The Lincoln Community Land Trust

The Lincoln Community Land Trust (LCLT) makes homes available to hard working individuals and families of Lincoln County who deserve the option of homeownership.  Homeownership can offer a chance to build equity, become more financially stable, build credit, grant freedom to improve your own home and property, become rooted in a neighborhood and invest in its people, help build a more secure environment for children, and even provide an inheritance for family or heirs. 

A community land trust home benefits the community by making one more affordable home available from one generation to another to enjoy.  It lasts because the homeowner, in return for the below market home price and affordable mortgage payments, agrees that when ready to sell their home they give the next home buyer the same opportunity to buy the home at a rate that is affordable.

Community land trust homes across the nation also make homeownership a reality for those ready for homeownership but have insufficient income or difficulty finding a mortgage to purchase a traditional market rate home.  Community land trust homes can act as a bridge between rent and traditional home ownership.  On average in the United States, 70% of community land trust home owners eventually go on to purchase traditional market rate homes.

What is a Community Land Trust?

A Community Land Trust is a nonprofit organization that works with the community to give people access to properties and places that would otherwise be out of reach.  Most often it is homes but can also be community gardens, commercial space, or parks.  The Community Land Trust understands that people often need help in homeownership and guides them through buying, maintaining, and reselling the home.  Each homeowner has the unique chance of helping guide the organization and its work in the community. 

What Makes a Community Land Trust So Different from Others?

The LCLT keeps home prices low and affordable from one generation to the next by keeping the land in trust.  That means holding and never selling the land.  While the home is sold and the homeowner has the deed (right of ownership) to the home.  Only the land is owned (deeded) by the community land trust.  By removing land from the sale of the home, the price can be low enough to be affordable.  

Understandably, because the homeowner uses the land but doesn’t own it, the land remains available to the homeowner through a lease agreement. This lease is for 99 years and then can be renewed.  The community land trust generally retains an option to repurchase the homes at resale at an agreed on price, that gives the homeowner selling the home a fair return on investment, and the home remains affordable to the next buyer.

Homes for Sale 

2219 NE 28^th Street, Lincoln City Oregon - $145,000

Contact Sandra Lamb, Realtor, John L. Scott Realty (541) 992-4500

Contact Benjamin Baggett, LCLT Director, 541-758-2761 for more information or Beth Larsen, Community Housing Services Housing Coordinator, 541-704-7647 or 1-866-245-1780 for Eligibility Requirement, Financing and Homebuyer Education.

Prepare for Homeownership

Homebuyer Workshop: This eight-hour workshop helps prospective homebuyers learn how to successfully navigate the home buying process. Students learn how to search for and evaluate homes, work with housing industry professionals and gain knowledge and confidence with the home purchase process. Students receive a certificate at the end of class that helps them to qualify for a number of assistance programs and tax credits.  Click here to view a schedule of free Homebuyer Workshops

Become a Member of the Lincoln Community Land Trust:

Please consider joining the LCLT to make affordable homeownership available to working individuals and families across Lincoln County.  Membership is one of the outstanding and unique characteristics of a community land trusts. Members have a voice in the election of Board members, the use of land, and the resale formula used to keep trust homes affordable from one generation to the next. Members can serve as Board members and officers.  And members get to stay involved in efforts to address workforce housing in Lincoln County.

Click here to download a membership application.

Up-to-date information on the status of workforce housing in Lincoln County is now available.

View the recently released Lincoln County Workforce Housing Needs Assessment. 

Contact LCLT for print copies available for purchase.

2010 LCLT Annual Report

2011 LCLT Board of Directors