YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – As an adult, Robert Benkert had not spent more than three years in one place. He was looking to settle down and decided to call Youngstown home.
Benkert’s not from Youngstown, but he wanted to buy a house and determined that Ohio had the least expensive in the country.
On the day a new house went up for sale on a renovated street on the lower south side, Benkert made an offer. On Tuesday, he officially became Youngstown’s newest resident.
Benkert was thrilled to stand outside his new home on Bernard Street off of Glenwood Avenue.
“I’m ecstatic even though I have it all contained right now,” he said.
The 31-year-old Marine veteran who grew up in Florida is now on military disability. He most recently lived in Madison, Wisconsin, where he said a house of the same style but 50 years older is going for $350,000.
He was the first person to buy a house on Bernard and only paid $192,500.
“That’s a great price compared to any other place I’ve looked at,” Benkert said. “But Youngstown had the most to offer in terms of least expensive houses.”
It was Youngstown City Councilman Julius Oliver’s idea to build houses on Bernard Street. Of the three houses built, one has a sale pending and the other has yet to be sold.
They were built with American Rescue Plan money.
“The money that comes from the sale of these properties go into building more properties like it. Right now, we’re looking at Valley Street on the east side, as far as doing the same project like this,” Oliver said.
Ian Beniston, with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, says before the homes were built, the land was an overgrown dumping ground.
He and YNDC helped with building the Bernard Street houses, which also come with a new street, new sidewalks and three new houses yet to come, incorporating the rock outcroppings still on the land.
“In the coming years, you’ll see some of what you’ve seen here in other parts of the city, not just here. But with that, I’ll say we’re also continuing to focus on the Glenwood Corridor as well,” Beniston said.
“Anytime I see a vacant street or vacant property, all I see is potential. All I see is what could be there,” Oliver said.