National Community Stabilization Trust president Craig Nickerson said, “You can’t be successful in neighborhood stabilization unless you control all the pieces on the chess board.” And with the latest program participated by major mortgage lenders, state and local governments will get a bigger chance to control the chess pieces.

Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the First look program, which will allow communities to look at foreclosed properties 48 hours before they go on the market. The same program will also let communities buy these properties at 1% discount. This gives them an edge over speculators who have thwarted redevelopment efforts from the local governments.

First Look will go hand-in-hand with the two year old Neighborhood Stabilization Program. With $7 billion to its name, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program was supposed to speed up the sale of bank-owned homes; but in July, more than $1 billion remains unspent due to short staffing and confusion over the rules. First Look will help rectify this.

When the Neighborhood Stabilization Program was authorized by Congress, lenders wouldn’t deal foreclosed properties to local governments. This gave private companies an advantage as they move faster, especially in highly visible areas.

With a commitment from top mortgage lenders – like Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Freddie Mac – 75% of foreclosed homes will now be available to communities before they officially go on sale. Not all foreclosed properties, though, will be offered.

This First Look program may be good news to some but not all are too happy: some communities involved during the first round of funding are now just days away from writing contracts or they will be losing their federal funding. Around 143 communities have only a few more weeks to spend their funds or else Department of Housing and Urban Development will freeze their unused funds – a total of $354 million nationally – and take the money back.