How can Oak Park help people buy their first homes when local prices keep climbing?
Oak Park village trustees heard village staff’s recommendations for programs to support people purchasing their first homes, with the hope of making more of those purchases happen within village limits. The board has hosted discussions on the topic periodically since the village adopted its “Strategic Vision for Housing Report” two years ago.
“This is a significant step forward towards advancing the Strategic Vision for Housing that was adopted by the board in 2024,” said Village Manager Kevin Jackson. “We’ll hopefully get direction from the board on the homeownership plan that’s being recommended by staff.”
That 2024 report revealed that there was a more than $230,000 gap between the median cost of a single-family home in Oak Park and what a household bringing in the median income for metro Chicago can afford. Homebuyer counseling and education programs, mortgage credits and a downpayment assistance program targeting new homebuyers were among the strategies village staff recommended for supporting potential first-time homebuyers in the village and addressing the ongoing affordability crisis.
The proposed downpayment assistance program would seek to assist first-time homebuyers purchasing in the village, with the program providing households $6,000 to go towards downpayments. Many of the forgivable loans would likely support people buying condos, as condo purchases have been identified as a “gateway to homeownership” as the median cost for a single-family home in Oak Park soars past $550,000, increasing by more than 20% since last year.
The proposed downpayment assistance program would cost $96,000 per year, for a total of $480,000 over five years, aiming to help approximately 80 households earning less than 120% of the Area Median Income in that span, Neighborhood Services Director Jonathan Burch said.
“There’s no silver bullet to fixing affordable homeownership in Oak Park,” Burch said. “It’s about cobbling together many different things.”
Burch cited 2022 Census Bureau data revealing that homeownership rates in Oak Park lag behind nationwide and regional averages across demographics, but the largest disparity is among Black Oak Parkers. According to the census data, 35% of Black Oak Park households own their home, compared to 41% of Black households across northeast Illinois and 43% of Black households nationwide.
There’s a 35% gap between the Black and white homeownership rates in Oak Park, which is five points larger than the gap that exists nationally. In 2023, people making 120% of the Area Median Income could afford less than 30% of the housing stock in Oak Park.
“Those goals were specifically calling out the importance of addressing the affordability component of homeownership as well and a racial equity component recognizing the disparities that currently exist in homeownership rates in Oak Park and the access to home ownership here,” Burch said.
Oak Park Realtors Government Affairs Director Michael Bailey also addressed the board, calling on the village to take a proactive approach to addressing the housing supply in the village. Bailey said that buyer support programs in a community with a dwindling housing supply is like “a gift card to a restaurant that has no reservations.”
“When moving is considered too expensive, residents stay put longer,” Bailey said. “When people stay in their homes longer, there are fewer homes on the market. With this in mind, staff recommendations for first time home buyer assistance must be coupled with efforts to unlock existing housing supply. The housing ladder is broken here in Oak Park. First time buyers, seniors and move-up families are affected most by the lack of housing mobility.”
On average, the entire available for-sale housing supply in Oak Park turns over completely in less than two months, while a healthy market sees that supply turn over across six months, Bailey said.
Trustee Cory Wesley said the lack of housing supply would be the biggest challenge to a downpayment assistance program’s effectiveness.
“I feel like this is a challenge, and I’m hugely supportive of this,” Wesley said. “I don’t see how that level of supply will allow us to take this program and make it meaningful.”
“The first issue we have, the bigger issue we have, is supply.”
The board did not vote on whether or not to approve any of the proposed programs, with more discussion of the initiatives expected at a future meeting.
