3444 Fernside Place in Evanston is one of The Port’s CARE Homes currently for sale. Photo: ColdwellBanker.com

Cincinnati leaders announced a historic partnership Thursday that aims to make homeownership more accessible to many in the community, particularly for Cincinnati’s Black and brown residents.

As it stands, Black homeownership in Cincinnati proper is at about 25%, while in Hamilton County, it hovers between 33-34% — a 40% gap from white homeownership in Greater Cincinnati, which is about 74%, according to a recent report from Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Greater Cincinnati (HOME). But a new partnership between The Port and the Greater Cincinnati Realtist Association (GCRA) is hoping to change that.

In 2021, The Port announced it bought a portfolio of 194 local rentals from an out-of-town institutional investor, Los Angeles-based Raineth Housing. This launched The Port’s CARE (Creating Affordable Real Estate) Homes initiative, with the goal of converting these single-family homes in neighborhoods like Price Hill, North College Hill, Evanston and others into affordable homeownership opportunities.

“Our goal of our CARE portfolio is to make high-quality improvements to single-family homes and make them available to homebuyers,” Laura Brunner, president and CEO of The Port, said at a press conference outside 1734 Wyoming Ave. in West Price Hill, one of the CARE homes, Thursday. “Sometimes, that means we take a loss, especially when properties are relatively small … We take on that risk because to The Port, the eventual sale of this home isn’t just about new upgrades that a family gets to enjoy. While that’s part of it, we’re improving the quality of life in neighborhoods also, and we’re creating a pathway toward generational wealth, one of the primary benefits of owning a home.”

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To help sell those homes, The Port is teaming up with the GCRA, known as the Realtists, the local chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), a real estate professional trade organization committed to providing democracy in housing. GCRA President Darrick Dansby said the Realtists have been working extremely hard to increase Black homeownership in Greater Cincinnati through workshops and collaborations with local organizations like the Community Action Agency, the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority and Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney’s office. But there was still a piece missing: inventory.

“We have the realtors, lenders, inspectors; we’ve got a title company,” Dansby said at the press conference. “The missing component of this whole formula that we don’t have is inventory. We’ve got the people to help people buy houses; we’ve got the lenders who are preapproving these houses, but we don’t have the product to show prospective home buyers. This [partnership] is a way to help find a solution to that problem.”

Dansby added that home inventory in the area is so low, there’s only a one-month supply. In a traditional market, there would be up to three months’ worth of inventory.

“So having this inventory that is specifically dedicated to starter homeowners and homeowners who have the opportunity to buy a home based on their income, we believe that these products will help us increase that Black homeownership,” Dansby said.

Hamilton County Commission President Alicia Reece called the partnership “historic.”

“The county, the Realtists, the Port Authority [coming together] — I don’t think they have anything like this in the country,” Reece said at the press conference. “This is historic. This is a national model. … This is what happens when you get [Hamilton] County, the Port, the Realtists, the African-American community working together.”

Brunner says the partnership also builds on The Port’s message that homeownership is an achievable possibility for all.

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“[The Realtists] aren’t just realtors; they’re educators, deeply immersed in the real estate market of Cincinnati and will be instrumental as we continue to work to positively transform homeownership rates in our community,” she said.

Eight of the 194 CARE Homes have already hit the market, with three already under contract, says Dansby. The sale prices of the homes are at or below market in all neighborhoods, with listings stipulating the home must be owner-occupied (for at least five years, according to this listing for The Port home 3444 Fernside Place in Evanston) and the homes won’t be sold to investors.

“For the high quality of the renovations that we’re making, this significantly reduces the barrier to entry in the housing market, and we need everyone to know about it,” said Brunner.

To learn more about homeownership opportunities through The Port, email housing@cincinnatiport.org.

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This article appears in Nov 15-28, 2023.

Katherine Barrier is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s journalism program and has nearly 10 years of experience reporting local and national news as a digital journalist. At CityBeat, she...