The federal Department of Agriculture is efficiently helping to facilitate the purchase of new housing in rural areas but could do better by implementing a “preferred lenders” program. So says David Battany, an industry lender speaking on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association in testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Battany contends that by delegating approval authority to preferred lenders, the Agriculture Department - but more specifically the department’s Rural Housing Service - could better facilitate funding for home building. The ongoing lack of a preferred lending policy, said Battany, is a “major barrier to more robust lender participation and puts the Rural Housing Service out of alignment with the processes available in FHA and VA lending.” “The existing processes require a conditional commitment from USDA staff, and while such commitments are rarely denied, there are instances in which delays in receiving such commitments can cause problems for borrowers and lenders,” remarked Battany, who is also the vice president of capital markets for the San Diego-based Guild Mortgage Company. Continued Battany: “Market participants have noted that, in some cases, these delays can extend as long as ten days. In such cases, borrowers often have missed their closing dates, causing significant problems with their transactions.” Despite his preferred lenders proposal, Battany lauded the Rural Housing Service for recent efforts to “better serve consumers and industry participants alike.” Noting that the nation’s current rural market is “constrained by its very nature with limited housing supply, much of which is aging single-family houses,” Battany also observed that “rural communities face a well-documented shortage of suitable housing stock and underproduction of homes that meet the needs of the rural workforce.” Battany additionally suggested that “borrowers in rural areas would be well-served by greater access to remote online notarization. As the federal investment in broadband access reaches rural communities, they will be able to use a remote online notary in the loan closing process.” Currently, remote online notarization is available in only 41 states. By Garry Boulard
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Members of the Tucson City Council are expected to soon be tasked with voting up or down on a project that has divided many residents: the building of a housing project that could see the construction of nearly three dozen new homes. The project is proposed for the intersection of N. Houghton Road and E. Tanque Verde Road in the exclusive Tanque Verde section of the city, some 16 miles to the northeast of downtown Tucson. To go up on currently vacant desert land in the vicinity of already-established suburban neighborhoods, the project will be different from most of the homes in the area in that it will see the construction of one- and two-story single-family structures rather than the more classic Arizona sprawling suburban ranch home. The project has sparked the opposition of the local Tanque Verde Trails Homeowners Association, but this summer also secured the support of City of Tucson staff, according to a report. That report noted that the project, on a just under 12-acre site, would see the building of one home per 2.9 acres. The project is being represented by the Tucson-based Projects, International, on behalf of the owner, New Era LLC. Long in the talking and public meeting stage, the project was originally envisioned as being made up of 86 townhomes, an idea that, notes the city report, “met with substantial public opposition.” By Garry Boulard A one-story historic structure built in1929 and serving as the clubhouse for the Las Cruces Golf Course may soon be demolished. The building, located at 2700 N. Main Street and designed by legendary architect Henry Trost, was closed just over a decade ago when the course itself closed. Built at a reported cost of $18,000, the clubhouse for decades hosted any number of private parties and civic meetings. A proposed demolition of the structure is part of a long-simmering project to redevelop the larger site. But now members of the community, along with the Dona Ana Arts Council and the Dona Ana County Historical Society, are launching an effort to save the structure. While acknowledging that the building has not been officially recognized by the National Historic Register as a historic structure, Troy Ainsworth, the City of Las Cruces’ historic preservation specialist, said the clubhouse was nevertheless not without value. In a public meeting on the matter, according to the Las Cruces Sun News, Ainsworth noted that the structure could be classified as a cultural property under the city’s Historic Preservation Ordinance, remarking: “This building means something to the people.” The partial owner of the site, NAI 1st Valley, also of Las Cruces, has expressed an interest in preserving the building if a proposal can be devised that will fit in with the overall mixed-use plans for the property. An additional owner is the Tetrad Property Group of Omaha, Nebraska. Earlier this year members of the Las Cruces City Council gave their approval to a rezoning of the site, allowing for the construction of the mixed-use project. The rezoning was in keeping with what is known as the Apodaca Blueprint, a document that lays out a long-range plan for the 730-acre site, allowing for the eventual construction of both residential and commercial space. By Garry Boulard A late summer demand for design services has seen more work for architectural firms across the country, according to a new survey published by the American Institute of Architects. With any score above 50 signifying an increase in billings, the survey, known as the Architecture Billings Index, saw an overall score of 53.3 in August, compared with where matters stood in July at 51.0. Even more, the score for new project inquiries improved from 56.1 in July to nearly 58 last month. While on the plus side, the numbers were smaller than where things stood exactly a year ago, when the overall score stood at 55.6 and new project inquiries posted a vibrant 64.7. Even so, all sectors posted increases, with commercial and industrial at 51.2; multi-family residential at 52.0; and institutional at 51.2. Firms with mixed practices came in with a 51.2 reading. The South showed the greatest billings vibrancy, with a cumulative score of 52.9; followed by the Midwest at 51.4; the West at 50.2; and the Northeast at 49.8. In a statement, Kermit Baker, chief economist with the AIA, noted that despite a “variety of economic storm clouds confronting the nation’s building industry, designers should expect “at least another 9- to 12-month runway before construction activity is negatively affected.” By Garry Boulard A project in south Fort Collins that will see the construction of a combination of 82 residential units has received an important green light. The Fort Collins Planning and Zoning Commission has given its approval to the overall development of what is being called the Heartside Hill residential development. As planned, the project at a just under 11-acre site at the intersection of Trilby and LeMay avenues, will see the construction of both multi-family and single-family units, with 71 being designated as affordable housing. The project will go up on land donated by the Heart of the Rockies Christian Church, and will see a variety of configurations, with half a dozen three-story buildings housing anywhere from one- to four-bedroom units. As proposed, the project will also see the building of an early childhood education center. Additional plans call for the creation of a 5,000-square-foot park that will include a covered pavilion, swings, and sandbox play area. The project has been in the talking stage for more than two years. By Garry Boulard A popular and well-used shopping plaza in Raton, New Mexico, dating to the late 1970s, is being listed for sale for $3.7 million. The Dona Ana Plaza, located at 1239 S. 2nd Street, comprises just over 77,000 square feet of retail space on a 6.7-acre site on the south side of the city and just to the west of Interstate 25. It is additionally located in an area dotted with restaurants, gas stations, and retail operations, just several miles from the Colorado border. The one-story retail center is the home to a Family Dollar outlet and the Mesa Pharmacy, among other tenants. A Super Save Discount Foods store in the plaza is the only available grocery store within a 20-mile radius. A Bealls clothing store at the site closed in 2020. A former K-Mart store adjacent to the site ceased operations in 2018. The plaza was officially opened in March of 1978, and originally housed a Safeway Supermarket and Revco Drug store. A second portion of the plaza was completed shortly afterwards. The property is being listed with the Irvine, California-based realtor Marcus & Millichap. By Garry Boulard The City of Ithaca, New York has decided to embrace the concept of deconstructing a series of more than 100-year-old homes to make way for a new 300-unit housing development. The project comes at the urging of Felix Heisel, director of the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell, New York, who has conducted research pointing to the economic and environmental benefits of salvaging pieces of historic structures, pre-demolition. What is being called the Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project could serve as a template for other cities confronted with doing away with older and often historic houses and buildings that are loaded with one-of-a-kind milled baseboards, flooring, windows frames, fireplaces, and stairs and stair railings. On its website, Cornell says the project is tasked with investigating the “circular potential of the local built environment by researching and proposing methods for material reuse and recycling, reversible construction, reactivating embodied values, creating green jobs, and reinventing the underlying business models of construction.” The Ithaca/Cornell efforts comes months after the Steamboat Sky & Resort Corporation in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, opted to pick apart several buildings slated for demolition by preserving up to 300 lockers for reuse, along with electronics, lighting and other equipment, in the building. Some 2,400 fluorescent light bulbs were sent to the Glenwood Springs-based Brite Ideas Bulb Recycling for reuse. “Everything we could think of to try to reuse, repurpose or give away, we tried really hard to do that before the demolition,” remarked Sarah Jones, the sustainability director with Steamboat Sky & Resort, in an interview the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Earlier this month the San Antonio City Council passed a deconstruction ordinance designed to save such salvageable building artifacts as doors, cabinets, molding, and fixtures in houses built before 1920 that are slated for demolition. One report indicates that up to 2,800 tons of materials could be salvaged in San Antonio from just 50 demolished homes. Beginning in January of 2025, the ordinance will apply to all homes tagged for demolition that were built before 1945. While the total cost savings of deconstructed buildings and homes has not been fully explored, the Cornell effort, according to its website, hopes to study the prices fetched by salvaged artifacts on the resale market, as well as the “environmental and social costs that are typically not factored into construction and demolition budgets.” By Garry Boulard A statewide initiative in Colorado that is being watched across the country will allot a small portion of state tax revenues to a fund for the construction of affordable housing. The Make Colorado Affordable initiative was placed on the November ballot after supporters secured more than 200,000 petition signatures to get it there. Officially known as Proposition 123, the initiative, if approved, will send 0.1% of Colorado’s state tax revenue to local governments, with the goal of increasing the affordable housing stock by around 3%. Proponents of the idea say that roughly $145 million would be allotted the first year of the program, and around $290 million in subsequent years. And that revenue, in turn, could fund the building of up to 170,000 residential units in the next two decades. One feature of the proposition calls for using the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, rather than investment banks, to lend money to developers wanting to build new affordable housing. The initiative appears to be popular: according to one poll, it has the support of some 77% of likely voters. It has also been endorsed by a number of local officials, including Jackie Millet, Mayor of Lone Tree, who remarked: “We’ve reached a tipping point and we cannot continue to wait on the sidelines and hope that something happens.” But the initiative is also not without opposition: the Colorado Springs Gazette recently charged that Proposition 123 will primarily “further the demand side of the state’s superheated housing economy.” By Garry Boulard Flagstaff is slated to see long-awaited improvements to its freight and passenger rail infrastructure as a result of just-announced federal funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That funding, awarded by the federal Department of Transportation, will target work along the historic Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Southern Transcontinental Corridor and is part of a total $32.4 million in funding that the Arizona city is receiving for a variety of transportation infrastructure projects. The rail project is popularly known as the Downtown Mile Project and will also see the construction of a new regional transit center. In a statement, Coconino County Chair Patrice Horstman said the project will “relieve traffic congestion in the busiest section of downtown Flagstaff and will ensure traffic and pedestrian connectivity in and out of downtown that will ensure the safety of all citizens.” The funding is also expected to pay for the construction of three new underpasses and the installation of pedestrian railroad gates on Beaver and San Francisco streets. By Garry Boulard Home values in some of the most booming cities in the country saw a decline late this summer, in some cases comprising the steepest drops seen in more than a decade. Such results are just some of the numbers released by the Seattle-based real estate marketing company Zillow in its latest national housing market report. The publication shows that, in the West, such real estate popular cities as Los Angeles and San Francisco have seen a more than 3% drop in the average price of a home between July and August. The trend was also notable in Seattle and Salt Lake City, with declines of 2.6%. In a move to counter marginally decreasing demand, say the report, some 28% of all listings nationally have seen a price cut, with the cut being the largest in Austin, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City. The typical home value nationally dropped 0.3% between July and August, and now stands at $356,054. “That’s the largest monthly decline since 2011,” notes the report, “and follows a 0.1% decrease in July.” Despite this most recent decline, home values overall are up just over 14% from where they wee in the late summer of last year, and a sizable 43.8% over August of 2019. While potential homebuyers may find some relief in the most recent decrease in prices, the increase in average mortgage will likely give pause. The Zillow report pegs the average monthly mortgage payment on a newly purchased home at $1,643. That’s up from just under $900 in August of 2019, representing an enormous 83% increase. While Western metro areas saw a home price decline, the opposite was recorded in the Midwest and South, with Cincinnati and Indianapolis up by 0.4% and 0.5% respectively. Louisville, Kentucky saw a 0.2% increase, while Birmingham was up by 0.9%. Adds the report: “Reduced competition has homes lingering on the market. Typical time before a listing goes pending is now 16 days, three days more than in July—a steeper increase than the market usually sees this time of year—and up from an all-time low of six days in April.” By Garry Boulard |
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