No affordable housing built 2 years after Palm Beach County's n...

Two years after Palm Beach County started requiring more affordable housing in one of Florida's most expensive real estate markets, none of the reduced-price homes has been built.

[glane]

If they want affordable housing, I hope it isn't what the Fla. Idependent Living Committee advocated at their March 14, 2008 meeting. "Develop statutory language to recognize that manufactured housing should be considered an important component for providing affordable housing
(Not built to Florida Building Code). Modular housing is built to Florida Building Code standards." If there is to be affordable housing I hope it is to code.

[Just Me]

Affordable housing? There are currently 100 single family homes for sale in Boca Raton for $250,000 or less. In two years, the median price of a home in PBC has dropped from $420K to $320K, a 25% decrease. Experts predict housing prices will drop another 20% within the next year in the PBC/Broward/Dade tri-county area, which would put the median at about $260K.

Need affordable housing? Just wait. In the meantime, renting is a real bargain (you can rent a 3/2 house in PBC for $1500 per month, much less than the cost to own the same house).

[doug]

What a stupid move on the county's part.

Affordable housing may be important, but does the county actually believe they can legislate this into reality??

C'mon. How are you going to force a developer to build what he doesn't want to? Hold a gun to his head and say "build cheaper homes"? Ain't gonna happen.

If people really want cheaper homes, then the supply and demand forces in the real estate market will deliver that, if left alone. I think we're already seeing some effects of that.

Face it, the county commission is a group of politicians that has to look like they're being responsive in order to keep their jobs. They don't have to actually DO anything or KNOW how to do anything except APPEAR to be busy and interested, especialy at election time.

[Einstein]

Guess what, houses and condos have become much more affordable. We don't need to entitle more people to spend other people's money just to buy their votes.

[Mo-Ham-Head]

Einstein wrote:

Guess what, houses and condos have become much more affordable. We don't need to entitle more people to spend other people's money just to buy their votes.

True, but they have been doing it for so long, they forgot how to do anything else.

[Dave]

So how does a company like DRHorton build a townhome in Texas for $150K and charge $250-300K in PBC for the SAME EXACT Floorplan????

We need to put pressure on the builders to offer housing in the 150-225 range..... and not just in the getthos!

[da czar of houses]

tents on da beach

dat be da nex big thing, man

[Dan]

Dave wrote:

So how does a company like DRHorton build a townhome in Texas for $150K and charge $250-300K in PBC for the SAME EXACT Floorplan????
We need to put pressure on the builders to offer housing in the 150-225 range..... and not just in the getthos!

It's the land cost idiot. The cost of the structure can vary slightly from one market to another but land cost can vary substantially. Government should not be involved in telling private enterprises how to conduct their business. Supply and demand will do that just fine.

[Real Deal]

I just bought a 2/2 condo in Delray for my parents fully furnished for $27,000. Trust me, this "crisis" is way past over. Besides, as other posters stated, this is not something that government should mess with. They only screws things up when they get involved in, well, just about anything.

[savant]

One man's affordable housing is another man's slum

[Eric]

Our tax money shouldn't be wasted on this mis-guided effort. The government can't figure out how to provide basic services effectively. What in the world makes them think they can micro-manage the real estate market? LOL

[Mike Fink]

"Under the rules, most developments with 10 or more homes are required to keep 16.5 percent of the homes priced between $164,000 and $304,000.

That price range targets households that make between $38,600 and $96,600."

First off, I agree with some of the posts above, this is a silly idea; let the markets work. If everyone would just get their hands off the stupid RE market, we would all get back to normal much sooner (and no, normal has NOTHING to do with the bubble prices; think circa 2000 level prices).

However, I had to comment on this quote from the article. What kind of twisted math allows someone making 40K to afford a 164K home? You've got to be kidding me; that's got to be close to 60% of their take home pay! 40K means MAX 120K home, and really more like 100K; 3X income has always been a reasonable rule of thumb; here in FL it should be lower because of the high tax/insurance costs, but 3X is still somewhat reasonable.

Got to love it, even if the houses had been built, they are trying to put people into them that cannot afford them anyway.

Let the market work and we won't need these crazy measures anymore. 100K down on the median so far, another 100K or so to go.

[Dick Johnson]

Your city officials are as out of touch as mine...Soon as people get into office they feel the need to "fix" the free market. The outcome is always the same.

[Michelle Obama]

How dare you mean people speak bad about our great politicians and support this cruel "free market" concept. Government knows best. Not to sound condecending but Americans just can't make it on their own. The only way for us to all have shared prosperity is to expand the government and let it take care of us cradle to grave, the way its suppose to be. Don't worry about the finances, my husband will raise taxes so high that we will be able to afford all the neccessary programs. Socialism is the fairest system, if you would just give it a chance you mean people!

[da czar of houses]

Michelle Obama wrote:

How dare you mean people speak bad about our great politicians and support this cruel "free market" concept. Government knows best. Not to sound condecending but Americans just can't make it on their own. The only way for us to all have shared prosperity is to expand the government and let it take care of us cradle to grave, the way its suppose to be. Don't worry about the finances, my husband will raise taxes so high that we will be able to afford all the neccessary programs. Socialism is the fairest system, if you would just give it a chance you mean people!

Great, but if you want white people to vote for it, you need me.

[Ridiculous]

Enough with the affordable housing already!!! There are more than enough homes at affordable prices right now and they're not buying them! They ruined themselves trying to live outside of their means and want help to live beyond those means! BS!!! Get a real job, save your money and purchase regular homes! There doesn't need to be special housing built that you, personally can afford that will have many of the features found in upscale housing. There is a HUGE supply of homes right now. If you think you're supposed to own, nows the time! Let's see you go and buy them and while you're at it, pay your bills and save money at the same time.

[Bill]

Affordable--For Sale-2/2, 1 mile west of 95, 3 miles to beach, peace and quiet small community, "serene inside" built in 1990, under 55 allowed,but no pets, make offer over 125,000...!!

[girly]

Where where where did this silly term "affordable housing/workforce housing" come from, to begin with?

Let this city planner share something with you that will answer the history of this broken failed
concept:
Affordable housing...is social engineering. City Planning fields tends to attract socialist-minded individuals who, upon employment, try like hell to put socialist-minded policies into effect. Planners are not taught economics in graduate school so they are clueless about the free market. So when you put them in office, they put into place policies that they learned from their socialist instructors in college.
This...explains the entire reason why there is this stupid term "affordable housing." Its grad school marxist instructors who can't get a job but teaching college.

Affordable housing, ie, government-forced housing...is a pipedream in America. It will always be a pipedream.

[doug]

Dave wrote:

So how does a company like DRHorton build a townhome in Texas for $150K and charge $250-300K in PBC for the SAME EXACT Floorplan????
We need to put pressure on the builders to offer housing in the 150-225 range..... and not just in the getthos!

Dave, they do it because they can.

Isn't it great to be in America where a guy can operate his business as he sees fit and not be told by the government what he has to make and sell? That's sounds Soviet, to me.

You want to live in something that costs under $200,000? Buy yourself a Rolls-Royce.

[Ridiculous]

The problem is this...people who think that they should have a house decked out to the gills with granite and other features in an upscale area...when they can't afford it. So they think that the prices should be lowered because they do not want to purchase a home that they can legitimately afford. There's plenty out there right now and they're not buying them! They think that their low income homes should be just like the homes of people earning comfortable six figure incomes.