DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Rocket Community Fund and City of Detroit announced a joint $5 million investment in the Rehabbed & Ready program.
The program is a public-private partnership that renovates homes, creates new homeowners and increases access to financing in Detroit neighborhoods that have an appraisal gap. It was created alongside the Detroit Land Bank Authority in 2015.
Additionally, each property creates job opportunities for local contractors.
“The Rehabbed & Ready program has made affordable home ownership possible for a lot of Detroiters who may not have been up to the challenge of renovating a vacant Land Bank house themselves,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a press release. “Scaling up this program will create this opportunity for more residents across all Strategic Neighborhood Fund neighborhoods, while reducing blight and stabilizing property values.”
The new investment will finance renovations, as well as provide a backstop to cover the gap between construction costs and the sales price of homes in the program.
“We are driven to ensure that every Detroit resident has reliable access to sustainable housing and has the opportunity to grow wealth through programs like Rehabbed & Ready,” said Laura Grannemann, Vice President of the Rocket Community Fund, in a press release. “Sales through this program not only chip away at blight and repair issues, they also provide appraisers with new home sale comparisons that stabilize the values for surrounding homes and increase access to financing for Detroit residents and their families.”
Through Rehabbed & Ready, the Detroit Land Bank Authority identifies vacant homes in Strategic Neighborhood Fund areas to be renovated by local contractors. The DLBA works closely with the City of Detroit and Invest Detroit to ensure any surrounding blight is removed before the property enters the Rehabbed & Ready pipeline.
“We are proud to be able to use our existing housing stock for a program that benefits entire neighborhoods across Detroit,” said Detroit Land Bank Authority Executive Director Saskia Thompson in press release. “Rehabbed & Ready also allows us to work with Detroit contractors to create accessible, turnkey properties for Detroiters.”
Once the home enters the pipeline, it receives a complete, top-to-bottom renovation that ensures the property is move-in ready. This investment will also support the DLBA’s new Rehabbed & Ready to Renovate initiative, which tackles major structural and mechanical repairs but offers buyers the flexibility to complete finishing touches on their own.
Homes are listed for sale on the Rehabbed & Ready page of the DLBA’s website and on the MLS, and qualified homebuyers are able to purchase their new home.
The program is only available to homeowner-occupants; investors and speculators are not eligible to purchase these homes.
The University of Michigan did an analysis of the program which can be viewed below:
RR Case Study-20210225-V11 by WXYZ-TV Channel 7 Detroit on Scribd
