Habitat For Humanity Is Building Affordable Homes In The Capital Region

Housing has gotten ridiculously expensive over the past few years. The average home price has jumped over $240,000 since the turn of the century, and it seems it's only getting worse.

Read More: New York State Park Expansion To Offer Stunning New Hikes In HV

Well, a New York organization understands this, and they're doing everything they can to bring affordable housing back to the Capital Region...

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The Rural Starter Home Initiative

You've probably heard of Habitat for Humanity before. It's one of the largest philanthropic organizations on earth, working tirelessly to bring housing to places that lack it, and their efforts are headed to Upstate New York.

The Columbia-Greene chapter has just begun their "Rural Starter Home Initiative", which aims to bring quality, low cost, energy efficient and replicable starter homes to the community for lower income residents, who may not have the funds to pay for a brand new home.

What to Know

As stated before, the homes are meant to be as efficient as possible. The house is all electric, and built with eco-friendly building materials to ensure that energy use is around 1/3 of a standard home.

If you're interested in becoming a homeowner through this program, there are three simple criteria you need to follow:

• Must have a demonstrated need for housing.
• The ability to pay an affordable 3rd party mortgage and the living expenses that are associated with homeownership (property taxes, homeowner insurance and utilities)
• A willingness to partner with Habitat in the fulfillment of all required responsibilities and in the performance of “sweat equity” volunteer work that includes helping to build your home and other Habitat homes.