On this page: (Click to skip to your preferred section) Accessibility & Energy Efficiency Events
Welcome to the Lawrence Community Housing Trust.
Tenants to Homeowners (TTH) combines "Real Estate" with "Affordable." If you can afford a monthly payment of $750, including taxes, insurance and the TTH lease fee, you maybe be able to buy a home with our program. Our Energy Star homes cost about $100 per month in total utilities. The average fair market rent in Lawrence for a 3-bedroom house is $962 per month.
Please click the link to look at our current projects.
Why Affordable Housing?
We're so glad you asked. Why does Lawrence, KS need an affordable housing program? Here's why: Current market conditions reported by Realtytimes.com place local median home prices at $189,900 - a monthly mortgage payment of $1,460. To afford this, you must make at least $58,400 before taxes, IF you have perfect credit and no debt - not even a car payment. What does this mean for the average teacher, fire fighter, police officer or construction worker in Lawrence?The problem is that as time has passed, real estate values have increased much faster than salaries. This is true almost everywhere, but Lawrence is also a more expensive place to live than most cities in Kansas. A basic starter home is very difficult to afford if you are a single parent or if your job simply brings in a modest salary. If you can afford a monthly payment of appx $800, you maybe be able to buy a 3-bedroom, newly built, Energy Star qualified home with our program. The average fair market rent in Lawrence for a 3-bedroom house is $962 per month, so it is possible that if you used our program, you would actually pay less per month on a home you own than you already pay in rent and utility bills.
What kind of community do we want? Children living in homes owned by their family exhibit up to 3% reduced behavior problems and achieve up to 9% higher math scores and up to 7% higher reading scores than their peers in rental housing, according to 2001 findings from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. For these reasons and many others, TTH, Inc. works to make homeownership in Lawrence affordable.
Read about The Lawrence Community Housing Trust program. Would you like to receive our quarterly home maintenance newsletter? E-mail hmtravis@gmail.com with the subject line "Newsletter," to join our mailing list.
Accessibility & Energy Efficiency
In 2001, we decided all-new construction would be at least visitable to those with mobility impairments, and universally accessible when possible. To reduce energy costs, we began building all-electric, energy efficient homes in 2005. In October 2007, we completed the first home in the city of Lawrence to be Energy Star certified and became an Energy Star partner. Please visit the Energy Star website for more information about the program, and check out a recent Lawrence Journal-World article about one of the energy efficient home designs TTH, Inc. is using.
As an Energy Star partner, all our 2007 new constructions will be Energy Star certified. Look at our homes for sale, then read about how we build.
Events.
Saturday & Sunday, August 2 & 3 - Visit our Energy Star information booth at the family-friendly Lil Green Festival at South Park.
Friday, August 8, 4pm-6pm - Open house at 1705 Bullene Ave., located just west of Haskell between 15th and 19th. Refreshments served.
Thursday, August 21 6:30 pm - refreshments and information on our Housing Trust program in the Gallery Room at the Lawrence Public Library.
