The Preferred Interest Rate Loan Program is designed to provide: Financing for eligible homebuyers to purchase, or purchase and rehabilitate, a home; Refinancing to eligible homeowners who, because of certain exceptional adverse personal or economic circumstances, can no longer make the full mortgage payments on their homes and would otherwise have to forfeit title to their homes; and Short-term loans to nonprofit organizations and local governments for the acquisition and construction, acquisition and rehabilitation together with demolition or lot consolidation, or acquisition and rehabilitation, of residential units affordable for purchase by households of limited income. Programs Operating Under the Maryland Home Financing Program. The Program is one of four loan programs operated under the Maryland Home Financing Program as authorized by Housing and Community Development Article, Title 4, Subtitle 8, Annotated Code of Maryland. Other loan programs operating under the Maryland Home Financing Program include programs for making: Emergency mortgage assistance loans to certain households of limited income, who because of involuntary loss of income due to unemployment or other extraordinary hardship are unable to make current mortgage payments on their homes and are likely to forfeit title to their homes, as described in COMAR 05.03.03, as amended from time to time; Short-term construction loans to developers for the construction of or rehabilitation of residential units affordable to certain households of limited income; and Reverse equity mortgage loans to elderly households of limited income for housing-related expenses and personal expenses which enable the owner to continue to occupy the owner's home, as described in COMAR 05.03.05.