Posted by Susy Thielen on January 28th, 2012 — in Housing News
Posted: Saturday, January 28, 2012 8:00 am | Updated: 8:20 am, Sat Jan 28, 2012.
By Jim Gallagher St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — Last summer, Marie Davis was living in an 800-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment and not liking it. A single woman of 27, she wanted bigger and better.
“I thought, ‘I’m handing money away in rent, and I’ll never see a return on it,’ ” she said.
The housing depression harrowed the building business. “The common theme is that they went long on land at the peak of the market,” said builder Ken Stricker of Consort Homes in Chesterfield, Mo. Builders borrowed to buy big tracts, and were stuck with it when buyers disappeared.
But Consort and others kept building through the downturn, though at a vastly reduced rate. They are leaner firms today living on narrowed profit margins.
Back in the good old days, around about 2006, Gene Stumpf would build 25 to 30 homes a year. They were four- and five-bedroom mansions, covering up to 4,000 square feet and selling for $500,000 or so.
That market has virtually disappeared, unfortunately, says Stumpf, who founded Stumpf Homes in 1985.
Unemployment is part of the reason, but that’s less of an issue for affluent people who buy big houses.
The real problem is the sick market for existing homes: People who might want a bigger house can’t sell the one they now own for an acceptable price.
So builders find themselves building more for people who don’t have homes to sell.
“The market that did best for us is the first-time home buyer,” said Mark Fulford, of Fulford homes in O’Fallon, Ill.
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Posted by Susy Thielen on November 22nd, 2011 — in Housing News, Monadnock Region Coalition
You are invited to join us on Friday, December 2nd from 7:00 to 9:00 AM for Heading for Home’s 6th Annual Business Leaders Breakfast as we explore the the critical role housing plays in our region’s economic recovery.
The event will include:
- Report of findings and “next steps” from the region-wide Housing Summit held on June 1, 2011
- Presentation Topic: “The Current Housing Environment-what’s changed and where are we going.”
- Featured speaker: Dennis Delay, Economist with the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies and the New England Economic Partnership. a non-profit organization dedicated to providing objective economic analyses and forecasts
- Full, delicious breakfast.
The $10 registration fee covers the cost of breakfast
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
For questions about the event, contact Susy Thielen at <susyt@headingforhome.org> or 352-1449.
This event is made possible through the sponsorship of Savings Bank of Walpole and Hampshire First Bank, both local New Hampshire Banks.
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Posted by Susy Thielen on November 4th, 2011 — in Housing News
by Preeti Vissa
A big part of the American dream is in serious danger — danger fueled by misinformation campaigns that may well lead to terrible policies.
For a long time, owning your own home has been a key part of that dream: One little corner of the world that’s yours, a shelter that not only protects your family from the wind and rain, but also from financial storms. That little bundle of equity can make emergencies manageable and a graceful retirement feasible. And there is plenty of evidence that homeownership helps build stable communities.
But that dream is under attack. More and more media voices have joined a chorus saying that “homeownership isn’t for everyone,” not-too-subtly implying that it’s time to keep the riffraff out. They’ve falsely blamed the subprime mortgage meltdown and resulting recession on efforts to help ordinary, hard-working Americans become homeowners. That chorus grew louder in September 2008, when Fox News host Neil Cavuto infamously blamed the housing collapse on “lending to minorities and risky folks,” and has continued ever since.
In fact, research has shown that the problem is not and never was responsible efforts to expand homeownership, such as the federal Community Reinvestment Act. The problem was toxic, trick mortgages peddled by firms that preyed on the unsophisticated. These loans were filled with booby-traps like low teaser rates with payments that skyrocketed a few years later, negative amortization (meaning that the low early payments actually caused the loan principal and total debt to increase), high upfront fees and prepayment penalties. Read the rest of this page »
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Posted by Susy Thielen on October 10th, 2011 — in Housing News
Changes are not all good for this key gateway to the city
Keene Mayor Dale Pregent made a prediction last week: “Within the next 10 to 12 years, Ward 1 will be almost totally college students.”
That ward includes Marlboro Street, the neighborhood where I grew up and where Pregent still lives.
On the mayor’s 75th birthday Wednesday, the two of us sat down for coffee to talk about that area.
Marlboro Street has always been an odd mash-up of homes, businesses and industry. Forty years ago, when I was growing up in that neighborhood, big companies such as MPB, Kingsbury Corp. and Markem employed hundreds of people.
There was O.K. Fairbanks grocery store, several gas stations and a couple of car dealerships. Families went to Dog ’n’ Suds to grab lunch or an ice cream, and the only strong presence from Keene State College was a college fraternity house close to Main Street. Single-family homes lined each side of the street, interspersed with apartment buildings. It was a busy street and one of the major arteries into the city. Read the rest of this page »
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Posted by Susy Thielen on April 25th, 2011 — in Housing News, Monadnock Region Coalition
Register Now!
We are losing key professionals from the Monadnock Region. Young professionals, nurses, teachers, emergency response personnel, accountants, small business owners and hard workers in many local businesses cannot afford to live in our region.
Young people are choosing to move to other states where significant investments have been made in housing that is reasonably priced. Heading for Home has been working toward making sure that these professionals that contribute so much to our community and our economy can live here at home.
We have identified the most significant barriers to moving forward on critical workforce housing projects and now we need you! It’s time to refine the strategies to breakthrough the existing barriers and move into an action phase that produces affordable workforce housing for these valued community members within the next three to four years.
Join us on June 1st. from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. as we work together on strategies to break down the existing barriers to these projects within the Monadnock Region. Your experience and time will be critical to solving this challenge as we move forward.
The day will include:
* Speakers with experiences in local towns working toward implementing affordable housing
* Roundtable discussions with members from important economic sectors to resolve these issues
* Great food
The $20 registration fee covers the cost of breakfast, lunch and snacks.
Register Now!
For questions about the event or registration, please contact Heading for Home at the email or phone information below.
Thank you for your interest and support. We look forward to seeing you at the Housing Summit.
Sincerely,
Susan Newcomer, Heading for Home Board Member
Workforce Development Coordinator
Greater Keene Chamber of Commerce
HousingSummit2011@gmail.com
603-352-1303 x14
Platinum Sponsors: Public Service Company of New Hampshire
Sustaining Sponsors: New Hampshire Housing, Citizens Bank
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Posted by Susy Thielen on April 18th, 2011 — in Housing News
Posted: Sunday, April 17, 2011 8:45 am | Updated: 9:03 am, Sun Apr 17, 2011.
Housing without a date to economic recovery dance By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy News Service
WASHINGTON — Many sectors of the U.S. economy are showing heartening signs of growth: Employment, international trade, manufacturing and professional services among them.
Then there’s the miserable housing sector. It’s still missing from the list of positives, still a net drag on the U.S. economic recovery.
Where’s the bottom? Four years into the housing crisis, specialists still aren’t sure if we’re on our way up or still have further to drop.
Mark Zandi, the chief economist for forecaster Moody’s Analytics, expects a bottom in home prices next year and recovery thereafter.
“House prices will bottom out by year’s end as the market works through a bulge of distressed sales,” Zandi said. “Sales, construction and prices will be recovering in earnest by this time next year.”
That’s too soon for Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, N.C. He doesn’t see the housing market returning to normal until 2016. Yes, five more years. Read the rest of this page »
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Posted by Susy Thielen on March 17th, 2011 — in Housing News
by Trisha Riggs
Urbanland
March 9, 2011
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Posted by Susy Thielen on February 21st, 2011 — in Housing News, Monadnock Region Coalition
Affordable housing in the Keene area is hard to find and sometimes difficult to keep. Demand trumps supply and wait lists stretch out for years. For people with limited means who are looking for a place to live, it can be a …
By Sarah Trefethen
Sentinel Staff
Published: Sunday, February 20, 2011
Asked how she imagined her retirement, Janet LaBelle laughed.
“On a beach, with a pool boy fanning me,” she said, before turning more serious. She thought she might travel and see more of the country, take some time for art, and volunteer at the hospital, she said.
Things aren’t working out as planned.
LaBelle has seen her income drop and her expenses skyrocket in recent years due to a series of medical crises. On top of illnesses and financial difficulties, she can’t find an affordable place to live, part of a chronic problem in the Keene area.
Home rentals in non-metropolitan areas of New Hampshire are the fifth- most expensive of any state in the country, behind Massachusetts, Hawaii, Alaska and Connecticut, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group. If you include cities, New Hampshire is the 10th-most expensive state for renters. Read the rest of this page »
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Posted by Susy Thielen on January 15th, 2011 — in Housing News
By Steve Kerch
MarketWatch
Published: Saturday, January 15, 2011
ORLANDO, Fla. — Apartment dwellers could be facing double-digit rent increases in the coming years as a shortage of new multifamily units coupled with a rise in prime renter-age households gives landlords clout they haven’t seen since the mid-1990s, development experts said Thursday.
“Demand pressures are building. It’s not bad today because rents have been down the last two years,” said William McLaughlin, an executive vice president with AvalonBay Communities in the Northeast.
“But it feels a lot like 1992, when we were coming out of a deep recession … and we ended up seeing double-digit rent increases after that,” he said. Read the rest of this page »
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Posted by Susy Thielen on December 29th, 2010 — in Housing News
Census indicates jobs, housing driving trend
By Don Lee
McClatchy News Service
Published: Wednesday, December 29, 2010
WASHINGTON — One of the hallmarks of the American economy has been the mobility of its people — the speed with which they pulled up stakes to seek better opportunities elsewhere. But the deep recession ambushed long-running population trends, sharply slowing the migration to the Sunbelt while giving a boost to states with more jobs and affordable housing.
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