Trust’s goal: Affordable housing
Group has three townhouses for sale, more homes coming on south end of town
A lack of affordable housing on the Palouse exists, and the Moscow Affordable Housing Trust is working to lessen the sting for potential homeowners by building new, affordable homes for “Moscow’s workforce,” said the trust’s executive director, Nils Peterson.
Three new townhouses priced at $159,000 each are on the market, and Peterson said two more homes will be built this year on a 1.2-acre piece of land.
The townhouses, which share common walls, are at 334, 336 and 338 Southview Ave., Moscow, north of The Grove apartments. The 1.2-acre plat is on the northeast corner of East Palouse River Drive and Nursery Street, east of The Grove.
Peterson said the townhouses were built using the Community Land Trust model.
A Community Land Trust attempts to create permanent affordability by owning the land and only selling the improvements, which is the house, according to moscowhousingtrust.org. In the case of the three new Moscow Affordable Housing Trust residences, the trust owns the land and will sell the homes to buyers.
A ground lease is provided to the owner of the house at a nominal cost, the website said.
As a result, the price of the house is reduced by the value of the land, which in Moscow, could be $40,000 or more, it said. When houses sell, the sales price is governed by a resale formula, so the value of the land is not rolled into the sale. Therefore, the house remains affordable.
An open house is set for 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the townhouses and a series of meetings intended to educate the public on the Community Land Trust model is Tuesday in the Arts Workshop at the 1912 Center in Moscow. Realtors and lenders are invited to the 9-10 a.m. meeting and the public is invited to the 4-5:30 p.m. session. Members of the Northwest Community Land Trust Coalition will present Tuesday.
Moscow Affordable Housing Trust Treasurer Steve Bonnar said reducing the price of its homes, which Peterson said the townhouses are about $50,000 below market value, will allow buyers to have a better opportunity to afford them and not be hindered by their debts.
“It shows the model that (the trust) is doing fits the need of the community, and therefore, supports more affordable housing for those households at about 80 percent poverty level,” Bonnar said.
Peterson said the trust purchased the land the townhouses were built on with accumulated cash reserves. The trust used a bank loan to purchase the 1.2-acre parcel, which holds 17 lots. It has the funding to build the first two houses on the land this year, Peterson said, and the homes will be for sale next year, according to the trust’s website.
Peterson said the housing trust acquired the Southview Avenue and Nursery Street properties because of their prices and the assumption that SMART Transit would eventually add a third route that would pass through that section of town.
The public bus system in Moscow will add a third fixed route this fall on the southeast side of Moscow if the federal grant money applied for by the system is approved.
Peterson said having public transit available for those who purchase Moscow Affordable Housing Trust homes will help defray their transportation costs.
The mission of the trust “is to create and preserve safe, inclusive, and affordable housing opportunities in keeping with the character of the community,” and Peterson said the current focus is creating home ownership opportunities for people who earn in the high $30,000s to about $50,000 per year.
“I think of them as my friends and neighbors,” Peterson said. “It’s Moscow’s workforce.”
He said those income earners can typically get a bank loan but they find that they cannot buy a home because prices are too high.
“They’ve gotten out of reach for that income bracket,” Peterson said. “So the challenge is to get the price back down again by this subsidy mechanism.”
The trust, which was formed in 2009, has sold three Moscow single-family homes since 2015. A rehabilitated Valerie Court home, east of Moscow, sold for $143,000 in 2015; a new Morton Street home sold for $165,000 in 2017, and a rehabilitated Public Avenue home sold for $185,000 in 2019.
Garrett Cabeza can be reached at (208) 883-4631, or by email to gcabeza@dnews.com.
