News
New homes for low-income buyers may be available in Athens sometime this fall
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — The city of Athens expects to start selling eight new homes to low-income buyers sometime this fall.
There is little new home construction in Athens. Very few existing homes for sale list for under $200,000. Those that do often are operating as rentals or are in need of significant repairs.
The new homes on Hudson will cost $260,000 to develop. The city is able to sell them for $80,000 less than that because of a $2 million grant it received from the state’s Welcome Home Ohio program.
The program imposes strict restrictions to make sure the homes go to low-income buyers.
A household of one person cannot have annual income above $46,100; for two people, the income limit is $52,700; for three, it’s $59,300; and for four, it’s $65,850. Additional income limits apply for households up to eight people.
Also, after the first purchase, the homes can only be sold to low-income buyers for the next 20 years. The initial buyers must own the homes for at least five years before they can sell.
The homes will be built on land the city owns where Hudson dead ends and an adjoining lot the city is buying from the Red Cross. That purchase is in the final stages.
Because that neighborhood is in a federally designated flood plain, the home sites must be built up with five feet of fill dirt, or the homes could be placed on top of their garages, said Joe Recchie, chief executive officer of Praxia Partners, the developer working with the city on the Welcome Home project.
The homes will be built by Unibilt at its factory near Dayton and then trucked to the sites, where they will be lifted onto foundations that also will be constructed offsite to precise specifications that match the homes, Recchie said.
Decisions are still being finalized on the homes, but Athens is looking at three-bedroom, two-bath models. The homes may be a combination of two-story and one-story units to accommodate buyers with mobility issues. Some homes may be separate and others attached as a duplex.
Praxia will handle the site development and get the homes in place. The city will then buy the homes from Praxia for $260,000 and get reimbursed from the grant funds, and then sell the homes to the buyers.
Because the buyers will be paying so much less than the actual cost of the home, they will start with considerable equity, presumably at least $80,000, which means they won’t have to make a downpayment or pay for mortgage insurance, Recchie said.
The city could have opted to make the homes even more affordable — $180,000 is the maximum sale price allowed under the grant program. But the city wants to use the money it makes on the sale of the homes to build more low-income housing, including senior housing, possibly along Dairy Lane near The Ridges.
“The greater discount we give to the homebuyer, the less homes we’re able to build in the long run,” said Meghan Jennings, the city’s planner. “And so, especially in our current market, I think we want to make the most impact that we can with these funds, and in our market, a home at 180 that’s brand new and in good shape is rare.”
Given how little housing is available at this price, the city could find itself with far more interested buyers than homes and will have to figure out how to choose the lucky eight. Jennings said no decision has been made yet about how to do this, but it could just come down to first come, first served.