Workforce homes don’t lower values
Economist: Affordable housing not the culprit
By Steve Gilbert Sentinel Staff
Falling property values in Cheshire County are directly attributable to the recession-fueled national housing bubble, not local affordable housing issues, a state economist said.
“This is not your fault,” said Dennis Delay, an economist with the N.H. Center for Public Policy Studies and the New England Economic Partnership. But you still have to deal with it, he added.
Delay said workforce housing, defined as affordable housing for people who work, as opposed to subsidized housing for the unemployed, is not responsible for driving property values down in Cheshire County. It’s not a case of declining values because of declining neighborhoods.
Rather, he said, the recession caused by the sub-prime meltdown, which peaked in 2008, primarily accounts for the record-high 3,900 foreclosures in New Hampshire last year, and more than 3,000 so far this year.
“Falling property values had nothing to do with workforce housing and everything to do with the (housing) bubble,” he said. Read the rest of this page »