This Indiana town (Gary) is selling single-family homes for $1

CNBC ^ | January 11, 2019 | Sarah Berger

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Saving up for a home's down payment can be a hefty task that's financially out of reach for many. But the town of Gary, Indiana has a special program to make home ownership easier by selling a handful of homes every year for just $1 apiece.

Called the Dollar House Program, the initiative opens home ownership up to those who would not otherwise be able to afford a traditional mortgage sale, says Lakia Manley, the housing coordinator of Gary's Community Development Division.

The program also addresses a chronic problem for the town. Since the 1960s, a decline in the steel industry has led to a dwindling population and an abundance of unoccupied and abandoned homes, Business Insider notes.

Homeowners are selected through a lottery system and must meet a few key requirements. They must rehabilitate the home within one year, occupy the home for a minimum of five years and have a minimum annual income of around $35,000 a year per person.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They must rehabilitate the home within one year, occupy the home for a minimum of five years and have a minimum annual income of around $35,000 a year per person.

So a couple would have to have an income of $70,000 per year to qualify. Add in two children and you have to have $140,000 in income.

Someone with that kind of income is not going to be moving to Gary and buying one of these shacks.

[Buckeye McFrog]

A $1 house, even in a really crappy place, is viewed as an opportunity by somebody.

[bigbob]

The steel mills are coming back online, thanks to President Trump. Much demand for steel lies ahead for border security.

There are much worse places than Gary, like about 2/3 of the eastern megalopolis.

[mewzilla]

A $1 house, even in a really crappy place, is viewed as an opportunity by somebody.

Drug dealers spring to mind.

[laconic]

80,000 used to be over 200,000; its like Detroit but on a smaller scale.

[Carriage Hill]

Probably all “Fixer-Uppers”.

[Carriage Hill]

“Three guesses on the ethnicity, gender and political affiliation of their mayor.”

You ain’t wrong there.

[securityman]

Have to pass through Gary every few years. Looks like a nuke went off. Only stopped once at a taco bell and the rice was placed in my taco uncooked. Best just to drive on by and never look back.

[Carriage Hill]

It’ll take several generations for/if Detroit is ever to “come back”. They’ve bulldozed several hundreds of acres of homes and turned it all back into farmland.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We had relatives in Gary who we visited several times in the 1960s. I’ve never smelled such foul “drinking” sulfur-laden water in a home before or since. You had to hold your breath while taking a shower or you would pass out. You didn’t want to drink the stuff.

A few years later, I worked in a power plan in Valparaiso, Indiana just a few miles from Gary. It was a much nicer place. (snort!) The people in Valparaiso, Chile wanted their good name back.

[a fool in paradise]

Sounds like a dangerous dare.

[Mr. Lucky]

Google on: Gary, Indiana, abandoned places .

It's breathtaking what leftism can do to society in only a generation.

[lizma2]

Born in Gary. (same hospital as Michael Jackson)

White flight and over powerful corrupt Steel Union killed it.

[sparklite2]

Yes, it is. And any house you get for a dollar is probably a shack which the owner will be of the social class to turn the shack into a hovel.

[sparklite2]

I went to a gas station operated by Feral-Americans and filled the tank. Went inside to pay and the guy tells me they don’t accept credit cards. Hmmm. But they had an ATM machine inside the store. Another black was also in the store, but not a customer. He tried to see what password I was putting into the ATM. Whole parts of the country now are no-go for non-blacks.

[sparklite2]

Back in the seventies I took a wrong exit off the Interstate and landed in downtown E St Louis. It was terrifying.

[Deplorable American1776]

Gary should have a ‘Buy one get 6 Free Sale’ and you might have a deal, not that good of a deal, but it would be better than a home for $1. 7 homes for $1 I might be interested, especially if it was adjourning.

[AFreeBird]

0.01¢ is too much.

[Tijeras_Slim]

I drove through Gary in the late 70’s. Even with the windows rolled up my eyes watered uncontrollably.

[lowbridge]

Back in the seventies I took a wrong exit off the Interstate and landed in downtown E St Louis. It was terrifying.

Okay, now, uh, you see -- you see which way you're pointing, right? Yeah, okay, that's good 'cause you see that place? You see where it say "rib tips"?Yeah, well, forget that. Don't go that way. You're gonna go all the way down about half a block and you'll see a torino with no wheels on it. Now, inside that torino is my cousin, Jack. Now, you tell him you my boy and that you lost, and he'll make sure you get to where you going 'cause you don't want to know from me, man. This ain't even my neighborhood. I'm from the west side of chicago, here on vacation.