6 Reasons Housing Is About To Become Even More Unaffordable

6/19/2018                                       By: Michael Hobbes

A new report reveals rising rents and surging inequality - and it's only going to get worse.

By nearly every measure, the American housing sector is broken. For decades, city, state and federal policies have contributed to rising rents, falling subsidies and the systematic shift of homeownership to older, richer and whiter Americans.

That’s the undeniable upshot of a new report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The report compiles hundreds of metrics on the health of America’s housing sector and finds that, despite some short-term progress since the recession, the long-term prognosis is grim.

The housing crisis is the ticking time bomb at the heart of the American economy, wiping out savings, increasing inequality and reducing the ability of workers to weather the next recession. It has been in front of us all along, but now, finally, it is impossible to ignore....................Read More

Affordable Housing Success Strategies

By:  Red Capital Group, LLC

A respected industry leader shares his prescription for 2018 and beyond.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently issued a comprehensive report on the nation’s inventory of affordable rental housing. The 2018 findings will surprise very few in the affordable housing industry: Affordable housing options are dwindling for many Americans.

Tracy Peters has some ideas that can help. Peters runs the affordable housing team at RED Capital Markets, LLC, a leading tax-exempt bond underwriter and mortgage lender. His firm has successfully financed thousands of affordable housing projects over the last 27 years. He recently shared his views on the opportunities ahead:

What’s on the minds of affordable housing developers today?

I think many developers are concerned about the continued pressure on state and federal budgets for housing. Although we have had some recent good news out of Washington on the housing budget front, developers must be diligent in order to preserve rental subsidies and other federal housing programs. Many are concerned with continuing increases in construction pricing and shortages in the skilled trades...................Read More

How affordable housing for a few can help us all

June 15, 2018                            By: Robert E. Cornegy, Jr.

A housing project in my district affords 10 working-class families the opportunity to become homeowners. Some may see that as too generous, while lamenting the lack of affordable housing citywide. That’s shortsighted: Affordable homeownership will lead to a stronger, fairer city.

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Indeed, the Van Buren Green project is exactly what’s right about Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan, which has already created almost 90,000 homes and apartments toward an ambitious 300,000-unit affordable-housing goal.

And though the majority of New Yorkers are renters — and his plan slants toward rentals — helping New Yorkers own a piece of their city is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Affordable homeownership offers security to families, too many of whom worry they are losing their place in the city they love. It allows New Yorkers of lesser means to grow equity that can then be passed along to future generations.................Read More

Analysis: HUD plan would raise rents for poor by 20 percent

June 4, 2018               By: The Associated Press

CHARLESTON (AP) Housing Secretary Ben Carson says his latest proposal to raise rents would mean a path toward self-sufficiency for more than 4 million low-income households across the United States by pushing more people to find work. For Ebony Morris and her four small children, it could mean homelessness.

Morris lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where most households receiving federal housing assistance would see rents rise an average 26 percent, according to an analysis done by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for The Associated Press. Her increase would be nearly double that.

Overall, the analysis shows that in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, low-income tenants — many of whom have jobs — would have to pay roughly 20 percent more each year for rent under the plan. That’s about six times greater than the growth in average hourly earnings, putting poor workers at an increased risk of homelessness because wages haven’t kept pace with housing expenses.

“I saw public housing as an option to get on my feet, to pay 30 percent of my income and get myself out of debt and eventually become a homeowner,” said Morris, whose rent would jump from $403 to $600. “But this would put us in a homeless state.”..........................Read More