Florida Workforce Housing Network is an independent, all-volunteer, netroots public service project to support quality affordable housing for all Florida families. We do not solicit or accept advertising, donations, fees, grants, commissions, or contract work. [More...]
WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Florida's population growth rate dropped by more than one-third last year, according to new numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau. MiamiHerald.com posts an Associated Press story with the details:
According to figures released Thursday, the state's population increased by 1.1 percent to 18.3 million. Over the previous 12-month period, the growth rate was 1.8 percent.
Looking the other way...
The Orlando Sentinel credits John Dunbar at AP for its version, which leads off with two paragraphs on Louisiana's population history before somberly inserting:
Florida was the 19th-fastest-growing state -- dropping from 2006 when it was No. 9 in the nation.
The Sentinel's version buries the money quote---from Census Bureau demographer Greg Harper---in the 11th paragraph, and without a word of followup:
"If there's one state that's a little surprising, I would say it's Florida," said [Harper].
Christina Rexroad at sptimes.com (St. Petersburg Times) took a closer look at the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and saw something more profound---a reason Florida population growth is skidding to a stop:
Florida has the largest percentage of renters spending 30 percent or more of their income on rent and utilities, according to the ...Census Bureau.
A rough formula that allocates 30 percent of the family income for housing---including insurance, utilities and taxes---is a rule of thumb planners, financial analysts and bureaucrats use to measure regional economic health.
According to the Census Bureau survey, 52 percent of Florida's 2.1-million renter households pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing, beating out also-rans California, Massachusetts, Nevada and New York.
Nationwide, only 46 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent for housing. Rexroad doesn't ask, but we will: who would want to move to the state where:
Median wages in Florida are $28,570, or about $3,000 less than the national average, according to the state Agency for Workforce Innovation. But the median price of a home, $222,100, is about $14,000 more than the national median.
On a longer-term scale, Florida also has slipped. Estimates dating back to April 2000 have Florida's population growing 14.2 percent, or 2.3 million people, to rise from 16 million people in 2000. Where it previously was the third-fastest-growing state over a seven-year span, this year Florida has slipped to seventh. Its long-term growth was eclipsed by Nevada (28.4 percent), Arizona (23.5 percent), Utah (18.5 percent), Georgia (16.6 percent), Idaho (15.9 percent) and Texas (14.6 percent).
"the bursting housing bubble squelched expansion in some of the nation's fastest-growing states..."
And Roberts focuses on another practical measure of population growth---realignment in Congressional districts after the 2010 census:
If nearly decade-long trends endure, Texas will gain as many as four Congressional seats and Florida's delegation will grow by two, while New York and Ohio will lose two seats each, said Andrew A. Beveridge of Queens College of the City University of New York.
Cox News' Marilyn Geewax at PalmBeachPost.com took a look at the latest Standard & Poore/Case Shiller Home Price Indices released Wednesday to find yet another wet blanket:
The respected measurement showed Miami surpassing Tampa as the big city where values were falling fastest in October. But the news was gloomy across the board, even in formerly healthy markets.
"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," said Robert Shiller, one of the economists who developed the home price report.
PalmBeachPost.com delved a little deeper:
October single-family home prices on the Treasure Coast fell to a median of $201,000 from $242,400 in October 2006, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The 17 percent drop was the highest-percentage decline in the state. Prices for existing single-family homes in Palm Beach County were off 5 percent, down to $348,300 from $365,600 in the same month a year ago.
The Tallahassee Democrat and Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville have yet to weigh in on the issue.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- Trailer park residents evicted in 2005 to make way for condos that were never built in Holly Hill, south of Daytona Beach, may number among Florida's homeless or the future homeless, according to Jaimie Ross, Affordable Housing Director at 1000 Friends of Florida in Tallahassee. Jim Haug at news-journalonline.com in Daytona Beach reported the story:
Mike Austin's monthly rent has more than doubled since he was forced out of a trailer park two years ago by a new owner who wanted to build condos.
The freelance photographer, however, feels poetic justice whenever he drives by the vacant land that was formerly the Royal Oak trailer park on Ridgewood Avenue.
The plan to build twin, 15-story condominium towers died with the real estate market crash. For sale signs have sprouted on the green space.
"They're stuck with the land," said Austin. "I'm glad. It's about time the rich man lost everything."
Haug uncovered a little-known Catch-22 in state law:
Under Florida law, cities must demonstrate to the state Department of Community Affairs that mobile home residents can find alternative housing before the cities can rezone or allow the trailer park land to be converted for a new purpose.
In Holly Hill, Forte said the law did not apply in the case of Royal Oak since the owner evicted all of the residents before he asked for a zoning change. Forte said the state Department of Community Affairs did not object to the change in the city's comprehensive plan.
BOCA RATON, Fla. ---Luis F. Perez at (South Florida) Sun-Sentinel.com reported yesterday that Boca Raton city council passed 4-1 a workforce housing ordinance that won't be effective until the housing market picks up again but has enough loopholes to to be ineffective anyway.
Boca Raton mayor Steven Abrams, left, cast the lone dissenting vote with an ominous threat:
...Abrams warned that the city's new work-force housing law could result in 19 apartment complexes going up next to the gated Broken Sound community.
The horror. Abrams was overstating his fear-mongering. The new law doesn't offer near enough incentive for one apartment complex...yet.
The new law provides a whopping 25 percent density bonus for developers who agree to pay into an affordable housing fund or price 10 percent of their new homes affordable to families earning 80-140 percent of median area income.
An upcoming 'study' will determine how little developers will have to pay into the fund to gain the density bonus without building affordable homes, Perez reports.
John Garvin, deputy assistant secretary of HUD's multifamily housing and counselor to the federal housing commissioner, will be featured as the keynote luncheon speaker on January 10.
The agenda includes a look at market conditions, including strategies for developing in high-cost areas, meeting the challenges of condo conversions and serving the elderly and other populations with special needs.
Industry experts will also discuss how they have guided wayward projects to a successful finish and provide guidance on how to develop in high cost areas while at the same time keeping a firm handle on ever increasing construction costs.
Complementing a construction track is a HUD track that is new to this conference and will feature panels discussing the benefits of partnering with HUD, how and why developers are pairing with the government's housing department and what each can expect from such a coupling, as well as an interactive roundtable.
A two-hour debt and equity panel rounds out the conference experience.
Novogradac & Company, which is hosting the event, is offering Florida Workforce Housing Network participants a 20% discount off the 'early bird' conference registration rate of $625. Click here to register online and specify Coupon Code VIP-5015 to receive a $125 discount.
NEW YORK, N.Y. ---Morgan Stanley issued a report last week entitled, "Recession Coming." Its author, Richard B. Berner, left, MS managing director and chief U.S. economist, has a thick portfolio of blueblood formers: he was EVP and chief economist at Mellon Bank, director and senior economist at Salomon Bros., economist for Morgan Guaranty Trust, director of the Washington, DC, office of Wharton Econometrics, economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investment and a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump spreads.
Berner's report cites four principal factors:
as delinquencies and defaults soar, lenders are tightening credit for commercial, credit card, auto lending, and all mortgage borrowers;
the foreclosure rate on residential mortgages reached a 19-year high of 5.59 percent in the third quarter;
the glut of unsold properties could lead to a 40 percent decrease in housing construction.
overall housing starts will run below one million units in each of the next two years -- a level not seen in the history of the modern data since 1959
although the US job market has apparently held up well, an average monthly [decrease] of 138,000 self-employed workers over the last quarter suggests it may now be buckling.
They say a "mild recession" is now likely, with domestic demand contracting by an average annualized rate of 1% in each of the next three quarters, no growth in overall GDP for the year ending in the third quarter of 2008 and corporate earnings contracting by 5% to 10%.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. ---1000 Friends of Florida will conduct a live online discussion Friday, Dec. 14, 2007. The topic is one of the most important in Florida:
Toward a Regional Framework:
A Transportation/Land Use Dialogue
Unless you've already registered, you won't be able to participate. The online symposium "has reached capacity and no additional registrations are being accepted," according to the group's web site.
Internet users can access the webcast by logging on at scgov.net and clicking on "Access Sarasota TV Live."
SARASOTA, Fla. ---Sarasota Co. commishers looked density bonuses squarely in the eye and turned and ran for cover Tue. night, Doug Sword at heraldtribune.com reported:
For the second time in five months, Sarasota County commissioners balked at the sheer size of a proposal to build 1,488 homes -- half of them affordable -- east of Interstate 75 off Palmer Boulevard.
Local NIMBY poohbah Don Schultz, chairman of the Bee Ridge Neighborhoods Association, claims neighborhood groups might be more amenable if developer Billy Springer will follow co. commisher Nora Patterson's (left) request to "ratchet down" development to 600 homes, 300 of them affordable.
The issue was tabled---again, this time until Jan. 22.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Alachua Co. commish chairman Rodney J. Long, a Democrat, will host a symposium on affordable housing in the spring and plans to make the issue a cornerstone of his one-year term as chairman.
He may even propose a new tax on legal paperwork---a local 'Sadowski Act'---to help low- to moderate-income residents afford a house, reports Cindy Swirko at Gainesville.com.
Alachua Co. will receive about $1.2 million in SHIP funds this year---about 1/3 the amount due the county before Republican-led Fla. legislators pillaged the Sadowski Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Gainesville will get $974,902, less than half the $2.3 million full Sadowski funding would have permitted.
"The actual scope is a broad one because there is a housing need not only for first-time homebuyers, but homebuyers in general. At the same time, as much as I like to promote home ownership, there is still a need for decent affordable rental housing. There is also becoming a need now for our elderly," Long said. "We will have a housing symposium to discuss the vision for the county here and how we see it. We will have a forum to decide what the needs are and if we are to create such a program, what types of housing programs should we actually target."
MIAMI, Fla. ---Matthew S. Greer has been appointed president of Miami-based Carlisle Development Group, which ranks as the nation's sixth most active developer of affordable housing.
Greer joined Carlisle Development Group in 2004 as an analyst. He was promoted to chief operating officer in 2005 when Carlisle, reporting developments throughout Florida totaling more than 6,000 residential units and more $500 million in total development costs, was named Affordable Multi-Family Developer of the Year by the Latin Builders Assn.
Affordable Housing Finance magazine ranked Carlisle the nation's sixth most active developer of affordable housing last year and the most active Florida developer---in May, 2007, Carlisle reported it started construction of nine affordable housing projects in 2006 and planned to start 22 projects in 2007, with 3,345 multi-family housing units 'in the pipeline.'
Carlisle opened in 1998.
Greer graduated from Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove in 1996. He earned a B.A. Degree in History from Columbia College in 2000 and an M.A. Degree in Real Estate from Columbia University in New York in 2003.
Greer lives in Miami Beach and is active in the Hold the Line campaign to protect Miami-Dade County's natural habitats from development, the Young Presidents Organization, the United Way's Young Leaders Group, the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, and Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe.
Yun, who joined NAR eight years ago, earns his keep finding supporting data rosy enough for this:
Existing-home sales are projected to trend up in 2008, with pending home sales showing a slight near-term rise, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®. However, a recovery for new-home sales is unlikely before 2009.
Lawrence Yun, [left,] NAR chief economist, said the worst part of the credit crunch has already worked its way through the data. "The unusual mortgage disruptions that peaked in August were clearly seen in lower home sales that were finalized in September and October, so the market was underperforming," he said. "Now that mortgage conditions have improved, some postponed activity should turn up in existing-home sales over the next couple of months, and I expect sales at fairly stable to slightly higher levels."
Complete text of yesterday's NAR news release below...
The U.S. housing market faces an even more severe downturn in 2008 and it could last into 2009, says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
Thompson's Financial (via Forbes) reports that Zandi was his usual gloomy self at a panel discussion last week at the Office of Thrift Supervision's second annual housing forum.
Zandi said housing markets can take many years to recover, and that it could be well into the next decade before the current market fully corrects itself. He said housing starts should bottom out next year, but said prices will continue to decline thoughout 2008 and 'possibly' into 2009.
Zandi also said the picture could get worse if there is a recession, if lenders fail to increase their rate of modifying loans for struggling borrowers, and if the Fed does not continue to cut rates. He said the current housing market is the worst since the Great Depression, and said the economy is 'probably contracting at the moment.'
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. ---Andrew Skerritt at tampabay.com (St. Petersburg Times) thinks teachers in Pasco Co. need bigger paychecks, not housing assistance. Pasco plans to apply for $5 million in CWHIP funds and roll out a community land trust (CLT) to build 50 houses for teachers.
For starters, the district would donate 4 acres near Marlowe Elementary in New Port Richey to secure the state housing grant. There was no talk of down payment assistance - a major obstacle for those trying to buy their first house.
Under Fiorentino's proposal, employees would buy the house, while the district retained ownership of the land. For some employees, that sounds too much like living in a company town or worse - public housing. That is not Fiorentino's intention, but that really doesn't matter.
Skerritt has a problem:
It begs the question: How about paying teachers and school employees enough so they wouldn't have to qualify for such welfare?
We have a problem too. Four acres? Fifty houses? Would that be the tallest building in Pasco Co.?
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. --- Rosebay Homes is a startup modular home builder in Tuscaloosa with an interesting new twist: Rosebay partners with Habitat for Humanity and United Way volunteers to finish the homes once they are trucked and installed on-site.
Michael Gann, vice president for sales and marketing for Rosebay, said a closely guarded method unique to the company allows the homes to be built quickly and inexpensively, but with a level of quality and durability on par with standard site-built housing.
The construction sites are hardly typical - no volunteers hammering away at wood frame structures here. And though the homes themselves are built off-site, the final product is about as far from traditional manufactured housing as one could imagine.
A concrete foundation is dug and laid, then left to cure for 24 days. During the process, the home is built in two separate modules at Rosebay's production facility in Addison.
The finished modules are shipped via truck to the building site, where a crane lifts them onto the foundation.
At this point, the house is 90 percent finished, Gann said. The exterior, which can be painted or done in brick veneer, is then completed, the interior touched up and appliances installed.
In the case of the Black Belt homes, Gann said Habitat for Humanity and United Ways of Alabama volunteers would handle those details.
TAMPA, Fla. ---WUSF-TV Channel 9 aired its video report on the CRED 2007 program and posted the video on YouTube. Click the picture to view the program:
ORLANDO, Fla. ---Mitchell Glasser, left, manager of Housing and Community Development for Orange Co., reports his dept. is fielding about 80 requests a month for down payment assistance, more than double the average 30-35 applications a month last year.
The collapse of the 'subprime' mortgage market has made it far harder for many people to qualify for a home loan, Glasser said, and even those who can often
PDC Affordable Housing - Modular housing consultants, works with cities, counties, CDC's, CHODO's, community developers to finance and develop affordable homes for sale or rental.
Neighborhood Lending Partners - Consortium of more than 80 banks that loaned more than $60 million last year for affordable housing development, works closely with community developers to construct viable pro formas and applications. Rated AAA+ by Fla. Workforce Housing Network.
Credit Union Housing Partners (CUHP) - joint venture of four Tampa Bay-area credit unions to provide affordable and attainable housing opportunities to credit union members and potential members in partnership with community groups, developers, builders, local, state and federal government agencies. CUHP services include homeownership and financial counseling, referrals for progressive mortgage products and construction, commercial, and single-family development loans.
Wikipedia: "workforce housing" - definition-in- progress. Contribute.
Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse - Fla.'s most comprehensive housing data base with up-to-date local, area, & statewide figures, maintained by the geniuses at the Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing at the University of Florida.
Fla. Housing Finance Corp. - Quasi- governmental org that distributes more than $2 billion in housing funds annually in Fla., including CWHIP Community Workforce Housing Innovation Program, and offers many substantive educational programs, seminars, workshops.
Fla. Housing Coalition - non-profit, statewide, 3,000+ members, "foremost authority" on affordable housing, community development and related issues in Fla. Offers many educational programs as well as consulting services for counties, private developers.
1000 Friends of Fla. - 501(c)(3) non-profit membership group founded 1986 to serve as Fla's growth mgmt. "watchdog," more recently a powerful advocate of workforce housing initiatives.
FloridaCRED.org and the Journal of Florida Community Development - an online community with an academic approach to affordable housing and Florida Community Real Estate Development.
South Fla. Community Development Coalition - a highly effective network of nonprofit developers and their partners working to reverse the downward spiral of social and economic conditions in South Florida's lowest income neighborhoods. floridacdc.org includes many of the region's most influential housing activists and public policy officials.
National Affordable Housing Trust Fund - the Nat'l Low-Income Housing Coalition is working to establish a National Housing Trust Fund with ongoing, permanent, dedicated and sufficient sources of revenue to build, rehabilitate and preserve 1.5 million units of housing for the lowest income families over the next 10 years.
Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance - GSA's database of all Federal programs available to State and local governments; federally -recognized Indian tribal governments; Territories (and possessions) of the United States; domestic public, quasi-public, and private profit and nonprofit organizations and institutions; specialized groups; and individuals.
Homes for Working Families - a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing policy changes that enable more of America's working families to find safe, good-quality homes they can afford.
Housing Assistance Council (HAC) - nonprofit corp. hq'd in Washington, D.C., helping local orgs build affordable homes in rural America since 1971.
Orange Co. Workforce Housing - Orange Co. Workforce Housing Task Force's new site. Loaded with goodies.
House of Lies - The Miami Herald's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series on corruption at the Miami-Dade Housing Authority and the City of Miami's housing division. Text, graphics and multimedia video.
Paradise: At What Cost? - Naples News (naplesnews.com) produced one of the most thorough, innovative studies of affordable housing A-to-Z in Collier Co. and Fla. Excellent 'big picture' backgrounder for southwest Fla. housing issues.
Affordable Housing Finance Magazine - the bible for multi-family LIHTC developers, monthly, by subscription, many articles available online, and they even have a blog
Cohousing Assn. of the U.S. - promising ideas to create sustainable, enriching workforce housing communities
Professor Piggington's Econo-Almanac for the Landed Poor - Rich Toscano publishes a highly intelligent, usually witty and often brilliant analysis of San Diego's meteoric housing market.
The Quiet Revolution (1956) - how we learned to love car culture communities, traffic jams and Ford
Florida! (1936) - Chevrolet celebrates opening of U.S. 1 with cars and bathing beauties in your grandmother's era...
The City Part I (1939) - American Institute of Planners film...it's lengthy (two parts) and authoritative...
The City, Part II - birth of planning movement, and Aaron Copland score makes this one worth watching all the way through...
Road to Freedom I (1955) - Henry Ford II says America needs more roads, so we get more roads...and traffic jams...and strip centers...and...
Road to Freedom II - ...more roads. And more traffic jams. And more shopping centers...sprawl...suburbs...and affordable housing...
Visit Miami (1950) - This theatrical travelogue was produced to lure visitors to Miami, and it's effective...or at least it was then...
Planning Car Culture Communities - 1950's Nat'l Assn. of Home Builders industrial film ranked as propaganda then, today it's a nostalgic look back at lost values...
Birth of Mortgage Lending (1962) - From covered wagons to S&L's, stops short of the FED's interest rate manipulations of recent years.
Dynamic American City I (1956) - U.S. Chamber of Commerce touts car culture communities...the 'modern' story of the birth of sprawl.
Dynamic American City II - ...shopping centers, suburbs, real estate speculation and all the joys of our modern postwar adventure...
Homes for Vets I (1946) - 15 million WWII GI's come home to a housing crisis that makes today's a pale comparison. Only they found a solution.
Homes for Vets II - the good old days: government for the people has solutions, not arcasm.
New Homes (1927) - Before Silicon Valley it was Redwood Estates, Cal. (silent film, but it's rewarding)
Report to Builders - New construction techniques unveiled for affordable homes (1957)
"Greening" Your Home (1949) - Think energy efficiency is a brand new idea? Ah, Grasshopper...
BOCA RATON, Fla. --- 
MIAMI, Fla. --- 
NEW YORK, N.Y. ---
Local NIMBY poohbah Don Schultz, chairman of the Bee Ridge Neighborhoods Association, claims neighborhood groups might be more amenable if developer Billy Springer will follow co. commisher 
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Alachua Co. commish chairman 
MIAMI, Fla. --- 
Existing-home sales are projected to trend up in 2008, with pending home sales showing a slight near-term rise, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®. However, a recovery for new-home sales is unlikely before 2009.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. --- Rosebay Homes is a startup modular home builder in Tuscaloosa with an interesting new twist: Rosebay partners with Habitat for Humanity and United Way volunteers to finish the homes once they are trucked and installed on-site.
ORLANDO, Fla. --- 