make sure they have everything they need. I’m lucky because we have other partners like ELDI, Mary Hester of LifeVenture Buy Choice Homes, Catapult Greater Pittsburgh, and others. We will go together to someone’s house to get stuff done. I wish we had more individuals who were willing to do what it takes to help families from start to finish.
How do you work to close the racial wealth gap and help those who have historically been excluded from lending and homeownership opportunities?
Number one: we want to set someone up for success, and how we do that is very intentional. We don’t just want individuals to become homeowners — that could be a goal, but in and of itself, that’s not building wealth. That’s why we work to ensure that they have the best mortgage product for them—whether that’s a conventional loan, a loan from a government program, or one of our programs that we designed at First Commonwealth—it’s about finding the best product that suits them. We then work to find our borrowers down payment and closing cost assistance to help lower their monthly mortgage payment and minimize their out-of-pocket expenses.
What makes your programs at First Commonwealth unique?
At First Commonwealth, we’ve created a unique product that helps individuals who aren’t traditionally thought of as “mortgage-ready.” It’s a portfolio program called First at Home.
Here are a few things that make it different:
- Lower down payments: We require a 1% down payment. In comparison, the Federal Housing Administration requires 3.5% down, and a conventional loan usually requires 3-5% down.
- No mortgage insurance: The other thing is that we don’t require mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance doesn’t help the buyer; it helps the lender in case of default and is an added expense.
- No combined loan-to-value cap: For most mortgage products, there’s a limit to the amount of down payment and closing cost assistance you can attach to a particular unit. With our program, there is none. That means we have the ability to stack multiple grant programs—whether that’s funds from OwnPGH, ELDI, or the Housing Opportunity Fund, to name a few—on top of each other to help minimize the borrower’s out-of-pocket expenses. That will put them in a position where they have more money in their pocket after they close, which is vitally important to building generational wealth.
- We help buyers understand their debt-to-income ratio: To ensure someone can afford a house, not just at the time of closing, but in the future, we help them understand what their tax liability may be when the property gets reassessed after purchase. It’s about setting the proper expectations of, “Hey, your payments will increase by $150 because your taxes will most likely go up after closing.” By giving them that information, they can determine if they can still afford that home.
On top of that, we require all borrowers to participate in a homebuyer education program. That could be through Catapult Greater Pittsburgh, WAVE, NeighborWorks, and others, to make sure that we’re providing a good financial literacy and home-buying education background to these buyers.
Tracey Hopkins’ story is a great example of First Commonwealth’s mortgage product and partnership approach in action. She received $127,500 in grant funds—the most we’ve ever seen in a single transaction.
What was amazing about Tracy’s story is that ELDI took a price cut. They said, “Hey, we’re going to reduce that sales price in order to get this done.”
Indeed. The home was a part of our New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) affordable homeownership project, and our deal structure provided Hopkins with $80,0000 in subsidy.
It truly takes partnership amongst organizations to find the necessary resources to make this work. Homeownership is great—the statistics of what we’re able to accomplish are great—but when you just get down to that humanity and what this means for each and every family that becomes a homeowner, that’s truly why I love my job at the end of the day. I understand that for one family, and one family at a time, we’re able to help them build generational wealth. They will have a vehicle that’s going to fund their children’s or grandchildren’s education, that’s going to help pay for retirement, or whatever the case may be—they’re building wealth through homeownership. And for many families in this country wealth is built through homeownership.
What do you wish more people understood about this kind of community development work?
As a financial institution, part of my job is to help underserved communities and LMI borrowers. But without organizations that help build affordable housing stock, it’s impossible. I can pre-qualify every single prospective home buyer, but if they can’t find affordable, livable, secure homes, then we’re not going to be able to make a difference. That’s why we need more organizations to be the next ELDIs in a sense, to take what they have created and put that throughout the city, county, state, and nationwide. It’s finding a way to be able to make an impact through affordable homeownership. The amazing thing is that everyone is making this an initiative now, but ELDI was doing it before it was popular. And I think that’s the beautiful thing that ELDI’s Executive Director Maelene Myers has contributed—she’s inspired others to do that. Progress is being made, but slowly, and we need more and more individuals to pick up our path.