City-owned Vacant Homes in Baltimore to Be Sold for $1

Baltimore's Board of Estimates voted 4 to 1 on March 20, 2024 to sell city owned vacant houses for as little as one dollar to buyers who agree to renovate them and live in them as their primary residence.

City Council President Nick Mosby cast the lone dissenting vote, warning that the plan does not protect longtime residents from displacement as neighborhoods improve.

Fewer than 1,000 of the city's more than 13,000 vacant properties are city owned, and just over 200 were listed for the fixed price sales.

Individual buyers and community land trusts pay one dollar, while developers and larger nonprofits pay 3,000 dollars and smaller nonprofits pay 1,000.

The homes sit mainly in stressed housing markets across East and West Baltimore, and individual buyers receive a 90 day priority window ahead of investors.

Mayor Brandon Scott championed the program as a tool to fight urban blight and pledged anti displacement policies, public tracking tools, and quarterly demographic reports.

The debate centered on whether such deep discounts would benefit neighborhood residents or well funded speculators.

Baltimore's dollar houses found slow demand: the resident priority window drew 459 applications and 11 buyers qualified, each proving $90,000 for renovations on top of the $1 purchase Maryland Matters. City records show 368 properties sold under fixed pricing by the end of 2024, though 48 percent of sold buildings sat under review for noncompliance, and the program paused before relaunching in November 2025. Council President Nick Mosby voted no, warning the sales lacked written guarantees against displacement. Mayor Brandon Scott counts vacants down from 16,000 to just over 11,800 WBALTV, and his $3 billion Reframe Baltimore plan runs until the late 2030s, fed by $50 million a year from Annapolis.