Amherst Community Land Trust Seeks Affordable Home For Family

An income-qualified family hopes to purchase a home in Amherst in a joint purchase with the Amherst Community Land Trust (ACLT). ACLT has $125,000 in community preservation act funds and $75,000 of its own funds to devote to the purchase, but rising house prices and interest rates make affordable houses in town difficult to find. Therefore, the group is hoping to find a resident willing to work with it to sell their home at less than the market rate to permit the family to become Amherst homeowners. Sellers at less than market rate would be eligible for a charitable tax deduction. Three residents have already donated portions or all of their homes’ value to the land trust.  

ACLT President Linda Slakey and Vice President Jim Oldham have written the following letter asking for people planning to sell their home in the next six months to consider making it available to a low-income family through the trust. Interested residents should contact Oldham at 253-1930 for more information.

Dear Amherst Neighbors,

The Amherst Community Land Trust (ACLT) is working with a low-income family to purchase a home in Amherst and we need your help. The recent surge in demand for housing has made it extremely hard to find, let alone actually acquire, a home listed for sale that meets our program needs. So we are reaching out to our neighbors to seek an owner who might be interested in selling directly to ACLT to meet the immediate housing need of one low-income family while also seeing the house kept permanently affordable for future homebuyers.

We aim to purchase a single family home, ideally two or three bedrooms, in Amherst sometime in fall 2023 or winter-spring 2024. By contributing to the purchase price and taking joint ownership of the property with the purchasing family, ACLT will make homeownership affordable to them (housing cost no more than 33% of their income) and will also establish permanent restrictions that will ensure the home remains affordable to subsequent buyers.

Benefits to a seller in working with ACLT include the simplicity of arranging a sale with an identified buyer, the potential for a tax benefit if the sale price is below the appraised market value, and the

assurance that the house sold will remain a community asset as an affordable, owner-occupied home.

Funding and program rules limit the total price ACLT and our homebuyer can offer to $385,000 or less, depending on home size and condition, but because ACLT is a nonprofit organization, any

difference between the home’s appraised value and a lesser sale price can be treated as a charitable contribution for tax purposes.

ACLT is an all-volunteer nonprofit serving Amherst, founded in 2014 to address the shortage of affordable housing in town and to strengthen year-round family neighborhoods. To date we have housed five low-income families, two in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, in homes that are now resale-restricted to remain affordable in perpetuity. Like our current effort, two of those projects were supported in part from the Town of Amherst’s Community Preservation Act funds. Generous donors have helped us make three additional homes available and permanently affordable for low and moderate income families. We aim to continue to build on this success and we hope you can help.

If you have a property that might fit our needs, please email amherstcommunitylandtrust@gmail.com or call ACLT Vice President, Jim Oldham at 413-253-1930 if you want to learn more. Please help spread the word about our search, and if you would like to get involved, please let us know that too— ACLT welcomes new members. Let’s make home ownership in Amherst affordable for all!

Thank you,

Linda Slakey

ACLT President