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Redone foreclosures find new life with low-income buyers

By Greta Guest, Detroit Free Press, Source: MCT News Service

DETROIT _ The city of Pontiac, Mich., showed off some of its former foreclosed homes this week, polished with federal dollars and featuring new kitchens, bathrooms, windows, flooring and roofs.

The rehabilitation of the properties and the sales were subsidized by federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds. Buyers had to meet income requirements and received down payment assistance of up to $20,000. Each buyer contributed the minimum cash requirement of $1,000.

The city still has four to sell ranging from $55,000 to $70,000. There were three home sales waiting to close on Monday. And six have sold for $25,000 to $70,000, including a three-bedroom, two-bathroom brick and stone ranch with 1,492 square feet that sold for $65,000 to Leslie Bailey, 48, of Pontiac, a first-time homebuyer.

Her house has fieldstone accents around the gas fireplace and on a wall between the kitchen and sun room.

The home features hardwood and ceramic tile floors on the first floor with carpet upstairs. It also features a security system.

"I'm really grateful for this opportunity," said Bailey, a mother of two adult children who works as a direct care worker. She's been renting nearby.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program also is helping to transform a historic Sears building downtown into 46 urban loft rental units for $20 million. The project includes a first-floor grocery store.

Shannon Morgan, vice president of Home Renewal Systems, a Farmington Hills, Mich.-based company that handles the rehabs for the municipalities, said the work started in Pontiac seven months ago and proceeded pretty quickly. The company sponsored a bus tour to the other houses to show prospective homeowners that there are some good neighborhoods in Pontiac.

"Once again, it's the perception that it's Pontiac, it's blighted," Morgan said. "We have fantastic homes. These programs and federal funds are being doled out, and they are making an impact."

Pontiac has been hit hard by the recession and foreclosures and has been under the control of an emergency manager for more than two years because of staggering deficits. Late last year, city officials dissolved its fire department and merged it with Waterford's. Police duties were turned over to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office last year.

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PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): REAL-REDONE-FORECLOSURES