Origin Homes is adding an affordable, rural homebuilding focus to their homebuilding efforts across Iowa’s 99 counties. Origin, which is known for fully custom, semi-custom and build on your land homebuilding, has recently announced a new initiative in hopes to catapult rural home choices for Iowans.
By utilizing the USDA Rural Home Loan Program, Origin Homes hopes to encourage homebuyers who live in counties with 20,000 populations or less to apply to build homes at a lesser cost. Through the program, they hope buyers can utilize low closing costs, zero down payments and lower interest rates to build homes in areas where populations are declining, and rural homes are in need.
“We continue to be approached by towns who have their housing readiness assessments done and they understand where their towns needs are for housing. We’ve had conversations with roughly 20 of the 99 counties and the need is great. We hope that offering this program along with our willingness to travel anywhere in the state will help fill the void,” said Matt Daniels, Director of Operations with Origin Homes.
One area of focus is Manning, in Carroll County, where roughly 1,500 people live. The city’s 6.1% vacancy rate is compared to 9.1% countywide, and no homes are currently on the market for sale or rent.
Manning’s proactive city leaders have incentives in place for buyers wanting to build in and around the community. They’ve also recently broke ground on a new housing development, Stadium View Subdivision, which will offer a variety of lot sizes, options and price points ranging from workforce housing up to fully custom homes.
“Our study indicated that we need a minimum of 17 homes per year to continue a positive growth pattern. That’s not happening right now. We’ve had two new spec homes in the last 20 years, which were only made possible by the Homes for Iowa program,” explained Dawn Meyer, Manning City Administrator. “We’ve been able to utilize the Empower Rural Iowa grant to best plan for neighborhoods and future divisions, but until Origin approached us with a potential partnership, we didn’t have any builders willing to travel this far from Des Moines.”
The city has said there are numerous companies eying Manning for expansion, specifically in the agricultural and manufacturing industries, one of which could bring up to 200 new full-time jobs to the city. These would be jobs relocated from out of state and offer great opportunities for rural Iowa if we can find the housing for workforce.
Origin Homes is aiming to build five homes in Manning within the next year with the hopes that rural homebuyers can use the USDA loan program to help purchase the new construction homes. The USDA Rural Home Loan is a federal loan that assists rural residents in purchasing a home for less and is offered nationwide.
Origin Homes is a subsidiary of Hubbell Realty Company, based out of West Des Moines, Iowa which was founded in 2021.
