Suffolk Landbank Wins $4.84 Million State Award to Bring 11 Factory-Built Starter Homes to the County

The Suffolk County Landbank Corp. will receive $4,840,000 from New York State to buy and set 11 factory-built houses on lots in the county and then sell them to buyers of modest means, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office said Friday.

The grant comes from MOVE-IN NY, a homeownership program run by the state housing agency known as HCR. The round announced Friday was the last of 2026 and totaled about $20 million for 61 homes. Besides Suffolk, three upstate groups won money: the Essex County Land Bank, $7.26 million for 24 homes; the Rochester Land Bank, about $4.54 million for 15; and Wayne County's regional land bank, about $3.33 million for 11 houses in Lyons. Across all rounds, the state says it has now committed more than $80 million to the program, enough for 250 households.

Spread evenly, Suffolk's award works out to $440,000 for each home. The announcement did not say where in the county the houses will go or what they will sell for.

The homes are a type known as CrossMods. They are put together in a factory to the federal manufactured housing code written by the federal housing department, but they are designed to look like a conventional single-family house once placed on a lot. Because the models satisfy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac design rules, buyers can finance them with an ordinary mortgage. After the houses are in place, the release said, they must be sold for less than they cost to build, and only to households with low or moderate incomes.

State housing officials laid out the program's rules at a planning conference in May. To apply, a town, land bank or nonprofit had to show control of at least 10 lots ready for building inside an existing residential neighborhood, with room for a tractor-trailer to deliver a house, and a local resolution saying no special permits would be needed. The state aimed to have homes delivered and placed within about five months of an award. Buyers must earn from 60% up to 130% of what is typical for the area, depending on the market, and the homes carry a 10-year resale restriction tied to buyer income.

The money flows as a zero-interest state loan. When a home sells, the group that placed it keeps a developer fee of 6% of project cost and pays the rest of the sale price back, and the state forgives whatever part of the loan is needed to keep the house affordable. In an early pilot in Schenectady, Syracuse and Newcomb, three-bedroom, two-bath CrossMods of about 1,500 square feet cost about $275,000 each including site work and were ready to sell in a little over six months, the agency said.

Building even a modest one-family home in New York now typically runs $450,000 or more, the governor's office said. Hochul's office said the program was started with $50 million in the 2026 state budget, and the 2027 budget added $100 million more.

It is not the first MOVE-IN NY money to reach Suffolk. In May, in the program's second round, East Hampton town government won about $7.04 million to place 16 houses.

The Landbank is a nonprofit set up under the state's 2011 Land Bank Act. It is not a county department, but it is run by Suffolk officials under an agreement with the county, and its board is confirmed by the county Legislature. It was created mainly to take on tax-delinquent, often polluted properties that the county could not otherwise sell, and it has also run a pilot to buy vacant, bank-foreclosed homes in Brookhaven, Babylon and Islip, fix them up and sell them to income-qualified buyers.