For Sale: Affordable Housing for Teachers

By Michelle Galley

Teachers can now get home mortgages from Bank of America with no down payments. In Connecticut, they can borrow money to buy houses at below-market interest rates. And in many urban areas throughout the country, teachers can get deep discounts on federally owned houses through the Teacher Next Door program.

Helping teachers find affordable housing to buy or rent is becoming a popular incentive as teacher shortages and attrition continue to plague schools.

Whether such incentives have made a difference in attracting and retaining qualified teachers is unknown. "This is a relatively new phenomenon, so we don't have a whole lot of data on it," said Segun Eubanks, a teacher- recruitment specialist for...