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Affordable housing: A different twist

The Wall Street Journal reports that "work-force" housing has gotten so expensive in some cities that a real estate investment company has started a $250 million to finance for-sale and rental housing in Los Angeles, San Diego and parts of the Northeast.

The Phoenix Realty Group's strategy is to reducep prices by coaxing developers to make units smaller, to build on cheaper land and to provide less costly frills.

Of course, we're talking very different cost-of-living standards here. The median price of a home Phoenix intends to invest in is $400,000.

Comments (16)

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Sue said:

In many cities, workers are brought in by bus because they can't afford to live where they work. (Aspen, Long Island nursing homes on the east end, etc.) Some businesses are starting to build "dorm" style housing for workers or what we used to call "company towns." It sort of makes sense, but I guess it did way back when, too.

Allen Johnson said:

Sue, in a way I guess it recalls the homes Cone Mills built for workers near Cone Mills in Greensboro. But it still raises a concern about overpriced housing ... we're talking middle class and up here.

Cara Michele said:

"But it still raises a concern about overpriced housing ... we're talking middle class and up here."

Housing advocates have been sounding the alarm FOR YEARS about the lack of affordable housing for poor and working class people. Now that it's starting to hit the middle class in some places, it "raises a concern." Ponder that.

Freddy Niché said:

I recommend Warren and Tayagi's Two-Income Trap, which very wisely ties the incredible run-up in middle-class home prices to a) the influx of second income-earners (aka, Moms) into the workforce; b) bidding wars to get into "good" school disctricts (my wife and I teach here in Greensboro, and cannot find much at all under $185,000 in the Kiser-Grimsley district, for example); and c) the ridiculous mortgage lender/realtor/appraiser/contractor cartel (note the sheer stranglehold regional chapters of NAR have over internet listings of homes, for example).

The city also maintains maps of crime statistics showing moderate and high areas that squeeze around basically two or three neighborhoods within a short ride by bike or bus. There are more affordable, low crime places only if someone wants to trek down Battleground or Lawndale, or from deep in the county in some direction, wasting gas, creating pollution, and probably having to buy two cars to get children to daycare, etc.

Believe me, we have seen a lot of stuff in the past couple years!

John Beck said:


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John Beck said:


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