New-home sales are slumping. But new home building is big business in St. Charles County.

So today, the county’s leading economic development agency said it hopes to do something about those weak sales: Offering a $500 matching grant to first-time home buyers or people moving in to the county.

HOME St. Charles, a subsidiary of the Economic Development Center of St. Charles County, said today that it will give $500 towards closing costs for a new home, if the buyer also gets $500 from a banker, builder or mortgage broker. Right now, it has funding for 20 grants.

“As part of our broader economic solutions campaign, the Welcome Home Incentive Program is designed to help attract new residents, sell new homes and impact local jobs in St. Charles County,” said EDC president Greg Prestemon. “We also hope this effort will serve as a challenge to other community groups, businesses and organizations to encourage them to consider how they can refocus resources and programs to have an immediate and positive impact on the local economy.”

To qualify for the program, buyers must:

- Be a first-time homebuyer or new resident moving to St. Charles County

- Have a $500 match from a builder, banker or mortgage broker

- Be buying a newly-constructed or previously unoccupied single-family home

- Have a purchase price of no more than $267,000

- Sign a contract on or after July 1

For more, click here.

New home construction, long an engine of the St. Charles County economy, has fallen sharply in the last two years.

Through May, 444 permits had been issued this year for new single-family homes in the county, according to the Home Builders Association of Eastern Missouri. That’s down from 634 in the same period last year, 1,265 in 2007 and at least 1,600 in several years earlier this decade. With the slump, a number of home builders have cut staff or closed altogether.

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