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Mayor Breed reaches S.F. budget deal with supervisors that keeps police hiring plans, boosts affordable housing

by www.sfchronicle.com Leave a Comment

San Francisco supervisors have reached a city budget deal that dedicates tens of millions of dollars in new funds for affordable housing and other progressive priorities while avoiding major cuts to investments that Mayor London Breed proposed for the police and the city’s economic recovery.

In all, the Board of Supervisors’ budget and appropriations committee agreed to add more than $127 million into Breed’s spending plans for the next two fiscal years, which total about $14 billion annually. The deal, approved after midnight Tuesday morning, also authorizes a separate $112 million in debt financing that will help pay for land acquisitions for affordable housing and nonprofits that serve the Asian and Pacific Islander communities.

Supervisors freed up the funds in part by making cuts to various city department budgets. But they did not implement some of the most controversial changes they had considered, including the possibility of scaling back Breed’s plans to hire 220 police officers — to fill vacant jobs. They also agreed to preserve the ranks of community ambassadors with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy who patrol the streets of the Tenderloin and Mid-Market. Funding for the ambassadors was a critical piece of Breed’s plan to help make San Francisco more welcoming to visitors, accounting for more than half of the $47.4 million the budget will spend on promoting economic recovery.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, the budget committee chair, led the marathon negotiations with Breed’s office and her fellow supervisors. Though Ronen did not support everything in the mayor’s proposals, she ultimately preserved most of Breed’s policy goals after securing millions of additional dollars for housing, food security and the various nonprofits that contract with the city government.

“As with everything, we had some disagreements with the mayor on aspects of the budget, like the amount of ambassadors and the amount of increase for the police department. But in the end, it felt like what we were able to restore in terms of services for the people that are struggling in San Francisco was more important than holding a hard line that ends up being almost symbolic in the end,” Ronen said. “What we were able to accomplish in this budget is to get real material wins for the most vulnerable San Franciscans.”

Breed’s spokesman Jeff Cretan said the mayor’s office was pleased with the results of the budget deal, which is expected to be voted on by the full board July 12.

“From our perspective, the mayor’s priorities remain largely intact. We’re pretty satisfied with that,” Cretan said. “Supervisor Ronen worked with us to craft a budget that met some of the goals she and her colleagues had while recognizing that the priorities the mayor set forward were really important for the city.”

Supervisors had a list of more than $1 billion in programs to which they could consider adding funding as they negotiated the proposed budget Breed introduced at the beginning of June. Ultimately, they whittled the list down to about $58 million over the coming two fiscal years, including various initiatives to provide food to the neediest San Franciscans, housing subsidies and services for the LGBTQ community. The mayor agreed to spend an additional $69 million to advance a range of other goals, including to help cover rising business costs for nonprofits that work with the city.

The budget deal also advances a top priority for Supervisor Dean Preston.

Preston had pushed for a big increase in spending on affordable housing , hoping to take advantage of real estate tax revenue generated by Proposition I, a 2020 ballot measure he sponsored. Preston and Breed had disagreed over how to spend money from the tax, which goes to the city’s general fund. Two weeks ago, he unveiled a $135 million budget request based on recommendations from the Prop. I oversight body.

While the $112 million in debt financing that the committee approved doesn’t meet everything Preston had asked for, it goes a long way toward his affordable housing goals. The money includes $40 million to acquire land for affordable housing development, $20 million for repairs to existing public housing, $12 million for homes to house teachers and $10 million for elevator repairs at aging single-room occupancy hotels.

Preston told the budget committee that it was approving a “historic deal” that will deliver “a tremendous amount of new affordable housing.”

Additionally, the debt financing includes $30 million for land acquisitions that Supervisor Connie Chan had sought as part of her proposed API Equity Fund . The fund, also supported by Supervisors Gordon Mar and Aaron Peskin, is intended to help buy property for nonprofits that serve an estimated 250,000 low-income Asian and Pacific Islander residents.

“This was a really nice way to both meet Supervisor Preston and Chan’s top priorities without taking away any money that we needed for all of the other board and community priorities,” Ronen said of the debt financing.

J.D. Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter:@thejdmorris

House prices keep rising despite fears of market crash

by www.newsweek.com Leave a Comment

The price of homes in the United States rose 1.6 percent in April compared to the previous month, new data published on Tuesday showed.

The average house price for April was also 18.8 percent higher this year than it was in the same month in 2021, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, whose index likely reflects a slowdown of the housing market amid a limited supply of new homes.

Rising mortgage interest rates have sparked fears among analysts of a looming crash in the housing market.

“House price appreciation continues to remain elevated in April,” said Will Doerner, supervisory economist in FHFA’s Division of Research and Statistics. “The inventory of homes on the market remains low, which has continued to keep upward pressure on sales prices. Increasing mortgage rates have yet to offset demand enough to deter the strong price gains happening across the country.”

The month-on-month house price change has been higher among the West South Central, West North Central and South Atlantic states, with respective price increases of 2.5, 2.3 and 1.9 percent, according to the assessment by FHFA—all above the U.S.’s average increase.

Least affected by the house price increase were the East South Central states, with a 0.3 percent increase from March to April, FHFA said.

Although the market is beginning to cool as homes become out of reach for many buyers, house prices are not expected to decline any time soon.

“Prices are determined by two factors, obviously the market demand and supply, but also how much it costs to build,” Ran Elisaf, founder and managing partner at Northwind Group, a real estate private equity firm in Manhattan, New York, told Newsweek .

“Currently, we’re seeing still a lot of commodities—lumber, concrete, steel—at very high prices relatively to two or three years ago. Yes, some prices went down; timber and wood price went down a bit. But still we’re seeing an average cost to build a house that’s much higher than it was two or three years ago pre-pandemic.”

“Builders will only build now if they’re sure they’re going to be able to get their price. So I don’t see prices going down that fast because of that reason. Affordability is going to remain a big issue—mortgage is more expensive; furnishing the home is more expensive.”

“So a lot of issues in the supply chain are still causing delays, and housing will not be affordable in the near future unless we’re going to see a huge new supply coming in of new houses. I don’t see that happening any time soon because of prices,” Elisaf said.

These record-high house prices—over 34 percent higher now than two years ago—combined with rising inflation, higher mortgage interest rates and limited availability of new homes are squeezing first-time home buyers out of the market.

This, in turn, is slowing down the housing market, with the number of new home sales reaching its lowest level in two years in April.

“I think we’re going to see a cooldown,” Elisaf said. “It’s going to turn into a buyer’s market after it’s been a seller’s market for the last year, year and a half.”

“But again you need to look at the United States…you can’t look at it as a whole. There’s going to be certain markets that are very sought after in high demand and have limited supply. In those markets, you’ll see prices go up—South Florida, Austin, New York.”

“I think for the most part we’ll still see increases, or these prices stabilized or increased. But then you’ll have markets where you have negative population growth areas, in California for example, where people are leaving because of taxation and political reasons, and they’re moving to low tax states. So there you’ll probably see potential decrease in pricing.”

Update 6/28/22, 10:45 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with more information.

Five first-time buyer schemes where you can get a house with a tiny deposit as little as 5%

by www.thesun.co.uk Leave a Comment

SAVING for a house can be tough – but you can get on the ladder quicker with these schemes that let you buy with just a 5% deposit.

House prices have rocketed, which means that budding buyers are having to raise more money for a deposit.

The average house price stands at £281,000 according to latest government figures, which is up £31,000 the year before.

That means a 10% deposit – the typical amount buyers are putting down for a home – is £28,100, up £3,100 from last year.

With a cost of living crisis , saving this amount of money is unachievable while bills are spiralling.

But a number of schemes can make getting on the ladder a little more affordable.

We round up five schemes where you only need to save up half the deposit typically needed to secure a home.

Help to Buy

The Help to Buy scheme is a government scheme that will give budding buyers and equity loan and allow them to put down a deposit of just 5%.

You can get up to 20% of the value of your property – or 40% if you live in London – under the scheme.

The loan is interest-free for the first five years – but budding buyers only have a matter of months to take advantage of it.

New applications must be made by October 31 at the latest and completions need to be finalised by March 31, 2023.

To apply, you’ll need to go through the Help to Buy agent in the area where you want to buy a home.

You can find one near you on the Homes England website .

Some disadvantages to using the scheme is that you can only buy a new build property to qualify for the loan.

That means those looking for a doer upper to increase the value of their home can’t access the scheme.

New build homes can also be more expensive.

Shared ownership

Shared ownership lets first-time buyers purchase a portion of the equity in a property if they can’t afford to take out a mortgage for the total value of the home.

You’ll co-own your home with a housing association, which will charge you rent on its portion of the property.

Buyers will find they’ll likely need to buy a new-build home.

Buyers must purchase between 10% and 75% of the property to use the initiative, and they can then “staircase” – buy more shares in instalments – until they own 100% of it.

You can put down a deposit of just 5% using a shared ownership scheme.

While it can make buying a home more affordable, there are a few disadvantages.

You don’t have as much freedom when it comes to selling up – if you own less than 100%, your housing association will get a set period of time to find a buyer.

That means you won’t be able to accept a higher offer from someone else.

Or, you might have to sell it back to the housing association instead of putting it on the market.

There are also fewer lenders offering shared ownership mortgages compared with standard ones.

This means there isn’t much competition to offer decent rates.

Help to Build

Last week saw the government unveil its Help to Build scheme to first time buyers.

You’ll be able to build you own home with just a 5% deposit.

The government can give you an equity loan based on the estimated costs to buy the plot of land and build your home.

The loan amount can be between 5% to 20%, and up to 40% in London.

It will make building your own home more affordable, as currently, you’ll need a deposit worth around 25% of land and building costs.

With a home costing £400,000 to build, you would need to raise £100,000 typically. At 5% this would be just £20,000.

But there are some downsides.

Building costs can often run away – which means you could go over budget and end up forking out much more than you want to.

It could also be challenging finding land to buy and build on – including the faff of getting planning and a mortgage.

Companies offering loans with 5% deposits

There are companies offering loans to first time buyers with just 5% deposits to help them boost the home budget

If you have saved up enough for a 5% deposit, you can apply for a home loan from Proportunity.

It works in a similar way to Help to Buy – but the key differences are that you can get a loan to cover up to 25% of the total value of a property, and it doesn’t have to be a new build.

You can repay your loan at any point – for example, you could choose to pay it back at all once when you sell up.

Ahauz is another company offering equity loans to buyers with a 5% deposit.

Again, you can get up to 25% of the property value up to £150,000.

But a word of warning – alternative finance firms can often charge significant interest rates offering loans like these.

We spoke to one first time buyer who is paying back more than double the interest he pays on his £30,000 Proportunity loan compared to his mortgage.

Plus, some lenders might not lend you a mortgage using an equity loan like this – so you might not get the best deal.

Deposit Unlock

This new scheme lets you buy a new build house worth up to £750,000 with a 5% deposit.

It will aim to plug the gap left when the Help to Buy scheme ends in just a few months time.

You have to buy a home from a house builder participating in the scheme – which could limit your options.

It is a mortgage-indemnity scheme, which means the builder insures the mortgage you take out.

That means mortgage providers are more likely to take on the risk of lending mortgages on low deposits.

But not many lenders have signed up to the initiative – which lowers your chances of getting a deal.

You’ll have to ask the builder of the house you want to buy whether they are offering the 5% Deposit Unlock initiative.

Despite the housing crisis in Far North Queensland, 11,500 homes are empty in this region

by www.abc.net.au Leave a Comment

A shortage of housing in Far North Queensland is driving people into precarious accommodation and making it harder for employers to find staff.

Key points:

  • Port Douglas’ rate of empty homes was about double the Queensland average on census night
  • Despite the number of empty properties, rental vacancies in Far North Queensland are scarce
  • Douglas Shire Mayor Michael Kerr says the issue is starting conversations in the community

But on census night last year, more than 11,500 homes across the greater Cairns region were empty.

That included the Douglas Shire, where the rate of empty homes was 18 per cent, almost double the statewide average.

Mayor Michael Kerr said it was a “really scary figure”.

“We have a real struggling workforce at the moment — even if you can find staff, you can’t find anywhere for them to live,” he said.

Jackson Hills, policy and strategic engagement manager at peak housing and homelessness advocacy group Queensland Shelter, was concerned homes were going empty while the availability of social and affordable housing was in “crisis”.

“We’ve got record low rental vacancy rates at the moment in the rental industry — not just in Cairns, but right across Queensland,” he said.

Empty homes are nothing new

The 11,501 unoccupied private dwellings recorded in the census were spread across an area stretching from Cape Tribulation in the north to Cardwell in the south and included the Atherton Tablelands.

About 6,200 of those were in the Cairns urban area.

More than 2,200 were in Innisfail and the Cassowary Coast region, which had an unoccupied rate of 14 per cent — higher than the state average of 9 per cent.

But empty homes are not a new phenomenon in Far North Queensland.

While Cairns’s population has grown by almost 30,000 people in the past decade and the number of occupied homes increased by about 10,000 in that time, the 2011 census also recorded 11,071 unoccupied dwellings.

“[Our staff] have come back to us recently showing a great percentage of our rates notices actually go outside of our shire rather than stay in the shire,” Mr Kerr said.

Regulation a challenge

The census found that more than one million homes in Australia were vacant.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics says it does its best to accurately classify dwellings based on the census forms and other information it can gather.

“The number [of empty homes] has been similar in some parts of Australia for some time,” Mr Hills said.

Mr Hills said local and state governments were beginning to look at ways to regulate short-stay accommodation, particularly as housing became more scarce.

“It’s not about penalising anyone that wants to operate in this [short-stay accommodation] space, though,” he said.

“It really is about getting the settings right.”

Mr Kerr said the City of Brisbane’s decision to hike rates on properties used for short-stay accommodation was unlikely to entice home owners back into the private rental market.

But he said it started a conversation that his shire — with about 1,000 empty homes and restaurants and hotels desperate for more staff — should take part in.

“That’s a lot of businesses that could potentially have employees in them and certainly make our tourism offering a lot better,” Mr Kerr said.

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Influx of former residents wanting to return home exacerbates Cherbourg housing crisis

by www.abc.net.au Leave a Comment

Renters in Queensland’s largest Indigenous shire have had their rates frozen for a year as the council helps locals cope with the rising cost of living.

Key points:

  • There are around 200 people waiting for housing in Cherbourg
  • The council is putting in more housing and freezing rents to ease cost of living pressures
  • Elders say more people want to return to the community to save money

The Aboriginal Shire of Cherbourg, a three-hour drive from Brisbane, is also facing a mass influx of former residents returning home in search of affordable and culturally-appropriate housing.

It is contributing to the housing crisis, with 200 people on a waiting list for a home in the town of about 1,200, according to the Cherbourg Aboriginal Council.

Elder and past mayor Arnold Murray said there was a growing trend of young people wishing to return to the Cherbourg community from other south-east Queensland regions, including Ipswich, Brisbane and Logan.

“They want to come home. This is their home and it’s too expensive out there,” he said.

“I think they’re finding it difficult outside. It is really expensive and the rent is going up and up outside, the cost of living – you need help from family and friends.”

The Cherbourg Aboriginal Council owns and manages all properties in the town.

To combat rising inflation and other cost-of-living pressures, it has guaranteed rent prices would not go up over the next 12 months.

Mr Murray has welcomed the freeze.

A temporary fix

While things are manageable for his household now, Mr Murray was not sure how much longer he would be able to afford things.

“It will get harder, a lot of us are on Centrelink,” he said.

Council CEO Chatur Zala said the rent freeze would give residents breathing space, but eventually the council would have to act.

“Unfortunately, we can’t do it every year [freeze rent prices],” he said.

“We have to cater for the high cost with our materials and services.”

Kabi Kabi woman Aunty Dorothy Douglas has lived in Cherbourg her entire life.

She said the council was doing its best to address the crisis.

“I think it was good for council to give people a chance to catch up on the rent and get everything what they need in their homes,” she said.

Ms Douglas said she knew people were going without to make ends meet.

“Not many of them work in the community and they find it hard to pay rent fortnightly, so they double up, and they have no money for themselves and their family,” she said.

“[They can be] short of food and lucky in the community; they can go to another family member to borrow, but they’re going to think of [their family members] too.

Mr Zala said the issue of low housing stock was also hitting its peak in the community.

“Demand is very, very high,” he said.

“Housing in the Indigenous community is a big issue that you can feel at the moment.

“I’ve just come back from a meeting in Canberra and the housing shortage is — all over the country — a big issue but especially in Indigenous communities.

“We try to do our best by delivering six to eight houses every year.

“It doesn’t solve all the problems. But you know, will play a role in that area.”

Mr Zala said it was difficult to get additional government assistance when the whole state was struggling.

University of Queensland housing researcher Timothy O’Rourke said this was nothing new for communities like Cherbourg, which had experienced overcrowding since the 1960s.

“That’s when attention to housing started to increase from the government side, there’s always been a shortage of housing,” he said.

“That’s an urban, regional and remote problem and consequentially you get very large numbers in one household.”

Dr O’Rourke said the lack of housing for returning residents added pressure on their friends and family.

“A lot of those people who either lose their homes or can’t find one will move to their family and wider kinship network and those communities and other households will absorb them,” he said.

Mr Zala said he was hopeful the council would find more money in next year’s budget to keep rent rises to a minimum and for new builds.

“We have that pressure every day and I want to give available and affordable housing to everyone in the community,” he said.

“But we’ve got nothing to give them basically.”

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