Charles Noonan (Free Education Friday) explains the Houston Land Bank (HLB) programs and how developers and homebuyers can use them. He describes two primary HLB pathways: the Traditional Home Buyer Program (affordable resale or renovated homes) and the New Home Development Program (NHDP), which partners with approved builders to construct newly built affordable single-family homes. Eligibility is income-based (household income must be at or below 120% of Area Median Income) and lots sold include a 10-year deed restriction to preserve affordability. Noonan promotes joining a ‘Land Bank Team’ to gain developer experience and access additional opportunities, and provides contact routes (Instagram @charlesj.noonan, YouTube comments, podcast platforms).
Questions this video answers
Household gross income must be 120% of the Area Median Income (AMI) or less.
A 10-year deed restriction to maintain qualified income and preserve affordability.
A program that provides newly constructed affordable single-family homes for qualified buyers, in partnership with the City of Houston Community Development Department and approved builders.
Chapters
Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the Land bank show. Today I'm going to discuss on Free Education Friday one of my favorite cities to visit. Okay? Reason being they have the Turkey Leg Hut. The Turkey Leg Hut is a must go to. Every time I am in Houston. I gotta tell you, I absolutely love the Turkey Leg Hut. So shout out to the people at the Turkey Leg Hut. They're doing a hell of a job because a New Yorker loves going to Houston just for this one particular restaurant, the Turkey Leg Hut. All right, so I'm going to teach you guys free Education Friday on the Houston Land Bank. But first I'd like for you to share the this episode, share this podcast with as many people as you can like or comment on this Free Education Friday series. Because I get a lot of requests for land banks, where they are, locations and things like that. Sadly, to report in cities just like New York and things like that, Houston is one of those cities that does not have a huge vacant property problem. Okay? So they do have a land bank. And that land bank is strategic and just as good as any other land bank. But I'll tell you how they want you to go about grabbing their properties. So you can just hop on over to the houstonlandbank.org and you'll find this information that I'm going to share with you on the screen right now. The Houston Land bank has this program right here for home buyers, okay, where it says, welcome home, homeownership made possible. We want to help more Houstonians own their own home. We acquire vacant, vacant, abandoned or damaged properties and facilitate the development of affordable new homes on them. Qualified home buyers are able to obtain additional assistance from the city of Houston in order to purchase these homes with down payment assistance programs and the Houston Community Land Trust, which can help keep property taxes from rising too quickly so you can actually stay in your home. I always tell you guys, land banks have like the best interest of the community in mind. They got the best interest of the individuals that they work with, the community, the city as well as the budget. It's like the perfect combination of profit plus purpose. Okay, so I'll share with you guys a little bit more about this program and how you can get in it to take advantage of the opportunities that they have. So Land bank team members, you guys get the benefit of understanding how to develop by being on the Land bank team. So this process has. This Land bank has two opportunities for you, whereas everybody else, you only got one opportunity because you don't know how to develop. But if you hop on the Land bank team, I will teach you how to develop. It's super easy. You just hire a bunch of people, boss them around and tell them what to do. In a nutshell. Alright, so here they got two great home ownership programs to choose from. You have the opportunity to qualify for one or both of our home ownership programs. With each of them, you can find your new home at an affordable price. To find out which program you qualify for, use the chart below. So they have the Houston Land Bank Traditional Home Buyer program and the New Home Development Program. Houston Land bank works with our approved builders to sell them lots on which they may construct new homes for sales to qualify buyers a new house at a new affordable price. So I love it. They have their own group of developers that they work with and what they do is they kind of oversee their developers, obstructing putting up these properties as opposed to having vacant properties be renovated by people in the community. Here's their development program. The second program is the New Home Development Program. If you're on a Land bank team, this is one of the things that we do. This is one of the lessons that you get on how to develop real estate. New Home Development Program. NHDP provides newly constructed affordable single family homes for qualified buyers. This program is in partnership with the City of Houston and Community Development Department. Why is this important and why did I choose to teach you guys and educate you guys on developing property in the Houston Land Bank? Okay, so here's why it's important. We have all developed property properties through learning what we do on the Land bank team, I develop properties all the time. I show you guys step by step exactly how to do it through the project manager, the builder, the excavator, the quiet title title attorney people, the realtor and everything else. You guys on the Land bank team actually qualify for both. It's not that difficult. They also like to see experience. So on the Land bank team, we're able to put each other each other's projects that we've developed down on the experience sheet. So it'll help us qualify for more opportunities for new construction. Now we're not doing the work as a GC or a contractor. However, we do have these developer credits that we this developer experience that we can use to take advantage of some of these programs. Now this second program, the first program I want to get into because not everybody's on the Land bank team and I just want to share with you a little bit more about their traditional home buyer program. So here's the question. Am I eligible it's income based. You must have a gross household income of 120% of the area median income. That's the AMI or less, in order to qualify. And then they give you a simple chart that just shows you the AMI for that area and it kind of shows you where you need to be. So if it's $100,000, if the AMI is $100,000, you guys know you can't make more than $120,000. It's area median income that you can go over, but you can't go over 120% of the AMI, which is the area median income. In addition, you must occupy the home as a principal residence. You must have income qualified by the city of Houston and the land that they're going to give it to you. The land comes with a 10 year deed restriction to maintain qualified income and preserve affordability. So they don't want to put new people in these properties that can't afford them, can't afford to stay, can't afford to keep them. What that does is it repeats the cycle. They want to break the cycle of property properties turning over. They are looking to create generational wealth, not debt, through the Land bank properties and this Land bank program. I love this program. It's a great program. If you want to learn more about how you can take advantage of these opportunities through the Houston Land bank, contact me @charlesj.noonan on Instagram or leave a comment on YouTube in the comment section or just respond through Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, any one of those mediums. There are links there to which you can reach out and grab someone on the Land bank team and you should be able to join based on the free information that we give you and the links where you contact me or someone on the team to become a Land Bank Team member until the next episode of Free Education Friday. Enjoy your Friday. Hopefully you like this episode, share it like and comment on it because this is some life changing game changing information. Land Bank Team members could qualify twice. Enjoy your Friday. Thank you.
