This won't be surprising to anyone here (tho you should keep reading, just in case).
A new government report finds that a substantial amount of new housing shifted from suburbia back to the center city in the past 15 years.
From USAToday:
"In more than half of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas, communities at the urban core have captured a significantly larger share of their region's new residential building permits since 2002 than in the first half of the 1990s, according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency."
A large amount of residential construction still occurs on former farmland, but there was a consistent increase in new urban housing from 2002 to 2007. Analysts attribute the change to demographics, high gas prices, and congested roads. The change may also reflect the investment cities have made in public transit systems.
Of course, the housing collapse and the overall economy mean that most housing developments are struggling, no matter if they are in the city or the suburbs. But it is an interesting trend, one that gives me hope for less sprawl in the future. But we'll just have to see where people want to live once the economy picks back up.
Showing posts with label housing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housing. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Snow Day
Internets, I've totally abandoned you today, and I'm so sorry!
Everyone's all snowed in and I'm snowed under with work, work, work. (Not that I'm complaining, internets!)
But. Here's a little story I did this week about Memphis Area Legal Services' fair housing testers. I think the whole program is really fascinating.
This didn't get in the final story, but I asked Advocacy Director Webb Brewer if the testers were ever affected by the job. Like if a certain tester was a woman, for instance, and after she did a test on an apartment complex with men and other women, she realized that yes, she were being discriminated against. I think that would affect me personally.
Brewer said that there was case that gave testers standing to bring a lawsuit themselves if they thought they were being discriminated against.
"Even if they weren't interested in renting, it could still be hurtful to them," he said.
Full story below:
Take-Home Test
Memphis Area Legal Services trains volunteers to look for housing discrimination.
Students aren't the only ones who have to worry about pop quizzes. Property managers need to worry, as well.
Memphis Area Legal Services recently held a training session for "fair housing testers" — people who pose as potential renters.
Memphis Area Legal Services investigates complaints of discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. Using a federal Housing and Urban Development grant, the group also tests rental practices at multi-family apartment complexes.
"The number of testers we had before was causing the project to go slowly, so we wanted to get more people involved," says Webb Brewer, director of advocacy at Memphis Area Legal Services. "We need a pool that's diverse, because in testing you try to replicate suspected instances of discrimination and that can take all kinds of shapes."
For example, the organization might send in a pair of testers to an apartment building suspected of racial discrimination. After applying for an apartment, the testers record their experiences.
During training, testers are taught about the federal Fair Housing Act and what their roles are. When they are sent to an apartment building, however, they are not told what the specific complaint is.
"They know very little about what is being investigated, because we don't want them to do anything to impact the outcome," Brewer says. "We give them a very specific script: Your name is such-and-such, and you do this."
The testers eventually will be debriefed but not until the case is resolved. And that could take awhile.
"Ultimately," Brewer says, "they might be a witness in a trial."
Several years ago, Memphis Area Legal Services did similar testing that resulted in two separate settlements in 2007.
During the most recent training, about 50 people participated. Testers earn $50 per test.
"I think the economic situation is such that there might be more interest [than in the past]. We compensate people for their trouble, but we don't want someone making a second job out of it. We would rather have people do it because they're civically minded," Brewer says.
As for property managers, Brewer doesn't mind them knowing that testers are out there.
"It might give them the incentive to do what's right," he says.
Everyone's all snowed in and I'm snowed under with work, work, work. (Not that I'm complaining, internets!)
But. Here's a little story I did this week about Memphis Area Legal Services' fair housing testers. I think the whole program is really fascinating.
This didn't get in the final story, but I asked Advocacy Director Webb Brewer if the testers were ever affected by the job. Like if a certain tester was a woman, for instance, and after she did a test on an apartment complex with men and other women, she realized that yes, she were being discriminated against. I think that would affect me personally.
Brewer said that there was case that gave testers standing to bring a lawsuit themselves if they thought they were being discriminated against.
"Even if they weren't interested in renting, it could still be hurtful to them," he said.
Full story below:
Take-Home Test
Memphis Area Legal Services trains volunteers to look for housing discrimination.
Students aren't the only ones who have to worry about pop quizzes. Property managers need to worry, as well.
Memphis Area Legal Services recently held a training session for "fair housing testers" — people who pose as potential renters.
Memphis Area Legal Services investigates complaints of discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. Using a federal Housing and Urban Development grant, the group also tests rental practices at multi-family apartment complexes.
"The number of testers we had before was causing the project to go slowly, so we wanted to get more people involved," says Webb Brewer, director of advocacy at Memphis Area Legal Services. "We need a pool that's diverse, because in testing you try to replicate suspected instances of discrimination and that can take all kinds of shapes."
For example, the organization might send in a pair of testers to an apartment building suspected of racial discrimination. After applying for an apartment, the testers record their experiences.
During training, testers are taught about the federal Fair Housing Act and what their roles are. When they are sent to an apartment building, however, they are not told what the specific complaint is.
"They know very little about what is being investigated, because we don't want them to do anything to impact the outcome," Brewer says. "We give them a very specific script: Your name is such-and-such, and you do this."
The testers eventually will be debriefed but not until the case is resolved. And that could take awhile.
"Ultimately," Brewer says, "they might be a witness in a trial."
Several years ago, Memphis Area Legal Services did similar testing that resulted in two separate settlements in 2007.
During the most recent training, about 50 people participated. Testers earn $50 per test.
"I think the economic situation is such that there might be more interest [than in the past]. We compensate people for their trouble, but we don't want someone making a second job out of it. We would rather have people do it because they're civically minded," Brewer says.
As for property managers, Brewer doesn't mind them knowing that testers are out there.
"It might give them the incentive to do what's right," he says.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Dollar Dance
In the post-mortgage crisis economic climate, even the 99 cent store is having trouble selling goods for under $1. HUD, on the other hand, is still selling houses for a buck.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, HUD is selling foreclosed homes — for $1 — to local governments to create affordable housing:
"The dollar home program predates the housing meltdown, but it has become more active because of escalating foreclosures.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, HUD is selling foreclosed homes — for $1 — to local governments to create affordable housing:
"The dollar home program predates the housing meltdown, but it has become more active because of escalating foreclosures.
Governments nationwide used to buy about 100 such homes a year, according to HUD. This year that number has more than tripled in 10 months.
Still, 100-cent homes remain scarce. In Atlanta just two were on the market last month."
The story looks at a particular dollar house on Atlanta's Sims Street and shows how a home bought for $84,000 in 2000 ends up in HUD's bargain basement bin. Not surprisingly, all the plumbing and wiring have been stolen, but HUD also rejected investor offers in the tens of thousands of dollars.
To read a Flyer story about the local impact of foreclosures, click here.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Update on TERRA
Went by U of M's TERRA house yesterday ... now that ground has broken, it's supposed to go up fairly quickly.
I've written about it a few times ... most recently for our Green issue. But also before that.
Here are some pics of what it looks like right now.
The view of the front of the house
Side view
A look at the insulating blocks on the back of the house. You can see them in the other pictures, too, but not as close up.
I've written about it a few times ... most recently for our Green issue. But also before that.
Here are some pics of what it looks like right now.
The view of the front of the house 
Side view
A look at the insulating blocks on the back of the house. You can see them in the other pictures, too, but not as close up.One of the things I love about this project is not only its physical greenness, but the greenness of its location.
For starters, it's on a reclaimed brownfield site. Secondly, the school thought about transportation when they chose the site — it's also only a few blocks from the end of the Main Street trolley line and MATA's North End terminal.
Oh, and here's a link to the live webcam for up-to-the-minute info.
For starters, it's on a reclaimed brownfield site. Secondly, the school thought about transportation when they chose the site — it's also only a few blocks from the end of the Main Street trolley line and MATA's North End terminal.
Oh, and here's a link to the live webcam for up-to-the-minute info.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Under Water
A story in today's Wall Street Journal says that the slide in home prices have left one in six American homeowners owing more on their mortgage than what their home is worth. The news especially bad for those homeowners who have bought in the last five years or so.
With the overall mortgage crisis, prices are back to 2004 levels in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, and Minneapolis.
From the story:
"Stephanie and Jason Kirschenman thought they were being prudent when they agreed in late 2004 to buy a new four-bedroom home in Lodi, Calif., for $458,000. They put a substantial 20% down and chose a loan with a fixed interest rate for the first 10 years. Two years later, they took out a second mortgage to pay off some bills.
At the time, the home was appraised for about $550,000. But a mortgage broker recently estimated its value at well below the $380,000 the family owes on it, says Ms. Kirschenman."
The story included a handy-dandy map, on which you might notice Memphis is a nice shade of rose, meaning that between 20 to 40 percent of people who bought their homes in the past five years now owe more than the estimated value. (That's if I decoded the color correctly, which I think I did. Judge for yourself.)
From the Wall Street Journal.
But at least it's not magenta.
And in a separate note, if I made this map, I might have used completely different colors to avoid confusion, but I guess this way you can easily see the hot spots.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Tent Revival
The tent city is back. With the foreclosure crisis worsening and the economy faltering, more people are living in cars or tents. In Santa Barbara, a parking lot has been designated for people who sleep in their vehicles. In Reno, Nevada, Portland, Oregon, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, tent cities have sprung up.
A recent AP story focuses on Reno and how, a few weeks after the first tents were pitched near the railroad tracks, more than 150 people were living "in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters."
From the AP: "From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening."
In Reno, where even the casinos have started to lay off employees, city officials have let the tent city stay because the homeless shelters are already at capacity.
A recent AP story focuses on Reno and how, a few weeks after the first tents were pitched near the railroad tracks, more than 150 people were living "in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters."
From the AP: "From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening."
In Reno, where even the casinos have started to lay off employees, city officials have let the tent city stay because the homeless shelters are already at capacity.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Safe as Houses
A LA Times story from Monday says that in 2004 the FBI was aware of the impending (at the time) mortgage crisis.
And though the FBI had illuminated the problem, the LA Times said they were focused on other priorities at the expense of the U.S. housing market.
From the story:
"Today, the damage from the global mortgage meltdown has more than matched that of the savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s and early 1990s. By some estimates, it has made that costly debacle look like chump change. But it's also clear that the FBI failed to avert a problem it had accurately forecast. ...
The FBI says it now has about 200 agents working on mortgage fraud, but critics say the agency might have averted much of the problem had it heeded its own warning."
The story goes on to say that the FBI had 1,000 agents working on white collar crime and banking fraud cases during the savings-and-loan bust.
On a similar note, CNN has a story on the quality — or lack thereof — of homes on the market right now, citing problems with mold, maggots, trash, and general disrepair.
From that story:
"Most of these mutts are foreclosed properties that have been permitted to fall into disrepair by lenders overwhelmed with thousands of vacant homes. If these houses sell at all, they're going for bargain basement prices that are hurting home values throughout the neighborhood.
And though the FBI had illuminated the problem, the LA Times said they were focused on other priorities at the expense of the U.S. housing market.
From the story:
"Today, the damage from the global mortgage meltdown has more than matched that of the savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s and early 1990s. By some estimates, it has made that costly debacle look like chump change. But it's also clear that the FBI failed to avert a problem it had accurately forecast. ...
The FBI says it now has about 200 agents working on mortgage fraud, but critics say the agency might have averted much of the problem had it heeded its own warning."
The story goes on to say that the FBI had 1,000 agents working on white collar crime and banking fraud cases during the savings-and-loan bust.
On a similar note, CNN has a story on the quality — or lack thereof — of homes on the market right now, citing problems with mold, maggots, trash, and general disrepair.
From that story:
"Most of these mutts are foreclosed properties that have been permitted to fall into disrepair by lenders overwhelmed with thousands of vacant homes. If these houses sell at all, they're going for bargain basement prices that are hurting home values throughout the neighborhood.
'I've never seen so many houses in this condition before,' said Ray Anderson of Buyer's Advantage Real Estate in Auburn Calif., near Sacramento. 'And I've been in the business 20 years. I've seen bank-owned properties in the past. They were never like this.'"
Of course, if you aren't feeling the economic crunch and don't mind having to put some hard work into a place (or paying someone to put some hard work into it), it seems like now would be a good time to buy a house or investment property.Monday, July 14, 2008
Landed
The city of Indianapolis is taking a lesson from ebay.
The city recently started an online land bank for vacant property and abandoned homes. The site includes a list of available properties, as well as photos and an estimate of the home's value.
The land bank is part of a plan to get residents back into Indianapolis' roughly 8,000 vacant homes and stop crime.
Police officers only have to pay $2,500 for one of the properties if they agree to live there for at least three years. Neighborhood revitalization groups get the same deal, but many of the land bank's properties cost much less.
The Indianapolis Star says that the online land bank is an improvement over buying the properties at auction:
"Abandoned property purchased through a Marion County tax sale is typically sold 'as is,' often leaving the buyer to pay off tax and other liens. But a home purchased from the Indy Land Bank comes with a clean ownership title, free of such liens."
The city recently started an online land bank for vacant property and abandoned homes. The site includes a list of available properties, as well as photos and an estimate of the home's value.
The land bank is part of a plan to get residents back into Indianapolis' roughly 8,000 vacant homes and stop crime.
Police officers only have to pay $2,500 for one of the properties if they agree to live there for at least three years. Neighborhood revitalization groups get the same deal, but many of the land bank's properties cost much less.
The Indianapolis Star says that the online land bank is an improvement over buying the properties at auction:
"Abandoned property purchased through a Marion County tax sale is typically sold 'as is,' often leaving the buyer to pay off tax and other liens. But a home purchased from the Indy Land Bank comes with a clean ownership title, free of such liens."
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Orange is the New Red
In what's headlined the Map of Misery, the Economist has a story (with map of misery, natch) this week that suggests the nation has only hit the halfway point in the housing bust.
The map, from the Federal Reserve, shows the change in the housing price index by county from the last quarter in 2006 to the same time in 2007. And it's color-coded. The hotter the color, the worse things are in that state (sorry, California and Florida and, um, Nevada? I get Vegas, but this was done by county.)
I've heard that, generally, Memphis is immune (or more immune than other parts of the country) to these types of market fluctuations. Mostly because real estate prices here haven't been driven up by enormous demand or boatloads of Memphians with gobs of extra cash to spend. So even if the market corrects itself downward, it doesn't have that far to go.
But if you look at Memphis' little corner on the map, you might notice that it's light orange.
So home prices aren't decreasing, but they are staying roughly the same. Because of the conventional wisdom about demand here, I can only assume that the supply side of the equation (foreclosures?) is driving down prices.
And here's more good news from The Economist: "The discrepancy between supply and demand suggests that prices could fall a lot more. By historical standards there is a huge glut of unsold homes on the market. The homeowner-vacancy rate—which includes all vacant homes for sale—has soared to a record level of 2.9%, which means that there are some 1.1m 'excess' houses for sale compared with the average between 1985 and 2005."
Well, at least they came up with an appropriate title for their map.
The map, from the Federal Reserve, shows the change in the housing price index by county from the last quarter in 2006 to the same time in 2007. And it's color-coded. The hotter the color, the worse things are in that state (sorry, California and Florida and, um, Nevada? I get Vegas, but this was done by county.)
I've heard that, generally, Memphis is immune (or more immune than other parts of the country) to these types of market fluctuations. Mostly because real estate prices here haven't been driven up by enormous demand or boatloads of Memphians with gobs of extra cash to spend. So even if the market corrects itself downward, it doesn't have that far to go.
But if you look at Memphis' little corner on the map, you might notice that it's light orange.
So home prices aren't decreasing, but they are staying roughly the same. Because of the conventional wisdom about demand here, I can only assume that the supply side of the equation (foreclosures?) is driving down prices.
And here's more good news from The Economist: "The discrepancy between supply and demand suggests that prices could fall a lot more. By historical standards there is a huge glut of unsold homes on the market. The homeowner-vacancy rate—which includes all vacant homes for sale—has soared to a record level of 2.9%, which means that there are some 1.1m 'excess' houses for sale compared with the average between 1985 and 2005."
Well, at least they came up with an appropriate title for their map.
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