City of Lawton looks to sell remodeled home to low-to-mid-income family

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - Has the City of Lawton gotten into the real estate business?

The city’s hoping to sell a house to a low-to-mid-income family in October, but it’s not exactly in the market for realty.

Thanks to a federal grant, the city bought a home located at 1914 Northwest Cherry Avenue for just $10,000 in 2019.

“It had been damaged, I think it had a fire in the house and so they picked up the property fairly cheap and so then they were going to rehab it to be, uh, living for living quarters for low-income houses,” said Gary Brooks, Housing and Community Dev. Admin for the City of Lawton.

The conditions of the home after that fire left the property vacant and then put on a city list for demolition. But that’s when the city came in.

“The fact of the matter was, this house was available, it available extremely cheaply and, so, for this, we had the grant money, specifically for this,” said councilmember Kelly Harris.

Brooks says the home will be part of the First Time Home Buyers program, and it’s selling for just $75,000.

The appraisal value?

“It appraised at $112,000,” said Brooks

Councilman Harris lives not only in the same neighborhood as this home but across the street. He agreed says the City isn’t looking to compete, but rather help the community.

Councilman Kelly Harris “Obviously the federal government has identified this as something that’s important, and so it needed us to step in and manage it to make sure that we could offer all of the benefits including the equity that they would have instantly, plus the fifteen thousand dollars that would go towards the closing cost. None of that would be available in the private market.”

Copyright 2023 KSWO. All rights reserved.