Apartment Choice

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler promised during his 2016 campaign that he would tackle the city's affordable housing crisis if elected. His second day in office, he took over the housing bureau , putting himself in charge of its big decisions on top of his already ambitious workload. But eight months into his term, the mayor has little to show for it. No groundbreakings. A single deal to bring an affordable apartment complex to Northeast Portland . A key policy position on his staff vacant five months after his housing expert quit . He has yet to tell developers what the city will fund if they work to put roofs over needy Portlanders' heads. Wheeler's insistence on painstaking public involvement and the lack of housing expertise on his staff have hampered progress on what he said was an urgent priority. The mayor has also made no decisions about how the city should spend the largest pool of money ever available to address Portland's affordable housing shortage . Wheeler ...

By Beth Jacobi The recommendations of the Bend 2030 housing workgroup , recently offered to Bend City Council , may not ease the housing burden of many of the people who live and work in Bend. The recommendations are designed to increase housing for those making $40,000 to $90,000 a year. But according to the Oregon Housing Alliance , the current mean renter wage in Deschutes County is $11.86 an hour (about $24,000 a year). Many tourism industry workers , teachers, police officers, health care workers , social service workers , and families with children are suffering from our housing crisis. Bend leads the nation for rent increases. Bend’s average home sales price is over $400,000, and homelessness has gone up 31 percent since 2015 (Point in Time Count, 2017). The Bend 2030 housing workgroup has some great ideas, but the recommendations don’t ensure the development of affordable housing . City leaders must reserve valuable subsidies and incentives, ( property tax waiver , system ...

Coast to coast, the housing industry currently favors the home seller as prices are rising, sales surging and inventories dwindling -- which leave the residences on the market more valuable. Take Seattle as a caffeinated example. The northwest city of 3. 5 million people boasts the hottest housing market in the country since last fall, according to the Case- Shiller home price index and reported this summer in the Seattle Times. The typical single-family house in metro Seattle cost 12 .9 percent more in April than a year ago, the report notes. Other fast-rising markets are Portland, Oregon; Dallas; Denver; and Detroit, up 9.3 to 7.4 percent respectively. Those totals compare with a 5. 5 percent national price growth rate . What's good for owners and well-off buyers can be doubly troubling for at least one group: lower income property shoppers including first-time homebuyers who can't afford average and midpoint home prices or apartment rents . According to studies, the na...

By Paul Norman - Friday, August 18, 2017 9:04 Global rental housing company Greystar has announced the appointment of Mark Allnutt to head operations in the UK, replacing Jeff Manno who is returning to the US to lead Portfolio Management for the new Greystar Growth and Income Fund. As UK business lead , Mark Allnutt will oversee 200 plus London-based staff and a property portfolio which includes student housing and multifamily rental accommodation across the country. Allnutt has been tasked with increasing Greystar’s UK multifamily portfolio to 10,000 units within four years and growing its student housing portfolio to position the company as one of the country’s largest owners and operators of rental housing . He joined Greystar in 2014 to launch the company’s multifamily business in London. Subsequently Greystar’s development pipeline has grown to over 2,750 units with a value of £1.5bn and the company has been involved in several of the largest propert...

Orlando will soon have a new community down near Disney — the Four Seasons Private Residences — where home prices start around $5 million. Bully for all our new neighbors ... and the $24,514 in homeowner’s association fees they’ll pay each year. Ironically, though, many of the people who already live here — the ones who work full-time in the tourist industry that attracts the Four Seasons folks — can’t afford homes of their own. Heck, they can’t even cover the HOA dues. Central Florida , you see, is in the midst of an all-out housing crisis . Our affordable- housing shortage is so severe that the National Low Income Housing Coalition recently found just 18 rental units available for every 100 low- income families — one of the lowest rates in America. As a result, we have families living in cheap motels and relying on government subsidies. And with rents rising, it’s only getting worse. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing our chambers of commerce or visitors bureaus like to promo...

As the Charlotte Housing Authority moves forward with plans to redevelop the aging Tall Oaks subsidized housing in the fast- gentrifying Cherry neighborhood , the last two families there say they can’t move out, in part because of improper evictions from CHA on their records. Most of the buildings at Tall Oaks, a 50- unit housing complex owned by CHA on Cherry Street near the Metropolitan shopping complex , have already been torn down. In its place, CHA is developing 81 units of new subsidized housing . The next phase of the project could include building up to 200 units of “ workforce housing ” for families making $38,500‐$77,040. That plan is still in the rezoning process. For now, Jacqueline Sherrill and Crystal Goode, along with their children, are the final residents of the former Tall Oaks complex . They say the eviction proceedings on their records – which they contend stem from CHA’s mistakes – are causing potential landlords to turn them down as they seek new housing with...

Among the filthy rich billionaires who gave money to the CAA, but lost in the battle against rent control in Richmond and Mountain View includes Berkshire Hathaway Home Services owned by Warren Buffet, Equity Residential owned by Sam Zell, and Prometheus Real Estate Group owned by Jackie Diller Salfier and the Diller family. California Apartment Association suspends legal challenges against Richmond rent control California Apartment Association suspends legal challenges against rent control in Richmond and Mountain View By Lynda Carson - May 6, 2017 On May 5, 2017, the The California Apartment Association (CAA), announced that it is suspending its legal challenges in court against the City of Richmond and Mountain View, and the renter protection ordinances known as Measure L and Measure V, that were passed into law by the voters last November. After a long hard fought struggle against greedy landlords involved in price gouging and eviction for profit schemes supported by ...

(Photo: NEWS CENTER) PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- In the midst of a struggle to get a rent control ordinance on the November ballot in Portland, a new group has emerged to tell voters why its a bad idea. "Say no to rent control" says locking down a rent price might sounds like a great idea, but it can have serious consequences. The group is composed of landlords, contractors and others who say the proposed initiative is reckless and extreme. They say housing policy is complicated, and should not be decided by referendum. ► Overall, Maine housing is considered 'unaffordable' The group Fair Rent Portland , which brought forth a rent stabilization initiative intended for the November ballot, says the initiative is modeled after West Hollywood, California and Takoma Park, Maryland. Those ordinances have been in place for 30 years. Fair Rent Portland says both cities were able to relieve the housing crisis while supporting long term development .   (Photo: NEWS C...

Dozens of low-income families being displaced by the closing of the 337- unit Silver Oak Apartments have found new homes, thanks to a hastily put together partnership of Charlotte nonprofits and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Organizers say Community Link and Charlotte Family Housing helped 34 low -income households (115 people) avoid homelessness by placing them in homes. One additional family remains in Silver Oak, but a housing plan is in place for them to move, officials said. Crisis Assistance Ministry provided $15,095 to 15 households that needed help with security and utility deposits to get into new homes. Other partners in the program, including Communities in Schools and A Child’s Place, helped place some children in new schools and identified other students as eligible for homeless aid programs . Carol Hardison of Crisis Assistance Ministry said the closing of Silver Oak worsens Charlotte ’s affordable housing shortage , which experts say is a key reason family ho...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...