Houston Land Bank Opens RFQ for Builders and Developers to Acquire Property

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The Houston Land Bank (HLB) is requesting Statements of Qualifications (RFQ), now through September 20, from builders/developers wishing to acquire land from the HLB for development or redevelopment under their traditional program. This qualification process will establish a qualified pool of builders who will be added to an HLB approved list (Approved Builder). Each Approved Builder from this RFQ will be eligible to purchase lots from HLB through June 2023.

The HLB’s goal is to sell property to builders who would like to participate in the mission of the organization and to produce new affordable single-family housing and complementary community development projects to support small businesses, community engagement, and the City of Houston’s Complete Communities initiative.

Given the variety of sizes and conditions of land parcels, their geographic distribution, and the broad variety of goals of this organization and its programs, the HLB will be organizing builders into these categories:


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• Master Community Builder: Have experience in development of small to mid-size projects in larger geographic areas or on larger parcels and demonstrated business experience of more than seven years with the applying company and at least one successfully completed 25+ unit “ground up” residential project.

• Established Builder: Capacity for building 5-10+ units on separate land parcels at the same time, demonstrated business experience of more than five years with the applying company and at least 10 successfully completed “ground up” residential projects.

• Startup Builder: Capacity for building 1-4 units on separate land parcels at a time, demonstrated successful business experience of completing at least three “ground up” residential construction projects and at least two years with the applying company or entity.

• Rehab/Reconstruction Services: Capacity and demonstrated experience for rehabbing/reconstructing of single family and multi-family homes.

Houston Land Bank, previously known as the Land Assemblage and Redevelopment Authority (LARA), was established as a local government corporation for the City of Houston in 1999 to facilitate the redevelopment of vacant and tax damaged residential real estate in target Houston neighborhoods.

The current HLB lot inventory was assembled over the past 20 years, typically at auction or by ‘strike off’ by the taxing entities presently represented on the HLB Board. HLB has more than 450 lots in its inventory, with approximately half designated for the City of Houston’s New Home Development Program.

Deadline for submittal of qualifications is Monday, September 20 at 5 p.m. All builders interested in participating in lot acquisition from the Houston Land Bank must be qualified through this RFQ process to be eligible to purchase lots, and must construct and sell homes in accordance with the Program Guidelines and related construction standards and specifications of the RFQ.

Please email Bradley Pepper for additional information about this program.

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