Program aims to boost homeownership in Lansing

Domsic, Melissa
Lansing State Journal
12:57 AM, Jul. 8, 2011.

Jeffrey and Estelle Wilbourn are tired of renting their apartment and want to become homeowners.

"We're paying rent and every year the prices go up," said Jeffrey Wilbourn, 52, of Lansing.

But coming up with a down payment is tough and many houses on the market require a lot of work.

That's why they're so interested in a new home at 5219 Hughes Road with vaulted ceilings, a modern kitchen and polished cement floors.

The Ingham County Land Bank used roughly $200,000 in federal funds to demolish a foreclosed home on the south Lansing property and rebuild an energy efficient 1,232-square-foot abode.

The Land Bank is selling the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for $100,000 under a new program that offers down payment assistance and affordable mortgages to prospective home-owners with certain income limits.

The home is one of 25 throughout the city the Land Bank hopes to sell this year as part of the Home-ownership and Neighborhood Development, or HAND initiative, a coalition of local government, nonprofit and business leaders.

In January 2010, Lansing received $17.4 million through the federal government's Neighborhood Stabilization Program. It received $6 million in 2009.

The city and Land Bank are rehabilitating some of the foreclosed or abandoned homes. They are demolishing others and building new houses in their places in an effort to reduce blight and improve property values in the neighborhoods.

"The fact that these houses are going to have paying taxpayers in them, which will be giving back to the neighborhoods, using the local grocery stores and dry cleaners," said Cheryl Risner, director of the Lansing Neighborhood Council. "It will make a big impact all around."

One-person households earning less than $58,700 - or $83,900 for a four-person household - can qualify for the program

Some of the homes are reserved for households that earn even less - $24,450 for one person or $34,950 for a family of four.

Prices range from $45,000 to $125,000. Down payment assistance can range from $5,000 to as much as half the purchase price to cover closing costs and bring down mortgage payments.

There's also counseling available for first-time home-owners.

"With the opportunities available here, everyone stands a chance of becoming a homeowner in this great city of Lansing," said Joan Jackson Johnson, the city's human relations director.