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By Rob Daniel
Iowa City Press-Citizen
The Iowa City Area Association of Realtors and its partners have high hopes for the new home they are planning in southeastern Iowa City.
The home, located in the Sandhill Estates area, will be energy efficient. It also will have a “universal design” that will allow someone to live there no matter what stage in life they are in or any disability they may have.
That home will be built using a $175,000 grant from the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County, who presented the check to the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors this afternoon at the Quality Inn and Highlander Conference Center. The check presentation, part of the association’s membership lunch, is part of a drive to promote more home ownership, said Andy Johnson, executive director of the Housing Trust Fund.
“It’s really the financing that makes it work,” Johnson said, referring to the sale of the home by the Iowa City Housing Authority, one of the Realtors’ partners in the project. “It’s not a giveaway.”
With the $175,000, Southgate Development, which owns the Sandhill Estates development, will build the home. The Iowa City Housing Authority then will find a buyer, who must meet eligibility criteria including having an income level at or below 80 percent of the area median income of about $72,000 for a family of four. The buyer also must pass a homeowner mortgage certification course.
The collaboration between the different groups, which also included MidWestOne Bank, the University of Iowa College of Law clinical law program, and the Extend the Dream Foundation, helped win the Housing Trust Fund grant, said Bob Dvorsky, a state senator and president of the fund’s board of directors. He said the cooperation among the groups and the sale of the home will allow it to continue.
“It’s not a one-time thing,” he said. “We hope to continue this.”
Groundbreaking for the new home likely will occur in November, said Kim Ryan, president of the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors. The owner will be chosen during the winter, and will be able to move in June, after the home is featured in the 2009 Parade of Homes, she said. |
