Watertown program helps home go from vacant and rundown to fixed and for sale
WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) - A year after Watertown announced it was seeking developers to restore rundown houses, the first home is on the market.
One of those developers, David Heinisch, makes a living flipping houses. He bought 244 North Rutland Street for $5,000 from the city through its Vacant Homes Redevelopment Initiative.
Ten months later, it’s now on the market for $187,000. Heinisch declined to say how much money he put into the renovations.
The house is 1 of 8 in Watertown’s program, which screened developers and their plans for the properties.
“They wanted to see a lot of your qualifications, if you wanna call it that, to make sure they were putting the house in the hands of somebody that wasn’t just - throw a little bit of lipstick on it and paint and rent it,” said Heinisch.
The North Rutland Street home is the first in the program to be completed and city officials hope seeing a vacant house turned vibrant will spur change in the area.
“Hopefully we’ll spark a little renaissance in the neighborhood and lead others to want to improve their properties as well that’s really the whole point of the program,” said Watertown Planning & Community Development Director Mike Lumbis.
When the city picks a contractor and they come to an agreement on the price of the property, it then belongs to the developer. Even though the city of Watertown is losing out on property, it’s gaining in other ways.
“This is making money for the city and for the taxpayers through property taxes and so on,” said Lumbis.
City officials say the first round of rehabs has been a success so far. A second round will soon have more houses ready to hit the market.
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