Is MWCLT Right for Me?

Do I Qualify?

For a mortgage of $160,000, for example, you can expect monthly payments for your mortgage, insurance, taxes, and interest (PITI) to be around $984. This is assuming $35 a month for insurance, $185 a month for taxes, and a 30-year, 4% interest mortgage. Staff will help you factor your debt payments (credit cards, student loans, car loans, etc.) and other costs of living into your budget and offer financial education courses when needed.

If your credit score is below this, we can recommend credit repair courses to help you resolve credit issues, increase your score, and prepare for homeownership.

What Does Homeownership Mean for Me?

This number may be updated every 5 years to keep up with inflation, but it will not be higher than $250 per year.

Owning a home means taking care of maintenance and repairs yourself. This means you are responsible for fixing any problems with the house, regularly performing preventative maintenance on the home (cleaning the gutters, changing air filters, cleaning out drains, etc.), and keeping the property in good condition (mowing the lawn, weeding, trimming overgrown hedges, etc.).

The MWCLT wants to support families who will live in their homes and become members of the community, not rent them out to other people for profit. If you are hoping to rent your home out to someone else, the Community Land Trust is not the program for you.

We require that any major modifications to your home that require a building permit or certificate of occupancy be reviewed and approved by the MWCLT, before any demolition or construction occurs.

MWCLT’s mission is to keep single-family homes permanently affordable in communities around Richmond. We will help to find an income-qualified buyer for you. This is an extra safety net for you – it ensures that you can sell your home in a timely manner.

How Will I Build Wealth?

MWCLT wants to ensure that people who are normally priced out of the homeownership market have an opportunity to build some equity, while keeping the home affordable for the next buyer. When MWCLT homeowners sell the house, the new price will be calculated based on the increase in the Richmond region’s Area Median Income (AMI).

If the AMI increases by 10% over the time you own the home, the price increases by 10% as well. That way, you earn some equity, but the home is still affordable to someone at a similar income level.

(If there is a net decrease in AMI over the period of ownership, the seller will not incur a loss; the home will be resold at the original price.)

If you answered “yes” to these questions, MWCLT homeownsership might be right for you.