A question we often get at
Habitat is how homebuyers choose their Habitat home. The process is called House Match, and it’s a huge milestone on the journey to Habitat homeownership.
As Family Services Director Allyson Davis explains, families working through our first-time homebuyers program must contribute at least 100 or 200 hours of sweat equity before they can select their Habitat home. (This number is based on single- or double-head of household.) Once they reach that number, Allyson will take the homebuyer on a tour of our available inventory. The offerings shown are based on the location where the homebuyer wants to live and family size.
“While not much can match the excitement of home dedication or settlement days, House Match is such a special and unique moment because for a lot of Habitat families, it is the first time it all starts to feel real,” Allyson explained. “They put their trust in us to take them through the application phase and maybe even helped other families with the construction of their homes while working on the first half of their sweat equity hours, but now they can visualize what their own future is going to look like…the neighborhood, the school district, how they’re going to arrange their furniture. Oftentimes, it seems like they finally give themselves permission to fully start to dream.”
Sometimes, a homebuyer who has a specific location or style of home in mind will choose to wait months, even a year or more, if the right house is not immediately slated for building on our our construction calendar. In most cases, however, our families are anxious to move into their future home and will choose from the projects that are scheduled to begin in the near future.
Thanks to our Open Doors campaign and the properties we have been able to acquire through its funds, our inventory is extensive and offers many options from which our homebuyers can choose. Abiot (pictured here) and Netsanet recently reached home match and have chosen our next Columbia project, a new construction build on Linden St, which will be a row of five 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath homes.
Keep an eye on our Facebook page for upcoming pictures of Mulu and Yodit, also recently matched to our Coral Street build.