BELGRADE — The American dream remains owning a home. However, in the Gallatin Valley, many families cannot afford to fulfill that dream.
The Southwest Montana Realtors Association posted on its website that the median price for a home in Belgrade last month was just over $638,000. Habitat for Humanity is working to cut that price almost in half.
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Jason Sakran is Habitat’s CEO. I talked with him while standing in the unfinished garage of Home #1 of an eight-home project. He says the project in Belgrade’s West Post neighborhood is looking to sell homes to qualified buyers for much less.
“At the end of the day, this home is going to be 1,500-square-foot, 3- bedroom, 2-bath. Families going to move into this, and they’re going to pay about $350,000."
Sakran says these houses are geared toward Montana’s working middle class.
“The missing middle, as we call them at Habitat.” Sakran went on to say: “These families don’t make enough to buy a home in this market but make too much to qualify for affordable housing."
For this project, they’ve narrowed 40 applicants down to about 14 who are pre-qualified. “A family of four making between 80,000 AND $100,000 a year” is who Sakran says is the focus of these homes.
Habitat homes require what they call sweat equity, where the homeowners must work on building their homes.
Sakran says because these houses are going up so fast, some of the equity work will be on the inside. He also says the goal is bigger than just one home.
“We want families that are going to be working and moving into this maybe to be working on their neighbor’s home and vice versa.”That means families moving into these Habitat for Humanity homes will not only be building their dream homes; they will also be helping build their own neighborhoods.
