By Daniel Okafor
ALBANY — When Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the last round of 2026 awards for her MOVE-IN NY starter-home program on Friday, none of the money went to Western New York. The region had already done well. Over the program’s first three rounds, municipalities and nonprofits in Erie and Niagara counties won about $29 million to buy and place 96 factory-built single-family homes on vacant lots in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Lackawanna and the Town of Tonawanda.
That is about a third of the money the state has awarded so far. The program’s own rules also start a clock: homes are supposed to be delivered and sited within five months of an award. A Buffalo Chronicle review of state documents, local land records and planning actions found progress on the ground in every one of the four communities. It found no public record that any of the 96 Western New York homes has yet been set on its foundation.
The final 2026 round, announced Friday, gave nearly $20 million for 61 homes to the Essex County Land Bank, the Wayne County Regional Land Bank, the Rochester Land Bank and the Suffolk County Landbank. The state says MOVE-IN NY has now awarded more than $80 million for 250 households.
“My administration is using every tool in the toolbox to bring homeownership within reach for individuals and families across New York,” Ms. Hochul said in announcing the round. “By harnessing the benefits of factory-built technology, the MOVE-IN NY program is bringing modern, affordable single-family homes to the market more quickly and in more regions than ever before.”
What the state is buying
MOVE-IN NY is run by New York State Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) through its Housing Trust Fund Corporation. It buys “CrossMod” homes in bulk. These are factory-built houses made to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s manufactured-home code and to design guidelines from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so buyers can get conventional mortgages. Local partners place the homes on scattered vacant lots and sell them to low- and moderate-income buyers for less than they cost to build.
The program grew out of a pilot. The state’s request for applications, published in September 2025, says HCR placed three-bedroom, two-bath homes of about 1,500 square feet in Syracuse, Schenectady and Newcomb. They were finished in “just under six months” for “just over $250,000,” which the agency put at “nearly 50% of the cost” of comparable stick-built homes. In a May 7, 2026 presentation to a state planners’ forum, HCR put the pilot’s total cost, including installation and site work, at “just $275,000.”
In late November 2025, HCR named two manufacturers, Champion Homes and Clayton Development Group, as prequalified producers. Awardees buy from that list. The program was paid for with $50 million in the 2025-26 state budget. The governor’s office says she secured another $100 million in the 2026-27 budget to expand MOVE-IN NY and to explore other factory-built and modular construction.
The terms behind the awards
The headline award figures overstate how much the state will finally spend, because most of the money is meant to come back. Under the RFA, HCR lends awardees the money at zero interest, with no payments due along the way, and forgives part of each loan. The loan covers the home, site preparation, foundations, permits, utility hookups and a 6% developer fee. It generally does not cover land, which is why so many awardees are land banks, housing agencies and towns that already own vacant lots.
When a home sells, the proceeds, minus the developer fee, go back to HCR. The state forgives whatever is needed to make the price affordable. HCR’s presentation walks through an example: a $275,000 loan, a $175,000 sale price, $100,000 forgiven as subsidy and a $16,500 developer fee, leaving $158,500 owed back to the state.
Buyers must fall between 70% and 130% of the area median income, with the average sale affordable at 100%, under the RFA. HCR’s later presentation describes the range as 60% to 130% “depending on the market.” Homes carry a 10-year resale restriction recorded against the deed.
The presentation also lays out why the state thinks the subsidy is needed upstate. In its example of an upstate city, a newly built house costs about $425,000 all in, and a price affordable at 100% of median income is about $300,000. But “new homes will not appraise for more than ~$200k,” the slide says, so selling at $180,000 to a buyer at 80% of median requires $245,000 in subsidy. It also says traditional development timelines “regularly extend 18-36 months.”
The terms come with conditions that matter in Western New York. Every applicant needed a resolution from its local governing body affirming that “no special-use permits or other special administrative processes” would be needed to install a CrossMod. HCR’s slides note that “upstate cities have insisted manufactured housing cannot be sited on infill lots per their codes.” Applicants also had to show control of at least 10 build-ready sites, reachable by tractor-trailer. The RFA asks that homes be “delivered and sited within 5 months of award,” and that the awardee get certified as a manufactured-home retailer within 60 days.
Western New York’s four awards
Award amounts in state releases work out to $302,500 a home for most upstate grantees, and $300,000 a home in Buffalo.
- Town of Tonawanda: $6.05 million for 20 homes (first round, announced in April).
- Lackawanna Housing Development Corporation: $2.42 million for 8 homes (second round, announced May 13).
- City of Buffalo: $12 million for 40 homes (third round, announced in June).
- Niagara Falls Neighborhood Housing Services: nearly $8.5 million for 28 homes (third round).
Together, the four awards total about $28.9 million for 96 homes. By the Chronicle’s count of the four published rounds, the statewide total is about $81.4 million for 257 homes. HCR’s own rounded figure is more than $80 million for 250 households.
The local officials who applied have described the program in strong terms. “Owning a home is something that everyone dreams about when they are growing up but unfortunately, affording a home has become more challenging in recent years,” Joseph Emminger, the Tonawanda town supervisor, said in April. “Without Governor Hochul’s leadership on this issue, those lots would remain empty and those dreams would remain unfulfilled.”
“We are very pleased that the City of Lackawanna has been accepted into the MOVE-IN NY program,” Lackawanna Mayor Annette Iafallo said in May. She noted that the city is a state-certified Pro-Housing Community and is working with Erie County’s Department of Environment and Planning.
Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan said in June, “For too many families, the dream of owning a home feels increasingly out of reach. The MOVE-IN NY program is helping create quality, affordable homes that families can actually afford to buy, while transforming vacant land into new opportunities for neighborhood growth.”
“This investment will transform vacant lots into homeownership opportunities, strengthen neighborhoods, and support continued development across the city,” said Clay Simmons, chief executive of Niagara Falls Neighborhood Housing Services.
“For too many families, homeownership is out of reach, which is why I created the MOVE-IN NY program,” Ms. Hochul said when announcing the Buffalo and Niagara Falls awards. “MOVE-IN NY cuts the cost of housing production and brings these much-needed homes to market quickly and affordably.”
Where each project stands
Town of Tonawanda. The town’s public GIS server hosts a map layer titled “MoveInNY_Parcels.” It lists 20 vacant residential lots, all owned by the Town of Tonawanda, on Sheridan Parkside Drive and nearby streets in the 14217 ZIP code. The lots are each between about a tenth and three-tenths of an acre, with assessed full market values of roughly $21,000 to $68,000. The layer’s property data show the town acquired many of them between 2006 and 2015. A construction-leads listing on ConstructConnect still lists the project as “conceptual,” with a start date of Oct. 22, 2026. The state’s April release said the first-round homes were “expected to be sited this summer.” Five months from that award was late September.
Lackawanna. The city’s planning board approved site plans and a negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act for the eight homes on Sept. 30, Citizen Portal reported. That clears a local hurdle. It also indicates that, as of late September, the homes had not yet been placed, more than four months after the May award.
Niagara Falls. In August, the Niagara Falls Urban Renewal Agency agreed to sell four South End lots to Niagara Falls Neighborhood Housing Services for $1,200 each: 2440, 2482 and 2499 MacKenna Ave., plus 153 22nd St. The sale was reported by the Niagara Gazette’s Rick Pfeiffer. According to the Gazette, Mayor Robert Restaino described the MacKenna lots as “unusually large” and said the agency had received “conditional approval” from HCR to build 28 homes. Four lots is well short of 28, so the agency appears to be assembling sites from more than one source.
Buffalo. The city’s 40-home award is the largest in the region. When it was announced, Buffalo Rising reported that “details on who will be administering the program, overseeing the construction of the homes, and their locations has not been announced.” The Chronicle did not find a public list of Buffalo lots, a named development partner or a planning board item for the homes. That does not mean the work isn’t underway. City-owned scattered lots in Buffalo can move through city channels without the kind of public hearing a subdivision would draw.
What the pilot showed
The best public evidence of how a MOVE-IN NY home performs comes from Syracuse. The Greater Syracuse Land Bank’s pilot home at 139 Maxwell Ave. sold in February for $175,000, syracuse.com reported. That price is very close to HCR’s worked example. Syracuse then won the program’s largest award: $15.73 million for 52 homes.
The Syracuse numbers show both the appeal and the cost. A $175,000 house for a family near the median income is rare in new construction anywhere in the state. The state’s own figures put a typical small single-family home in New York at “upwards of $450,000 or more” to build. But the gap between what a CrossMod costs to place, about $275,000 to $302,500 per the program’s figures, and what it sells for is real public money. In HCR’s example, about $100,000 per home is forgiven. Applied across Western New York’s 96 homes, a similar gap would mean roughly $9.6 million in state subsidy that is never repaid. The rest of the region’s $28.9 million would cycle back to HCR as the homes sell.
That estimate rests on HCR’s example. Actual subsidies will vary with sale prices, appraisals and buyer incomes in each neighborhood. Appraisals are the variable to watch: in many Buffalo, Lackawanna and Niagara Falls neighborhoods, comparable sales sit well below the cost of any new house.
What comes next
HCR’s May presentation said the agency expected to place and sell 200 to 300 homes from the current round. It said a new round would open “later in 2026,” and that HCR is “exploring use of denser ‘modular’ typologies.” Friday’s announcement was described as the final round of 2026 awards. With $100 million more in this year’s budget, communities that have not applied, or were turned down, may have another chance in 2027.
The governor also signed the Land-Home Property Act in December 2025. According to the state, it creates a formal process for classifying a manufactured home as real property, which will let owners of homes like CrossMods convert their title from personal property and get easier access to traditional mortgages. The state says the law takes effect at the end of this year.
For Western New York buyers, what matters is when the first homes go on sale and at what price. The Chronicle has asked the governor’s office and HCR, the Town of Tonawanda, the City of Lackawanna, the City of Buffalo and Niagara Falls Neighborhood Housing Services how many of the region’s 96 homes have been ordered, delivered or sited; when sales are expected to begin; and whether the five-month target in the program’s rules has been extended. This article will be updated with their responses.
Sources: State of New York and HCR award announcements (April–October 2026); MOVE-IN NY Participant RFA (HCR, September 2025); HCR presentation “MOVE-IN NY,” May 7, 2026; Town of Tonawanda GIS; reporting by the Niagara Gazette, Buffalo Rising, syracuse.com, Citizen Portal and ConstructConnect.
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