A new developer to the Jefferson area held an open house event on Thursday, following completion of its three single-family units.

Origin Homes broke ground in late June to build three 2,100-square-foot houses, after receiving workforce housing tax credits through the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the city of Jefferson being designated as a Thriving Community, which awarded the town additional points towards the tax credit. Director of Operations Matt Daniels said their team did a great job of adhering to the laid out time frame of getting the homes done by mid to late fall.

“(Superintendent) Bella Hale and (Residential Construction Project Manager) Karli Cooper, they really did a great job of sticking to the timeline. You know, we had a little bit of rain in there in July, to say the least, but for the most part, everything went as planned. And happy to report that one of our three homes is sold. We’ve come full circle in a short year in a short build time, quite honestly, from June to November. So, really happy with how everything turned out.” 

The linchpin to drawing the home developer that is based in West Des Moines was the workforce housing tax credits, which Daniels noted was nice to have to mitigate risk for them having to travel outside of the Des Moines metro area, but it helped with the overall list price of the homes.

“And then ultimately, by receiving those credits, we can roll that over to the end-user and really drop the price to get it where it is truly affordable, and that is the overall goal. You know, we don’t want to have houses that are outside the market rate. We want to try and get as close as in-line as we can without sacrificing any of the quality.”  

Daniels mentioned that Origin Homes had a great partnership with Tri-County Lumber in Jefferson and he is looking forward to growing that aspect of the company in the future, working with more local vendors. There are two of the three homes left on the market, with the house at 504 North Vine Street includes four bedrooms and three bathrooms and the 600 West Lincoln Way home has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, both includes a finished lower level of the ranch-style homes and are listed for $297,500 at 600 West Lincoln Way and $294,500 for 504 North Vine Street.