Spin a wheel, make it happen
11 win chance to buy a home
On a wet Wednesday evening earlier this month, the community room at the Nate Smith House on Lamartine Street was surprisingly calm, considering that the 20 people sitting at folding tables were about to learn whether they had won a chance to buy a home.
A dapper Jean Marc Nelson , program manager for the city's Department of Neighborhood Development , was soon turning a plexiglass tumbler filled with the names of 180 applicants -- low- and moderate-income families who hoped to become first-time homebuyers.
Up for grabs were 11 homes, priced between $151,500 for a town house to $340,000 for a duplex, in a neighborhood where the median condo in the first half of this year went for $325,000 and the median single-family home for $577,500.
The lottery, run by the city's 1st Home program, would determine which 11 of the 180 eligible applicants would be given the first shot at buying a home at less than half the going rate. For this drawing, few came to watch, most choosing instead to await a letter notifying them of its outcome.
Nelson read out the names in his island accent: ``Irma Thibodeaux," number one. ``Tanisha Isaac," number two. No reaction from the tables.
But at number four, ``Mayra Velez," a woman in a floral sun dress quivered in her chair, and cautiously raised her right hand. Those in the room applauded quietly, nodded approval. The drawing continued until all 180 names were drawn. By about number 70, people with small children started to leave. In this room, only Velez held one of the top 13 or so numbers likely to have a chance to purchase a home. A few with numbers in the higher teens remained hopeful, though.
``If your number is low enough, we will send you notices of the open houses," said Christine McCrorey , 1st Home's program manager. ``Remember that not everyone with a low number may choose to purchase."
In a far corner, Velez sat quietly, letting the news sink in. She'd applied a year ago, she said, after finishing a home-buying course at the South End Library. An administrative assistant at the nearby Martha Eliot Health Center , Velez said she really had no other potential route to home ownership. A neighborhood resident, she said she'd already walked by the properties, all developed by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, and said all but one (with too many steps for her daughter with mild cerebral palsy) look good from the outside.
``I'm very excited," she said, smiling slightly. ``Until I have a deed in my hand," she added, ``I won't go celebrate."
If she and the other lucky winners want to buy, 1st Home checks to make sure they are neither too rich nor too poor (all were prequalified by income before the lottery), and then the process of arranging financing will start. By the time the new owners are ready to move in, sometime between September and December, each building will be ready, too.
``We aim to have someone move in once the unit is complete," said Bill Cotter , who oversees the 1st Home program as deputy director of Boston's neighborhood development agency.
The demand for affordable homeownership is ``startling," according to Lisa Davis , who develops such housing for the private New Boston Fund , a real estate investment management firm, and has worked with community development corporations for years. ``There are so many more people that qualify and want to buy than houses available."
McCrorey, the program manager, noted that many housing lotteries are even more competitive; a nearby development on Lamartine Street had 400 applicants for eight units. Given that kind of pressure, it might seem unlikely that a lottery winner would turn down the opportunity to buy a new or refurbished home. But it happens.
Theresa O'Neill , who runs housing lotteries for private developers in and around Boston and who used to work for the city's Fair Housing Commission , said she'd seen people turn down homes in outlying neighborhoods in order to apply for a downtown property they knew was coming up.
Others may find they are no longer qualified -- job or marital changes may affect incomes and eligibility -- or do not have enough money for the down payment.
O'Neill and others advise potential lottery participants to put themselves on the e-mail lists of the Department of Neighborhood Development, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, and private agencies like O'Neill's Affordable Housing Clearinghouse. 