This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's series on solutions to affordable housing and housing the unhoused. It is made possible by a coalition of buyers funders including Kalamazoo County, the city of Kalamazoo, the ENNA Foundation, and the Kalamazoo County Land Bank. 

KALAMAZOO, MI — So who wants to buy a house? How about a new two-story, three-bedroom house with two bathrooms and a two-car garage?

It will be energy efficient, with modern amenities and about 1,700 square feet of living space. Realizing the need to help people of limited means find good housing, it will also be affordable. The mortgage rate for a qualified buyer will be adjusted based on his or her income.

Where do you sign up? And how can you be first in line?

Those are questions that the Northside Association for Community Development is considering as it prepares to take offers on four such houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street.

The houses, which were finished last spring, are to be sold on a first-come first-served basis, NACD Executive Director Elizabeth Washington told about 30 people who gathered on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, for a meeting of the association’s board of directors. 

Al JonesExecutive Director Elizabeth Washington talks about four newly built Ransom Street houses during the Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 meeting of the Northside Association for Community Development.Part of the meeting served as the first of two informational sessions for those interested in purchasing one of the houses. The second session is to take place at 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 23, at NACD's 612 N. Park St. location.

“It’s on a first-come-first-served basis,” said Reality Rojas, director of operations for NACD. “So whoever meets all the requirements first, in terms of their offer, will be the first to proceed to have their offer accepted.”

Establishing a workable and fair process for eager buyers is surfacing as a concern based on reactions to the informational session.

“If you get a bunch of individuals requesting to purchase those homes in a short time frame, how are you determining who’s going to be the first one?” asked Northside resident Stephany Vallar. She said she knows people who are interested in buying one of the houses.

Washington said prospective homeowners must be first-time home-buyers, pre-approved by a mortgage lender, represented by a Realtor, and a participant in one of three home-buying workshops conducted at NACD.

Those sessions are to be conducted by Marissa Harrington, a Realtor with the Keller Williams firm. She is serving as the real estate agent for the NACD homes. 

The workshops are scheduled for: 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 3; 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 4; and 11 a.m. on Dec. 7. Each will be at NACD.

Al JonesStephanie Vallar was among about 30 people who attended the Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 NACD meeting to get information about four newly built houses on West Ransom Street.Washington said that no offer on the homes would be accepted until Dec. 8 — after the final homebuyer workshop. And she said another step may be added to the home-buying process after more than one person asked how they could discern whose bid was received first.

“You could potentially have 10 to 15 people who are already pipelined with their (pre-approval) letters, with their real estate agents, who can submit to you in mass quantities (of bids) for those homes,” Vallar said.

So the idea of first-come first-served really doesn’t work, she suggested.

Harrington said, “We have talked for months about how to make this fair and equitable. That’s the goal.” She said that unlike traditional home sales, in which the seller is trying to get the highest amount he or she can, that is not NACD’s focus.

“We don’t care,” she said about that. “It’s literally first-come first-served because of the fact that there is a process that goes into making sure that you are pre-approved to buy a house. And that takes time.”

Al JonesLenora Williams, in striped shirt, was among about 30 people who attended the Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 NACD meeting to get information about four newly built houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street.She and Washington said people need to appreciate that this is the first time the association is attempting such a sale of homes with income restrictions and other hurdles. So some things still have to be sorted out. Washington said the questions posed at the informational meetings will inform some decision-making.

NACD has said the Ransom Street houses were built at a total cost of about $1.3 million, including site excavation, and other costs.

Former NACD Executive Director Mattie Jordan-Woods asked how the value of the houses was set. She says they are priced too low. Two of the four houses are set to be priced at $120,000 each. They are to be sold to families whose income is between 60 and 80 percent of Kalamazoo County’s Area Median Income (AMI is considered a mid-point for all incomes in the area). Another is to be priced at $200,000. It can be sold at full market value.

To satisfy the requirements for funding that NACD received, the fourth house has to be sold to an individual or family whose annual earnings are 30 percent of AMI. But its price has not yet been set.

Al JonesAbout 30 people attended on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024 the first of two informational sessions for those interested in purchasing one of four newly built houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street.According to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, 30 percent of AMI for a four-person household in Kalamazoo County was about $27,750. Thirty percent of AMI for a one-person household was $18,200. Eighty percent of AMI for a four-person household was $69,250. Eighty percent of AMI for a one-person household was $48,500.

Jordan-Woods said the NACD board has the authority to set the selling prices. And she said, “We are doing our neighborhood a disservice to allow someone to say those houses' (prices) are that low.”

“To allow someone to come into our community and say a $428,000 house is only worth $120,000 is a disservice to us,” Jordan-Woods said. She said that does not help increase the value of housing in the neighborhood.

Built by Adam Garland Construction, the bulk of the construction work on the four houses was done late last year with additional interior and exterior finishes were done this past spring.

Extensive infrastructure work was done on Ransom Street by the city this past summer, making the houses nearly inaccessible by car for weeks. Each was built on formerly vacant lots purchased by NACD in 2019.

Of the bidding process, Northside resident Vallar said, “My thoughts are they need to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. No one thought out this plan clearly. You can’t say (you'll take) the first offer you receive because you can receive an abundance of offers at once.”

Al JonesFour newly built houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street are soon to be sold by the Northside Association for Community Development.Rojas said, “We can’t cherry-pick who gets it and who doesn’t. If you meet all of the requirements, you meet the AMI qualifications, your offer hits the mark that it needs to hit, then we accept that offer that came in first.”

Lenora Williams, an Eastside Neighborhood resident who is looking to buy a house, said she is already pre-approved for a loan and already has a Realtor.

“What I come away with is I need to attend this workshop on Dec. 3,” she said.

Al JonesHere is a peek inside one of the four newly built houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street in Kalamazoo’s Northside Neighborhood.
Al JonesFour newly built houses in the 400 block of West Ransom Street are soon to be sold by the Northside Association for Community Development.