Price Hill Will unveiled its newest rehabilitation project yesterday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house at , a house that is already under contract for $93,000.

Built in 1910, the house had been one of those named in a lawsuit filed by Price Hill Will against lenders who owned blighted, foreclosed properties in the neighborhood.

With pressure from the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati, lender Deutsche Bank donated the property to Price Hill Will in February.

The 2,248-square-foot, three-story house has 4 bedrooms, 2-and-a-half bathrooms, and a two-story rear porch. New carpeting and hardwood floors have been installed throughout.

The rehabilitation project is part of Price Hill Will's Buy-Improve-Sell program, in which the community development corporation acquires foreclosed or donated homes and combines public and private funding to create affordable homeownership units.

The rehabbed homes are then sold to owner-occupiers, who are required to live there for at least three years. If the owner sells before the three years have elapsed, half of any profit from the sale goes back to PHW.

Those funds are then channeled into future projects.

Through this program, the organization hopes to tackle deteriorating housing stock, low homeownership rates, and rising crime.

To date, the program has turned around housing in the Incline District and in Cedar Grove, an area .

Over the past 18 months, the average home sale price in the Cedar Grove area has increased by more than $7,000, according to Price Hill Will.

Previous reading on BC:
Price Hill Will receives housing funds (6/29/07)
Price Hill: Cedar Grove Phase II funded (6/1/07)