“Our manufacturing council, a monthly meeting of plant managers, told us that we needed more houses in the town. Most of our housing stock was built in the 60s and we were only building four or five houses per year,” Norene Fitzgerald told me on my tour of York.
Norene convened the four banks in town, the lumber yards, concrete plant and builders to see what they could do to increase the housing stock. They collectively decided to try to build some upper end spec homes, setting up a LLC to invest in the project.
“Each bank contributed $25,000 and we got contractors and others who were interested in seeing growth in York to each contribute $10,000. We got seventeen people at that level, so we ended up with a total of $270,000 in capital. We hired the high school trades instructor to act as the construction manager and he has built 3 houses for us.”
They’ve sold one for $240,000 and the other for $197,000. The third one is listed for sale at $178,000. Plans are to build two more houses in 2006.
The goal of this Spec Home LLC is to run it for five years as a for profit organization, dispersing the capital and profits back to the investors. It is a great model that other towns might look at for projects that might change their community for the better.
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