Contact: Lauren Slagter, [email protected]734-929-8027
Detroit – The 2017 Detroit Home Loss Prevention and Homeownership Acceleration Program helped 85% of participants retain home ownership for four years. New Rating by the University of Michigan.
The analysis also provides recommendations for maintaining home ownership for low-income households. Owners may begin to realize the wealth building benefits and other benefits of home ownership after at least five years of ownership.
Since its inception, the Make It Home program has helped nearly 1,200 Detroit families avoid homelessness by providing them with the opportunity to purchase a place to live. People who participated in this program lived in properties where tax foreclosures occurred. That is, the property owner has not paid property taxes for at least three years.
The UM analysis focused on the first year of program implementation when the City of Detroit used its first veto to help 80 Detroit renters buy homes. The City of Detroit used donations from the Rocket Community Fund (formerly Quicken Loans Community Fund) to purchase tax-foreclosed homes from the Wayne County Treasurer and donate them to the United Community Housing Coalition (UCHC). Transferred.
UCHC then sold the property to tenants with a surrender deed or 0% interest land contract that allowed for monthly payments on the home ownership in lieu of mortgages.
Related: New Land Contract Buyers Guide Helps Detroit on Path to Homeownership
By the end of the program’s first year, 81% of the original 80 Make It Home participants either outright owned a home or continued to hold a land contract. Four years after the 2017 property tax foreclosure, Make It Home brought sustainable home ownership to 85% of participants. The first group of Make It Home participants had a median household size of 3, and 89% of participants had an annual income less than her $37,080.
“The Make It Home program was set with two main goals: to prevent tenants from losing their homes in the landlord tax foreclosure crisis and to help them retain their home ownership. Our evaluation found that the program achieved these goals for 85% of the initial group of participants,” said Emeritus Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at UM and co-evaluator of the Make It Home program. Author Margaret Dewar says:
To compare the results of Make It Home participants, the researchers also examined the results of 154 households with similar characteristics that UCHC sought to help purchase at the 2017 county tax auction. Only 27.2% of that group remained homeowners after four years. This included a majority of her 34 households that UCHC helped secure homes through auctions, as well as households that got their homes back without UCHC’s assistance.
Of the 154 households UCHC attempted to help outside of the Make It Home program, 109 sold their homes at auction and 15% of those tenants experienced eviction within the next four years.
“The most precarious were tenants who had no avenues to own their own homes. Rating for Make It Home.
Related: 9 out of 10 Detroit evictions filed during the pandemic were by landlords who didn’t comply with rental agreements
Still, some households who purchased a home through the Make It Home program sold their homes less than four years after owning them.
“Some say they sold their home because it was failing their health because they couldn’t keep up with repairs and it wasn’t well maintained. I sold it because I was harassed to sell my home.The instability of housing exacerbates the stress of navigating these life crises,” Dewar said.
Researchers found that even homeowners who sold their homes within four years said they were happy with the purchase and wanted to keep living despite the challenges they faced.
Nevertheless, many factors threatened their continued home ownership. More than 30% of his Make It Home buyers faced imminent foreclosure for failing to pay their property taxes. There were several empty houses. Owners cited poor housing conditions, high housing-related costs, and lost income during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Related: UM Study of Detroit’s Make It Home Repair Program Links Home Repair and Home Stability
The policy brief recommends ways to maintain low-income homeownership rates.
- Providing pre-purchase homeowner education and financial counseling to help people build the financial security they need to buy and continue to own a home.
- Inspect homes prior to purchase so prospective customers have a clear understanding of the extent of repairs required.
- Increase awareness and access to home insurance because land contracts do not require buyers to have home insurance and out-of-pocket repair costs can be high.
- Large scale for people who are unable to obtain a traditional home repair loan or equity line of credit due to a low credit score, lack of equity in the property, or lack of disposable income to pay off the loan. provide financial assistance for home repairs.When
- Make available post-purchase support, such as utility payment plans and property tax relief, to address ongoing housing costs and prevent home loss.
“Additional support services help homeowners reap the benefits of long-term homeownership. Helping them enroll in programs that reduce property taxes is essential,” said Mehdipanah. “Long-term monitoring of initiatives like the Make It Home program provides new insights into the challenges homeowners face and the types of support that make a difference.”