Ahmad Alsaleh is no ordinary teenager. Last month, the 19-year-old closed on his first home.
That alone makes Alsaleh a virtual unicorn in today’s housing market. What makes Alsaleh’s story all the more impressive is the adversity he overcame to get to the three-bedroom home that he closed on last month on Melville Street in Augusta.
After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Alsaleh, his parents and four siblings fled as refugees to Jordan and got to the United States eight years ago. After two years in Arizona, the family came to Maine through Catholic Charities’ refugee resettlement program.
The charity found them an Augusta apartment, but it was cramped and in poor condition, Alsaleh said. He wanted better than that. His father works part-time and his mother has a disability, so he took it on himself as the eldest sibling to provide a home for the family like they had in Syria.
“[My parents] sacrificed everything in their country for their kids,” Alsaleh said. “It’s not even ‘motivation,’ that’s just a word. You’ve just got to do it. If I don’t carry the family, who else is going to?”
Alsaleh took on three jobs while attending Cony High School and continued to work full-time through his first year of college at Central Maine Community College in Auburn, where he was able to take advantage of a free college scholarship to study business management.
By the time he was 18, Alsaleh estimated that he had banked about $40,000. He also dedicated himself to learning as much as he could about real estate and investing. Alsaleh joined a Jobs for Maine Graduates program at his high school that connected him with state Sen. Matt Pouliot, R-Augusta, who runs a downtown real estate office focused on the region.
Pouliot, who bought his first home at 20, was immediately impressed by Alsaleh’s ambition. He hired Alsaleh to work at his real estate firm the summer after high school. He then offered to help him search for his family’s home.
“Folks who are refugees from war-torn countries [have] this other level of drive,” Pouliot said. “Ahmad is one of them. He’s like, ‘Hey, nothing’s gonna be given to me in this country. I’m gonna have to earn it.’”
The search was tough given Maine’s tight, inflated housing market. Augusta has had some of the fastest-rising prices in the nation. They remain affordable compared with other areas of Maine, but homes priced under $350,000 are still often going within days of hitting the market.
Once Alsaleh identified the place he wanted, he had to act quickly. Pouliot arranged for him to see the home before showings officially started. Alsaleh put in a $310,000 offer soon after, $25,000 over the asking price.
Alsaleh secured the deal with a first-generation homebuyer loan from MaineHousing that offered him $10,000 in down payment assistance, financial classes and low fixed interest rates. However, the program made it difficult to get accepted for a loan, Alsaleh said, extending the process. He had to appraise his home twice and secure roof repairs before he could close.
It was well worth it, he says. For the first time since they were displaced from Syria, the Alsaleh family now has a place to call their own. Alsaleh is even confident they can reconfigure the house so it has five bedrooms. His mother is most excited about the prospect of gardening and growing her own produce at home.
Alsaleh says that this is just the beginning for him. His next goal will be to retire his parents. This year, he hopes to get his real estate license. Over the next decade, he wants to work his way up to owning his own real estate firm like Pouliot.
Alsaleh got a head start, pointing out with a smile detectable in his voice that he bought his first home a full year earlier than his mentor.
“And housing back then would have been way easier to buy than right now,” he added. (Pouliot admitted that the purchase price for his first duplex was only $70,000.)
More young people are homeowners in Maine than they are nationwide, according to U.S. Census data. Only about 3 percent of Maine households are headed by people under age 25. Just 28 percent of them own rather than rent their homes, but it’s still only a fraction of Maine’s high homeownership rate of 74 percent.
Both Alsaleh and Pouliot want more young people to see that homeownership is attainable. Investing in a multi-family property could be a good investment for young people, since someone can live in one unit and pay off their mortgage by renting out the others.
“We want as many people to experience the wealth building opportunity of owning real estate as possible,” Pouliot said.
