Owatonna businessman helps create a path to affordable home ownership

People who dream of owning a home on an affordable budget now have an opportunity to accomplish it in the city of Claremont.

The Claremont Workforce Housing Program is offering affordable homes to nine working families, according to Matt Durand, owner of Arden Home Services based in Owatonna. Interested individuals and families can find information, along with an application, on the city of Claremont’s website, claremontmn.com under the heading Empty Lot Program.

There are nine lots available under the program, Durand said. The qualifying families will complete eight hours of homeowner education which will equip them to apply for a USDA mortgage. The established income limits for the program are reasonable, for example a family of three or more people with an income of less than $129,000 will qualify for a mortgage. 

Durand brings an impressive number of experiences to the table, including commercial, residential, and environmental construction, in both hands-on building and project management. He is passionate about being able to provide homes to people that need a less expensive option to the high-priced homes that are most commonly offered on the real estate market. Single parent families, couples just out of college, and empty nesters are a few examples of people he believes can benefit from this program.

Communities need workers to fill positions that are not high paying, and those people need places to live and raise their families, Durand pointed out.

“In residential construction in the metro area, I built custom homes in the three- to five-hundred-thousand-dollar range,” he said.

Many workers who are needed in our economy are in a lower income bracket. With the Workforce Housing program, some of the home construction variables can be managed to make the cost more affordable.

“In order to see change, you have to try something,” Durand said. The change in this case is that families can have home ownership and they can start to create some financial stability. “We have an opportunity here to impact generations of families with the American Dream of home ownership.”

Durand’s plan is a sustainable program that will take away the barriers that keep lower income families from being able to afford a home, he said.

“If somebody applies and qualifies, they can choose a lot. The house plan is on the website, a 1000-square-foot house with two bedrooms and one bath.”

Durand will build the basement and finance the construction. When the applicants have completed the eight classes and been qualified and approved for a mortgage, they will do a closing, and the house is theirs.

“I want to teach people how to fish. I can give them this home with an unfinished basement, and if they want to, they can finish the basement, which potentially has room for two more bedrooms, a bathroom and a family room.”

Each home will be built with all the finishes and appliances standardized and walls painted white. “Families who buy these homes can modify them according to their needs,” Durand said, “and along the way they can increase home improvement skills and landscaping expertise and increase the value of their property.”

Basic grading and landscaping will be completed, and homeowners will have the option to modify their quarter-acre lots as they choose.

Durand would like to get three families qualified during the winter so construction can begin next spring. Building three homes at a time is where he can significantly reduce construction costs, he explained. Dynamic Homes, a Minnesota modular home producer, can produce the parts for three identical homes in their factory while Durand puts in basements. When the foundations are ready, he explained, an example of his cost savings is that he can rent a crane for one day to set the homes on the foundations and split the crane cost three ways instead of having three crane charges for three homes. After the homes are settled and secure, his company will add a garage to each house as part of the package.

“I’m really thankful to the city of Claremont for having faith in this program,” Durand said.

The lots that the city is offering free of charge are under a housing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) program. The intent of the TIF is that when homes are built on the lots, the property taxes collected will be applied to bonding costs incurred by the city when they put in the infrastructure such as water and sewer, and curb and gutter, so the new homeowners will not be assessed for those charges. The city of New Richland has a neighborhood they created through a housing TIF, Durand said.

“I’m testing this out for myself,” he said of the house plan being offered in the program.

A single parent of two teenagers, he is in the process of building a home in Owatonna using the parameters of this plan. Matt Durand is confident this program will be a great benefit for many families, including his own.