California Cities Are Selling $1 Lots for New Affordable Housing Projects

San Diego and Lemon Grove, California are starting an affordable housing initiative. The cities will sell lots for $1 to a nonprofit land trust that will build homes for middle-class buyers.

The San Diego Community Land Trust's program allows qualifying families to buy the homes, and lease the land on which the home is built. When the homeowners want to sell, their profit is tied to 120 percent of the area median income, The Los Angeles Times reports. The San Diego Land Trust says they could start building in the first quarter of 2018, and hope to build 25 new homes per year.

The nonprofit Land Trust is poised to build 16 three- and four-bedroom homes on an elbow of vacant land near the Mexican border. The houses will sell for $350,000 or less ... The city of San Diego has committed to sell the 3.3 acres to the young nonprofit group. The Land Trust is working on a similar $1-a-lot deal with Lemon Grove to build nine row homes on an abandoned subdivision there.

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