CityHousing Hamilton sells 20 homes to put more money toward building apartments

Hamilton's largest social housing provider has sold 20 detached and semi-detached homes over the last six months.

The city-owned CityHousing Hamilton agency sold the homes with the intent of putting the money toward building more townhouses and apartments.

The 20 sales brought in nearly $6.5 million.

Once realtor commissions and lawyer and property fees are taken care of, that leaves about $6.15 million to put toward building more social housing.

The houses sold for an average price of about $323,500 each.

Most of the homes went for higher than the asking price.

One house, on Aidre Avenue in the McQuesten neighbourhood, was listed for $199,000 and sold for 21 per cent over asking: $241,700. That was the biggest percentage difference in the group.

Four houses out of 20 sold for less than the asking price.

The rationale for the sales is that detached homes are more expensive to maintain.

As of Dec. 31, there were 6,293 households on the wait list for social housing. That was an increase of 5 per cent over 2016.

The city acknowledges that unaffordability across the city means people have a harder time leaving social housing.

In 2017, about 672 households – just over 10 per cent – were housed from the wait list.

The agency wants to speed up that rate by building more housing.

The city has a stated goal of cutting that list in half by 2023.

Here's a list of the houses that sold.