Building six houses

A behind-the-scenes look at Habitat's newest homes in Albany, NY

Jun 14, 2024

Habitat for Humanity Capital District just finished six new houses in Albany. Beautiful, fully electrified and permanently affordable for generations to come. All are under purchase contract for an affordable price with first-time homebuyers.

This project is born of deep collaboration between Habitat, the Albany Community Land Trust and the Albany Housing Authority. Some iteration of the project has been talked about for over a decade, and I’m thrilled we’re bringing it to completion.

With every house, there are the usual challenges: money, timelines, so forth. That affordable price I mentioned? We’re selling these homes for an average of $165,000. It costs us close to $300,000 to build them, so Habitat starts each project with the understanding that there is a gap — often a huge gap — to fill. That’s not because we’re bad at business, that’s because of market failure. But you already know about that.

We’ve been doing this — building houses — for a long time. Organizationally, 36 years. The current leadership team, about a decade together. Just since I’ve been at the helm, Habitat has built 70 houses locally. And yet, there are always new things to surprise me.

Text: Celebrating six new houses! Sponsor logos. Click to RSVP.

I thought it might be interesting to share a behind-the-scenes look of some of the surprises along the way, in preparation of celebrating this milestone with our community on Thursday, June 20. You’re invited! Join us for a short program and home tour, and then walk around the corner with us for a happy hour at Albany Distilling.

RSVP here

Six new homes in Albany: The director’s cut

One of the first hurdles we faced was regarding site control, or ownership of the property. Albany Housing Authority generously donated the land for this project and, in fact, they were the spark that ignited this collaboration. For a public housing authority to dispose of land, they need approval from the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development. That, as you can imagine, takes some time.
These are our first all-electric homes! Fortunately no surprises here, but a small learning curve for us and the homebuyers as we shift away from gas furnaces and towards air-source heat pumps.
Successful collaboration depends on clear expectations. The three major partners signed a co-development agreement that outlined our roles, responsibilities and contributions to the project. This isn’t a surprise, but the project involved more partners than usual.
With site control acquired and our construction schedule clear, we finally began excavation in July 2023 — two years after our original plan. Just a few days in, our excavator discovered an unmarked electrical line buried underground. STOP! Construction halted, resulting in a two month pause while we investigated the line, considered our options and eventually sought a zoning variance to move the homes further away from the line and sidewalk.

Although not unique to this project, we had four different streams of grant funding for these homes. Each had separate applications, scoring criteria, budget underwriting, reporting, disbursement and compliance requirements.
The mortgage product that most Habitat homeowners have used over the past many years was discontinued. In the end, all six homebuyers were able to secure a mortgage commitment for that 2% fixed interest, 1% down payment mortgage, but there were many months of uncertainty along the way.
All utilities were underground for this project, which added cost and scheduling complications as we delicately balanced as many utility subcontractors on site as possible, with narrow timelines for getting it all done. Weather conditions caused a few missed days of underground work, but a sudden heat wave helped cure the concrete walkways faster than expected, which allowed us to set the front steps and schedule our final inspection a few days sooner than anticipated. Nothing like a good reminder that we are all at the mercy of a burning planet.
As we now prepare to schedule six closings with six first-time homebuyers, we’re wading through typical pre-closing challenges and some new ones too.

It’s a lot! It’s also just what we do.

I get frustrated when our pace of construction slows down or when there are snags with the banks or funders. But I want to remember and celebrate how much our community accomplishes in the face of so many obstacles and roadblocks.

Habitat for Humanity was formed as an alternative to mainstream economic and community models. We offer a response to the market and public policy failures that created substandard and poverty housing, redlining, predatory lending, homelessness and the unacceptable reality that many of our neighbors do not have a decent place to live.
Our day-to-day actions look a lot like those of other housing developers. We apply for permits, frame walls, balance budgets, raise funds and file reports. But at the heart of Habitat and behind every nail we drive is something radical: hope. Hope calls us to action. Hope allows us to believe that a better world is possible, but only when we act. Hope starts with us.
-Excerpt from Homecoming: Celebrating 30 Years (2018)

So, let’s celebrate! See you Thursday, June 20? It’s literally supposed to be 100 degrees that day, but don’t worry because our high-efficiency, all-electric, air source heat pumps also provide central air conditioning so we’ll be cool and comfortable. If a lot of people show up we’ll start off inside to cool off, dip back outside for a 15 minute presentation and then head back inside.