It’s More Than a Home. It’s a Home Base.
Habitat offers an unparalleled opportunity to help families with low income attain homeownership. We encourage you to complete the homeownership qualification form and allow our staff to determine whether you qualify. For families who qualify, but have credit or other issues that will prevent them from being successful, our family services staff can work with you on credit and other areas to assist you in meeting eligibility requirements for the homeownership program.
If you meet the requirements to qualify, the key to your success is self-discipline and the willingness to do the work required to partner with Habitat to attain homeownership.
Qualifying for a Home
To qualify for a Habitat home, an individual or family must:
- Be living and/or working in Greenville County for at least one year
- Be living below the poverty level (earning 30-60% of the regional area median income)
- If employed, be employed at least one year or more on your current job. If unemployed but receiving other sources of income, two consecutive years of verifiable income documentation is required.
- Have a definite housing need: be living in substandard or crowded conditions or paying excessive rent in relation to income
- Have sufficient income available to be able to enter into an agreement with Habitat to pay the monthly mortgage. If credit issues exist, those must be addressed through pre-purchase counseling with our staff before you can receive approval for participation in Habitat’s homeownership program.
- Complete Habitat's homeowner preparation program, provided at no cost by Habitat to prepare applicants for homeownership. This includes courses in personal finance, budgeting, mortgages, credit, home maintenance and repair, conflict resolution, being a good neighbor, and others.
- Be willing to complete a minimum of 200 hours of volunteer service to Habitat. Known as “sweat equity,” this includes working on the construction of the prospective homeowner's home, other Habitat homes and possibly volunteering at other nonprofit organizations.
See FAQs for additional information.
The first step to learn whether you qualify is the completion of the homeownership qualification form.
If you are a veteran, learn more about the Homes for Heroes program.