Vacant to affordable

A rule change that would allow California cities to purchase foreclosed homes and convert them into affordable housing will be pitched to state administrators this week by Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker.

[Anayeli]

Great. Now affordable housing advocates ,who are just as culpable in this crisis as the mortgage brokers, lenders,realtors, buyers, banks and wall street, will use taxpayer money to purchase forclosures. These groups have for years used the Community Reinvestment Act to force lenders to lower their standards for low income borrowers. The media rarely includes them in their narratives of sorry buyers.They are really the architects of this practice gone awry. tough Wall street invented the packaging of these loans as the practice of lending to uncreditworthy consumers spread to other lending institutions during the build-up to this crisis,. Entering the market now to buy up this excess inventory will serve to prop up the inflated prices which harms those of us who did not engage in this debacle and are patiently waiting for the market to bring prices down to a reasonable level.

[CaptJack]

So while you work hard and play by the rules; and are paying a hefty monthy mortage, the city can take the house that is identical to yours next door and let some welfare recipients take it over.

[joeschmo]

Unlike the previous commenter, I do believe in the value of affordable housing. My chief concern with affordable for sale housing is the limited resources that a typical affordable home buyer is able to utilize for repairs and upkeep over the term of their ownership. From a policy standpoint, I believe that utilizing funds to produce affordable rental units makes more sense. You would be able to leverage the dollars to produce units for more affordable households. NIMBY concerns such as declining property values and crime rates have been disproved by many studies, including by the Ernst and Young, and the U.S. GAO. The many capital partners in these transactions provide a level of accountability that is not present in public housing (don't get tax credit housing confused with public housing!). From a financial standpoint, it makes more sense to get working households in a position where they might be able to afford to purchase a home, rather than offer them a unit that they may be ill qualified to maintain.