Newark just auctioned off 7 homes for a shocking price: $1

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A handful of Garden State denizens just achieved the dream of homeownership for a single dollar bill. 

In a new affordable housing program, the city of Newark, New Jersey has auctioned off a slate of deteriorated city-owned one- to four-family homes for the bargain price of $1. 

The lottery is intended to strengthen community and help ease local renters’ paths to not just owning property — but also occupying, renovating and maintaining it.

“Across America, LLCs are buying up owner-occupied homes and turning them into corporately-owned, expensive rental units,” the city’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, said in a press release published late last month, after the seven lottery winners were selected. “In Newark, where we work hard to expand homeownership, we have created a wide-ranging strategy to do everything possible to counter this dangerous trend. The ‘dollar sale’ initiative is an innovative way to help longtime Newark residents become homeowners at costs that they can afford — and thereby simultaneously close the wealth gap, and increase equity and financial health for Newark residents.”

A city-owned home on Isabella Avenue that was given to a lottery winner for a shockingly low cost. Google Earth
A property that was auctioned off for $1. Google Earth
Those selected as lottery winners were heavily vetted to determine program eligibility. City of Newark

To ensure the program’s success, the city is imposing a number of restrictions onto the winners, all of whom have lived in Newark for at least five years or “been displaced by gentrification,” while also promising them a spate of resources. The owners are required to live for at least 10 years at their new addresses, many of which are currently dilapidated. What’s more, they qualify for a no-down-payment, no-closing-cost, no-fee, no-insurance-mortgage at a below-market fixed rate, regardless of their credit score, through Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, which served as administrator of the lottery.

This is a key step to ensuring that Newark’s $1 housing lottery succeeds, and doesn’t burden individuals with houses they cannot afford to fix or keep up.

“What’s really key in making a program like this successful is first having the financing pre-approved and secondly, having people on staff who are focused on the management of the project and who are dedicated to helping facilitate [the renovation] process,” NACA Newark office director Gregory Hargrave told NJ.com. 

Winners are selected in this image. City of Newark
An aerial view of Newark at dusk. Getty Images/iStockphoto

For lottery winner LaToya Hardin, 39, the road to a renovated home is long. The two-family property she won in the Valisburg neighborhood has numerous structural issues and asbestos, among other problems — but the program has given her great hope for her and her son’s future. 

“I feel so, so blessed,” she told NJ.com. “This for us represents stability, something that’s ours and that we can hold onto and pass down for generations.”

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