Progress on Euclid
First-time homebuyer grabs a stake in nonprofit’s redevelopment work
Alex Ramsey did the math: Continuing to pay rent meant burning through precious cash, while homeownership seemed to be the investment he could build a life on. Graduating from Oklahoma City University in 2016, he’d studied religion, and was beginning to feel stable in his first job as the assistant operations manager at Frontier City. Now he was embarking into the fresh territory of real estate.
“What did it for me was when I calculated up the rent I was spending,” said Ramsey, 24. “There was no return on investment. I didn’t want to waste my money. I don’t make a ton of money.”
Three months ago, he started doing his research on what it would take to buy a house. He worried about financial requirements — like how a down payment would be too high a bar for him to clear at this point in his life.
Then he came across Neighborhood Housing Services Oklahoma’s Web page —
nhsokla.org — and learned about down payment assistance available for buying homes in redeveloping neighborhoods.
“What I thought might take years was able to happen in two months’ time,” he said.
His home search took him into the Culbertson’s East Highland neighborhood in northeast Oklahoma City, where Progress OKC, a nonprofit community development corporation, had been busy redeveloping four lots along NE Euclid Street.
One house had been started by a previous builder while the other three were built from scratch under the leadership of Executive Director Neila Crank-Clements.
Progress OKC’s work centers on neighborhoods that have suffered an economic downturn and residents moving away, developing projects to attract both money and residents back to the areas, Crank-Clements said.
“We started here in northeast Oklahoma City,” she said. “On Euclid Street, out of 22 parcels, 11 were vacant. Homes had been torn down many years ago. There were lots with tall grass and trash gathering.”
Crank-Clements said her organization had made a commitment to fill in all of the lots in the 1700 block of NE Euclid St.
“You have to start somewhere, and you have to start small then scale up,” she said.
Of the four homes built by Progress OKC, two have been sold and the other two are expected to sell quickly.
Crank-Clements said the Home Buyer Down Payment and Assistance Program provided through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires that all homes be sold within six months of construction. Once they pass that date, the homes have to be converted into rentals.
The down payment help program can provide up to $14,299 to homebuyers whose annual incomes qualify. For a single person, the maximum income per year must be below $37,700 while a family of four must fall below $53,850.
The down payment program comes in the form of a five-year second mortgage. No payments must be made on second mortgages during that time, and once the fiveyear term is completed, the second mortgage is forgiven.
Crank-Clements said new homeowners may qualify for up to $19,000 in total down payment assistance through the help of other first-time homebuyer programs, but she said buyers may be expected to come up with 1 percent of the total purchase price.
Progress OKC’s four bungalow-style homes sit on the north side of street at 1709, 1713, 1717 and 1725 NE Euclid St. The homes range in size from 1,100 to just over 1,200 square feet with up to three bedrooms and two baths.
Each home has a two-car garage fed by an alley at the rear of the house. The allelectric homes come with a dishwasher and range, though a new owner must provide the refrigerator, as well as washer and dryer.
Each home comes with a security system, and some have an extra layer of insulation through the inclusion of a special-formula fiber-concrete siding called “Hardie” siding. Fiber-cement siding is built to withstand Oklahoma’s extreme weather.
Ramsey got the keys to his first home on June 13. It cost $134,900. His Realtor was Andrew Wittrock, Allied Inc. Realtors. “He was awesome and incredibly helpful,” Ramsey said. Wittrock was recommended by Hunter Clanton, his mortgage banker at Bank of Oklahoma.
Ramsey said it was a strange feeling to be taking one of his first “adult” steps in life. He’d hoped to completely move in that first night, but he ran into one snag — he forgot to transfer his bills to the new address.
“The new adult feeling goes away quick when you realize how much you still have to do,” Ramsey said, laughing. “Maybe I am not completely an adult yet.”