Nothing Fuzzy About Affordable Conversion
Lower-income earners who’ve never bought a home before will get an unusual shot at living in an historic building. According to the Brooklyn Downtown Star, an 1890’s police building at Humboldt and Herbert in Greenpoint is slated to be turned into 14 condo units subsidized by $1 million allocation from the North Brooklyn Development Corporation…
Lower-income earners who’ve never bought a home before will get an unusual shot at living in an historic building. According to the Brooklyn Downtown Star, an 1890’s police building at Humboldt and Herbert in Greenpoint is slated to be turned into 14 condo units subsidized by $1 million allocation from the North Brooklyn Development Corporation and another $300,000 from the borough itself (how does that work?). As someone who has been admiring this building for the past several years, all we can say is that this is a huge score for the lucky few who win the lottery. One drawback: Because of the subsidies, owners will not be able to benefit from any price appreciation that may occur over time.
Seminar Preludes Affordable Housing [Brooklyn Downtown Star]
maybe you’re right anon 10:14, maybe its a matter of sematics and the debate is really about whether this should really be considered “home ownership”. if thats the real problem then maybe it shouldn’t be called “home ownership” and people will realize exactly what it is and not expect more from it than was meant to be given.
CHP – I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about this. I just don’t buy it. I don’t think that people will sit on their butts and do nothing per se, I just think that they won’t have an incentive to leave if they’re not getting “equity” or they’re not able to cash out big because thats usually the only reason people sell anyway. the nature of ambition is to want more, if you’re sitting in subsidized housing where someone is paying half the cost of your home and you can’t cash in on it then why would someone leave? I understand that rationale but its just not benefitial to others who need help. I don’t have a perfect solution for affordable housing I just know that there’s a lot of people in need, too many in fact to help 20 FOREVER.
yea, its easy to suggest that people should be able to own with little or no down payment, and that will help the situation. however, statistics show that people who little or no money down are more likely to default. it is suggested its because people who don’t put an initial investment into the property “have nothing to lose”. while I’m not exactly sure that is the case, it is similar to what I’m saying about these people essentially getting something for nothing and that should be enough. people who are lucky enough to be chosen for this program don’t risk anything but get more than comparable people in their situation. nothing will prevent someone who got little or no down payment on their homes from losing everything from a family sickness within 25 years and being forced to sell. I suppose you’re suggesting that they’ll be better off because now they can sell the property for millions right? well, thats certainly possible in a best case scenario but what about those who aren’t as lucky and are foreclosed? they’re just as much out on the street as the people unfortunate enough to be in my proposed program who for whatever reason were not able to take advantage of their opportunity within the 25 alotted years. shit happens, there’s no perfect solution and that being said I say help as many people with imperfection as possible. like you said, only a few will be helped at a time but there’s a difference between 20 people being helped “at a time” and 20 people being helped “forever”.
I can see stuy blkbuttrflie’s point. I think this debate is just a matter of semantics though. The bushwick development shouldn’t be billed as home ownership. It’s an affordable rental program. They’re a couple of projects like this throughout the city. Prospective renters join a waiting list or a lottery. If they get selected they put down $5K to get the apartment. In return they get cheap rents and larger living space. When they move, they get their money back. Rochdale Village in Queens comes to mind. The only downside to this type of program is that it isn’t home-ownership, so a minority of the residents will end up pissing in the hallway/elevator or spraying grafitti throughout the building. Let’s face it though folks, nyc is no longer a city for poor and working class folks. A large percentage are moving south. I think we’re going back to the early 1900’s when people lived in cramped spaces. Where going to see a lot more one bedroom apartments (rentals) being occupied by 5 or more persons. The larger companies/corporations will eventually have to start creating subsidized housing for their workforce. But that’s just my far-fetched opinion.
Yeah, but how does your version help more people? It’s impossible for any program to help more than a few people at a time, relatively speaking, and if someone in this program is able to move on and up, then for them, the program is successful. Spreading the wealth to a very large amount of people would be a worthy goal, I’m all for it in an ideal world, but that’s a socialist ideal that is not going to happen in a New York City program. I still don’t see how this program, for all its faults, is a handout, as you keep saying. The participants are PAYING for the apartments, no one is giving them anything, except the opportunity to participate in the program. Since it is a city/gov’t program, I’m sure the critera and paperwork will dissuade all but the persistant, whoever makes the grade is certainly worthy, in anyone’s book.
You seem to begrudge giving someone a break, and you also seem to be convinced that they will just sit there and not do the right thing. From what I know of people who have gotten into earlier programs, and I do know several personally, most people make the best of the opportunity, and have been able to obtain college loans for their kids, save for retirement, and upgrade their properties. I have never heard of a large number of people cashing out and moving to Miami or whatever. If one or two have, so what? That does not mean most have. More people are interested in staying put in a community and getting on with their lives, a good program of this sort would allow them the opportunity. They shouldn’t have to worry that the program that helped them with a boost up is going to, at a predetermined time, pick them up and kick them to the curb. That makes no sense at all.
You seem to think that this program should be like an assembly line, you go through it and then out. Stable lives and personal involvement in communities means putting down roots and becoming part of that community. The irresponsibility you fear comes from not having a permanent stake in your environment. I called the program elitist because someone who is somehow above it all, in income, power and influence, is deciding from on high what’s best for the po’ folk, and is imposing conditions on participation that he/she would NEVER put up with for themselves. You seem to be buying into that by your insistance in believing that most,if not all of the people involved, are going to sit on their butts doing nothing, and then cash out big. If the condo owner cannot reap the rewards of equity, why bother? They’d get more of a return on their very hard earned money investing in stocks and bonds, or putting the money in cd’s or an IRA. Piddly interest is still better than no interest, which is what you and this program are offering.
The best way, in my opinion, to get lower and middle income first buyers into home ownership is to offer low or no interest down payment loans. Most working people can afford a mortgage payment, they pay that in rent already. What they can’t afford to do is scrape together a down payment. To me, this would be more valuable for a greater number of people.
Finally, no one accused you of being an elitist or a racist. I said the PROGRAM was elitist, and smelled slightly racist. I’m as African-American as you are, and had many a dinner of chicken backs as a child, because we couldn’t afford better. There certainly was no silver spoon in my mouth. We are all in this together.
I’m not saying that I don’t think that people should be able to cash in on equity. I’m simply saying that people cashing on on their equity means that no one else is helped past that point. Once someone cashes in on the property and sells it at market rate, walks off with their 700k then thats the end of that affordable housing program and all the money that as put into that program is basically wasted on 20 people to get rich. I don’t think that should be the point of affordable housing programs. I would love to see people from lower incomes be able to cash in and do well for themselves but the truth is there are millions of people in new york and a significant amount of them can be considered lower income if we’re pouring millions of dollars into programs to help 20 people get rich at a time, no real change is ever going to happen. maybe my suggestion was extreme but I totally back it because thats obviously the only way something like this will work. we all know at least one person living in a rent stabilized apartment who can afford to pay market rent. does that mean that they should have to pay more because they can afford it? no, not necessarily but it does point to the fact that people are abusing a system that should be used to help people who need help. if someone is going to subsidize something that is a handout. you’re essentially giving them the money they’re cashing out on because they didn’t even pay market rate for the place and what they paid was partially paid for by someone else now they get to cash in and float off to Miami while there’s thousands of other lower income families that need help? its unfair to me and I don’t support it.
CHP- I totally agree that life is too short. I’m all about getting what you want and making it happen for yourself and thats what I feel these people should do. should they begrudge us because they were giving 25 years in subsidized housing and they weren’t able to do anything with it? nope, they should make it happen for themselves and make it work. like you said life is too short, its a tough world out there and there’s too many poor people in these streets to help a few at a time. time is money and everyday you’re sitting in an apartment someone is paying half the cost for just so can stay there forever, is a day that someone else who would take advantage of the same opportunity to get on their feet and move on so someone else be helped. I’ll stand alone and wave the flag for everyone in this city who just can’t make it on their own and need programs like this to continue forever not to just go away when someone decides to cash out, sorry.
I agree that this program is flawed, its also fair in that it doesn’t allow people to get more than they paid. you people are missing the point, they’re not just handing these people a better life, that’s not their job. they’re indirectly giving them an opportunity to create a better life for themselves and I think its great the only flaw I see is that people have no incentive to move and they probably won’t. if people are really about all those things you people are shouting from the rooftop about homeownership then they’ve got one foot in the door, they should make the best of it. I think its great that these people can’t get more than they paid and they can’t sell it to yuppies turning out the neighborhood but other people who need help. I’m all about this program.
and as an african american woman raised in low income housing I won’t even dignify the “racist and elitist” comments with a response because I’ve found that no one can ever disagree here or they’re suddenly racists… give me a break.
Woah, stuy blkbuterflie, girlfriend, slow down! You need to start using some more commas and periods, it’s really hard to follow you, and understand your points.
Correct me if I’m not understanding you here. You’re saying that you think that people who participate in these programs should not be able to cash in on any equity because the fact that they “won” the apartment should be reward enough? And are you then saying that they should have to physically give up the apartments to a new batch of people after a number of years so that they or their children can’t profit from any sales either? And you seem to also be saying that this will somehow force these people to save their money, and then move them into the world of market rate home ownership? Correct?
Somehow I don’t think you’d like to be a part of that program, and would think it was grossly unfair, smacks of elitist patronizing, might even be subtly racist, and on top of that, it wouldn’t work, anyway.
This is not good economics. IMHO, this is no way to get people on the road to home ownership and reap the rewards that all of that is supposed to bring. Either the condo is yours, or it’s not. This is not, it’s glorified renting. You seem to be very hung up on the point that these people have “won” something. As someone pointed out earlier, past lottery programs had a relatively short period before you could sell the home. That was more to prevent investor flipping, and to promote live-in landlording, instead of having the programs infested with investors buying at artifically low prices, not living in the homes, and then selling high. Especially those rehabs of existing brownstones and other older buildings. Waiting 5 or 7 years was a smart deterent to abuses of the system.
These condos still aren’t FREE. The subsidies and income caps allow people who would never be able to buy, the opportunity to do so, but they are still BUYING. If I have a lower income, and buy a Kia, that money is proportionately the same as a wealthier person buying a BMW. We are all are still living in this city where everything else in life is market rate. Saving money is still going to be hard, as it is for someone making more money. I don’t get where your Fairness Quotient is coming in. Why is it “unfair” that they can later profit from being able to buy? They bought their apts legally. They played by the program’s rules, and by the rules of the marketplace. To me, the unfairness is that they can’t reap the benefits of home ownership that the rest of us can. THAT is elitist patronization – “Here, you poor unfortunate, is an apt, which we allowed you to win. Pay up for x years, don’t screw up, save your pennies, and when the time is up, get your ass out, take only what you came in with, and good luck finding something else. Isn’t America wonderful?”
Hey, the Lucky get breaks the rest of us don’t. Should I begrudge an older person the cheap ownership of their house, now appraised for millions, because they were “lucky” enough to have been born 20 years before me? Do I envy a trust fund baby because they were lucky to be born to wealth, even though they waste their money? Life is too short for all of that, and it’s a waste of precious time. Get on with what you want to do, and figure out how to get what you want.
This program is highly flawed, for reasons that have been quite well stated by posters above. It does not allow for someone to move up. Home ownership is supposed to allow you to advance, either to a better home, or to enable you to do some of the other important things in life for yourself and family. This program is like the parable about the servants who were given money to hold for the master. One buried it, and then gave the master the same money back. The other invested it and gave the master back double what he had. This program forces the people in it to be the former. Free market home ownership allows for the possibility of the latter, and that is the only way lower income people (or any of us) will be able to use a home to advance life’s goals and ambitions.
stuy blkbuttrflie- your logic escapes me. You posted quite a few good-sized opinions so the mountain was already there. So where did you miss that the people who get a chance to buy their home are BUYING? So they need some help- frankly, for my money I’d rather have my taxes go to make that a reality for even 20 families,than see the public funding Ratner will get. Talk about giving handouts to someone who doesn’t need it. Big rich developer getting millions in tax breaks and funding, not to mention other people’s property. The sweetheart deal he got from the MTA for the rights to the rail yard. And how about the 50,000,000$ renov for the jail that they are now talking about tearing down. I can’t imagine what your priorities are, but mine is to help people and to treat them with dignity and respect. But I guess that’s my cross to bear.
Handouts are not the same as assistance. These people are being given a shot at owning- that means they have to buy the place. Not rent. Not live there free. Not flip the place and make millions. And if they did do that after 10-15 or 25 years, why shouldn’t they? I’m sure you expect to do the same if you buy a house. I would hate to live in the society you envision- shoving people aside if they don’t fit your criteria of “making it.” Maybe you don’t understand the basis for that attitude but when a society treats one group as a monolithic, undesirable group to be disposed of I get real nervous. It is way too easy to use that attitude to get rid of anyone who doesn’t fit into your worldview.
And let me ask you- if that was your 700k profit being sacrificed to help someone else I highly doubt you would be handing out the bags of money. Easy when you think it won’t happen to you. I can only tell you, you will also reap what you sow and if you have never looked at a fellow human being and thought, “there but for the grace of G-d go I,” …well what can I say? If you’re lucky you may never know but I wouldn’t count on it.
Bx2Bklyn — you unnecessarily turned a mole into a mountain and thats okay because some ppl just don’t know how to identify someone who just has a difference of opinion and someone who is an “elitist.” I’m no landlord or anything like that I’m a renter myself, a renter of a market rate apartment and I haven’t a problem with anyone being ASSISTED by a program like this. the point I was trying to make was that with this kind of situation ppl are given a handout they are not assisted if they’re able to buy a property dirt cheap and flip it for millions and I think its unfair. to address the question about the lottery, there’s nothing wrong with winning the lottery but you forget to factor in that ppl just don’t randomly win the lottery, aside from the fact that all else equal most ppl who win the lottery have spent a significant amount of money over the years playing the lottery and they happen to luck up, even if we dismiss that idea and say for the sake of arguement that someone played the lottery once and hit it big they still paid to win the lottery and ran the risk of losing something if only the dollar they paid for the ticket. while that may seem significant to some that small detail makes it much different to me as these ppl are losing or risking NOTHING even if they are kicked out of their place after a certain amount of time and are forced to sell.
As for inflation, you make a compelling point my oversimplified suggestion doesn’t account for inflation but so what? ppl who rent apartments don’t get inflationary adjustments nor do the get to cash in and get the money back they paid its just the way it is and if that attitude “is an epic piece of callous disregard for real life. Sounds like you advocate eminent domain for the working poor and lower middle class. Seems elitist to me.” or I’m suggesting that people “are disposable and interchangeable” the so be it. I’ll bear that cross.
I don’t have a problem with luck but LUCK got you to own a piece of property that someone else is paying half the cost for. I’m not suggesting that ppl should just squat in affordable housing because I don’t think that ppl in lower income families shouldn’t be helped but I guess you missed that as you were reading what I wrote and creating a completely different arguement in your head. the reason I made the suggestion I made was because I fully support people being helped, hundreds of thousands not just 20 ppl who won a lottery, the real estate business is give and take its not going to be perfect but if someone else is paying a significant part of the cost for your home allowing you to save money and then you essentially get a refund of the money you put into the apartment that seems like a damn good deal for me.
more so, I should thank you for hoping I never see my account go to zilt when life happens but the truth is it is what it is. you just can’t give people everything because its self defeating. its my personal opinion that ppl should not be rescued and you’re free to disagree but thats my opinion. yea, a person with low income could have a family memeber fall ill and lose all their savings then again so can a person without low income, in fact considering the benefits of this housing program a person can do much worse. over 15-25 years if you can’t make it happen for yourself then move aside and make room for someone who can.
oh yea, and return on their investment? they’re not getting “return on their investment” in the true sense but they money they’re saving is return enough for me and if someone has to sacrafice their 700k profit so another family can be helped then so be it I’ll be an elitist all day.
Thanks anon 7:14- you put it better (and more calmly) than I could. A time limit on how long they have to live in the apartment would eliminate the flippers and perhaps they can sell but only to someone on a waiting list- but they should be able to get a return on their investment too.