Albany Family Makes Things Happen
With a little help from Home HeadQuarters, the Albany County Land Bank and the Albany community...
Since picking up the keys to the family’s newly purchased Albany County Land Bank home earlier this year, Preem Cabey has kept a daily schedule of house-related activities. She visits the house, in-person at least three days a week, sometimes with kids in tow, walking from where the family is renting less than a block away. On non-visit days, Preem meets with contractors, talks with other housing-related professionals and conducts lots of home improvement research so she can learn about building materials like LVL beams and why a house might need one. And while her current house-heavy schedule seems challenging, it in no way compares to the challenges and obstacles Preem faced to get here.
“I always knew I wanted to buy a house,” says Preem, a community artist and advocate and city police dispatcher. “All my friends and family just rented all their lives--rent, rent, rent, all that money going down the drain.”
So Preem did all the right things: she took homebuying classes, worked a million jobs and ultimately ignored some self-doubt and went after a better paying job to substantially increase her family’s household income. Preem attended and even volunteered at home buying events sponsored by the Albany County Land Bank, the Albany Land Trust, and others. She read and studied, saved, went to as many open houses as she could and finally found the perfect home only eight properties away from where she and her family were renting.
Preem’s perfect home was an Albany County Land Bank “fixer-upper” in the historic Knox Street District neighborhood and part of the Land Bank’s Equitable Ownership Program (EOP), a program that pairs eligible first time homebuyers with resources and opportunities like reduced closing costs and legal fees with available Land Bank properties. Preem was not put off by the Land Bank’s realistic and comprehensive scope of work for the vacant property totaling more than $100,000 and the family met all of the agency’s eligibility guidelines for purchase, but this is where Preem’s homebuying journey almost came to an end.
“Albany has one of the largest gaps between White and Black families’ homeownership rates in the nation,” says Albany County Land Bank Executive Director Adam Zaranko. “What’s the number one thing keeping us in that position—access to capital!”
Preem visited at least four Albany area financial institutions looking for purchase and rehab financing, two to which she already belonged, with detailed reference letters and proof of incentive programs in hand, all to no avail. In the five years the Albany County Land Bank has been in operation, not one of its first-time homebuyers has been able to find or secure traditional first mortgage financing within Albany's historically redlined neighborhoods.
“We have a disconnect in our community when it comes to financing the purchase of our properties,” says Erica Ganns, Albany County Land Bank Asst. Director of Operations. “It’s a hurdle we’ve faced since day one.”
Enter Home HeadQuarters, a non-profit housing and neighborhood development organization and certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that is recognized nationally for its innovative and equitable loan products for homebuyers and homeowners unable to borrow from traditional lenders. At a conference last year, the need for accessible capital was a topic of conversation and the Executive Director of the Greater Syracuse Land Bank was quick to connect the Albany County Land Bank with the 25-year-old non-profit lender. Home HeadQuarters had been working with the Syracuse Landbank for years, providing financing for first-time buyers and small local investors to purchase and rehab Land Bank homes when no other lender would consider the risk.
“There are many reasons why accessing capital is difficult and sometimes impossible for families hoping to purchase land bank properties—chief among them is perceived risk by traditional lenders,” says Kerry Quaglia, Home HeadQuarters’ CEO. “At HHQ, we believe the true risk is leaving a property vacant, taxes unpaid and keeping families from building generational wealth and investing in our key neighborhoods.”
For Preem and her family, their new home means being in control of their own destiny—no more substandard rental properties, no more throwing money away on something that isn’t theirs, and no more being at the mercy of landlords who don’t put the family’s needs first. Right now, Preem feels an abundance of appreciation for it all. She appreciates the patience the Albany County Land Bank staff has shown throughout her process, she appreciates being the inaugural person financed through Home HeadQuarters, she appreciates her soon to be neighbors who have provided her with the history of her house and welcomed her and she even appreciates her very professional contractor.
“No one ever handed me anything or gave me anything, but I had faith,” says first-time homeowner Preem Cabey. “If I can do this, so can anyone—don’t give up. Have faith, the rest will come.”