Fifteen vacant lots in Rochester's Upper Falls neighborhood are slated to get factory-built single-family homes, paid for in part with about $4.5 million from New York's MOVE-IN NY program (via WXXI News). The Rochester Land Bank will contract with Champion Homes for the houses, which will sell well below what they cost to build.
The lots sit just west of North Clinton Avenue: nine on Almira Street, three on Galusha Street, two on Oakman Street and one on Lowell Street, WXXI reported. The homes are built in a factory but designed to look like a standard wood-frame house.
The math is the story here. Development costs will run just over $300,000 per house, but the homes are expected to sell for $100,000 to $120,000 to buyers earning 60% to 80% of area median income, according to WXXI. The state award, $4,537,500 for the 15 homes per Gov. Kathy Hochul's office, covers the gap.
Rochester is one of four awards in the latest round. The state announced Oct. 23 that nearly $20 million will create 61 homes: 24 through the Essex County Land Bank, 11 through the Wayne County Regional Land Bank in the Town of Lyons, 11 through the Suffolk County Landbank and Rochester's 15. Across all rounds, the state says MOVE-IN NY has now put more than $80 million toward homes for 250 households.
The program buys what the state calls CrossMods, short for Crossover Modern Homes. They're built to HUD's manufactured home code but meet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac design guidelines, so buyers can get conventional mortgages, according to the governor's office. Land banks, municipalities and nonprofits apply competitively and get zero-interest, partially forgivable loans to buy the homes in bulk from pre-approved vendors and install them, according to New York State Homes and Community Renewal. The state says its pilot homes in Syracuse, Schenectady and Newcomb were bought, built and installed in under six months at roughly half the cost of comparable site-built homes.
This is the city's second and largest modular project. The first, a nine-house effort in Marketview Heights by local builder Cook Properties, is still in development, WXXI reported. For comparison, the city's Buy the Block houses cost upwards of $350,000 each to build, said Erik Frisch, commissioner of the city's Department of Neighborhoods and Business Development.
"There aren't too many examples of factory-built homes in urban centers in New York state, so there's a learning curve here," Frisch told WXXI.
No construction or sale timeline for the Upper Falls homes has been announced.
Why it matters for Contractors
The factory builds the house, but plenty still happens on the lot: foundations, utility hookups, setting, site grading and finish work. On scattered urban infill sites like these, that kind of work tends to suit small local crews. If you work in Rochester, it's worth asking the Land Bank how the site work will be handled and bid.
It's also a pricing signal. With the state saying CrossMods can come in around half the cost of comparable site-built homes, and with more than $80 million flowing into the program, small builders who do entry-level homes should expect more of this competition, and more chances to partner on it, as MOVE-IN NY expands to more communities.
Builders who want in on the homes themselves should note that the money goes to land banks, towns and nonprofits, and the homes come from pre-approved vendors. The way in for most small shops is as the local site and finish contractor.