Homes crop up for new buyers

Homes are priced so mortgage payments are competitive with area rents.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A new neighborhood of 30 homes designed to attract first-time home buyers is springing up on the city's North Side.
Eugenia Atkinson, executive director of Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority, said construction has begun on five model homes west of St. Elizabeth Health Center, centered at 750 Park Avenue. The homes will range between 1,300 and 2,000 square feet and have a base price of $54,400.
Individuals with an annual income of at least $19,000 with good credit and little or no debt may qualify to buy a home with a down payment of about $1,000. A family of four may qualify with good credit, little or no debt and income of not more than $41,500.
Ralph A. Falbo, president of Arlington Heights Homeownership Inc., a public-private partnership, said the homes are priced so mortgage payments are competitive with monthly rents in the area.
Monthly payments start at about $400, he said. The first home is to be completed by March 2006.
In planning since 1988
Atkinson said planning for The Homes at Arlington Heights began with securing federal housing grants as early as 1988, so "we're pleased to be able to move forward," she said.
Megan Shutes, YMHA's HOPE VI coordinator, said most of the funding for the Arlington Heights project comes from a $19.75 million federal HOPE VI grant awarded to YMHA in 2003. HOPE VI is a housing grant program through Housing and Urban Development that targets revitalization of obsolete or distressed public housing.
Shutes said The Homes at Arlington Heights qualifies as a HOPE VI project because the homes are being built on the former site of Westlake Terrace North, which was a neighborhood of 298 public housing units. The construction area includes portions of Wirt Street, Lexington Avenue, Harlem Street, Park Avenue, Arlington Heights and Griffith Street.
"We're pleased to be able to bring a neighborhood of this caliber to Youngstown," Falbo said. He said the development will enable many people who thought they could never afford a new home to buy one.
"The new homes many people in the Mahoning Valley have been dreaming about are now well within their reach," Falbo said.
Features offered
The homes will offer energy-efficient construction, carpeting and vinyl flooring, gas heat and water, electric cooking and air conditioning, a full basement, two-car garage, three bedrooms and up to two-and-a-half bathrooms. Options include a fourth bedroom, a master bedroom, a fireplace, a whirlpool tub and a finished basement. Handicapped-accessible homes are also available, on one story with no basement.
Arlington Heights Homeownership Inc. is a public-private partnership among Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority, Youngstown city, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Pennrose Properties, Philadelphia; Ralph A. Falbo Inc., Pittsburgh; Marenberg Enterprises Inc., Baltimore; Youngstown Warren Realtist Association; Buy Into Youngstown and several major banks and lending institutions.
For information
Anyone interested in learning more about The Homes at Arlington Heights may call sales agents Gwen Bush and Truman Greene at (330) 717-5071. Bush and Greene represent the member brokerages of the Youngstown-Warren Realtist Association.
tullis@vindy.com