WEST FAIRLEE — Upper Valley Habitat for Humanity will transfer ownership of a newly renovated, high-efficiency modular home to a family of three from Vershire this week. The structure, manufactured by White River Junction’s Vermod Homes was originally located in Moretown, Vt., and was moved to the Cold Springs manufactured home park in West Fairlee in November.

Renovations began in February, and on Friday, the new owners, a mother and two children, an 18-month-old and a middle schooler, will take possession of the house.

The home is solar-ready, equipped with heat pumps, a new ventilation system and is “extremely energy efficient,” Upper Valley Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Jack Kauders said Tuesday. The family is looking into options for solar panels and hopes to have them installed in the spring, he said.

Upper Valley Habitat for Humanity has constructed more than 30 homes since its founding in 1987, completing one house roughly every two years, but “we’re hoping to move it up to one home a year,” Kauders said.

The West Fairlee renovation allowed for a relatively quick eight-month turnaround. It “served as a good bridge project” between a single-family home in Lebanon completed last April and an upcoming multi-family project in Weathersfield, Joe Denny, Habitat’s director of operations, said by phone Tuesday.

The Weathersfield project is a planned unit development on Route 5 that is slated to consist of a mix of duplex and single-family homes for up to eight families. The organization is also planning to construct a single-family home on Nutt Lane in White River Junction, Kauders said Tuesday.

The need for housing in the Upper Valley is “tremendous,” Denny said.

Habitat for Humanity gets calls every week from people in the Upper Valley looking for homes, and received more than 40 applications just this summer, Kauders said. “It’s difficult to choose between so many deserving applicants,” he added.

The total cost of building a house in the Upper Valley, from purchasing land to construction and materials, is “close to $300,000,” Kauders said.

To qualify to own a home through Habitat, families must earn no more than 80% of the median income of the county where they live and must qualify for a mortgage.

“No family we sell to pays more than 30% of their income on their mortgage payments,” Kauders said. “We count on community support,” to make that possible, he added. The modular home for this project, which was in significant disrepair, was sold to what Kauders called a “token” amount.

The organization offsets its costs through volunteer labor, grants and donations.

Denny spoke Tuesday from the site of the West Fairlee renovation, where he was joined by a dozen members of the Dartmouth College women’s tennis team, who took a day off from practice to help put siding on the home.

“Student and community groups, and lots and lots of individual volunteers are a key part of our ability to build homes affordably,” he said.

Finding help has become more difficult in the past few years, however.

“It’s been harder these days” to attract volunteers, Kauders said. “Everybody is doing a thousand things.”

The transfer-of-ownership ceremony will take place on Friday afternoon at the home site.

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.