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Home Ownership

Self-Help homes are designed to be affordable. Participants have no down payment and mortgage payments are tied to income. Monthly mortgage payments will range from $450 to $750. Many times, mortgage payments are less than the rent a family was paying before home ownership. Homes are constructed in groups with every homeowner in the group to complete all of the homes before move-in.

Participants provide 65% of the labor necessary to construct their homes. This helps to keep costs down. For example, a home owner may only have a $125,000 mortgage for a home that appraises at $147,000. The labor participants put into their homes a significant amount of "sweat" equity upon move-in.

All homes are three or four bedrooms, have two baths and a double car garage. View our floorplans and photo gallery for more details.

Since construction began with the first group in 1998, EICAP's Mutual Self-Help Housing program has completed 124 homes and counting. The 124 families included a total of 288 children at time of move-in. Homes have been constructed in Rigby, Rexburg, Sugar City, Shelley, Roberts, Teton and Ucon.

Mutual Self-Help Housing is a Rural Development home ownership program. EICAP was the first self-help grantee in Idaho. To date, this is the largest number of homes in Idaho.

To view the Mutual Self-Help Housing brochure, you may need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader