Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Housing Authority Selling off Houses

I actually saw one of these houses for sale before I saw this article, "Portland agency plans more low-income housing"

"
The Housing Authority of Portland hopes to raise $30 million from the sale of 160 scattered-site homes in Multnomah County and plans to use the proceeds to create more low-income housing.

The sale of the mostly single-family homes started in February, and seven deals have closed. Eventually, the Housing Authority wants to replace each of the units it sells, pay for deferred maintenance at the properties it currently owns and, perhaps, create 175 additional units.

But according to Mike Andrews, the Housing Authority's director of development and community revitalization, "it's clear to us that the $30 million is not enough to accomplish all three goals.""

I can't help but wonder if they see this as the peak of the market, and thus a great time to buy. Or if the timing is jsut coincidence. I do know that the house we looked at was bought for $20k 20 years ago and is now listed at over $300k. Not a bad return for their investment.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

PDC makes most of its money by siphoning property taxes from the general fund in "special" districts. Their orwellian term for this is tax increment financing.

The basic assumption made by the PDC is that new development generate new tax revenue. It seems like this model is not working anymore.