Free Republic

Local governments are increasingly promoting mixed-income housing as a tool for fighting poverty, on the assumption that economic integration gives low-income children a better chance at overcoming poverty. New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, for instance, has set a target of building 200,000 affordable housing units in the city, and he wants them to be distributed throughout mixed-income and more affluent neighborhoods. “Our goal is really to foster more economically diverse neighborhoods,” Alicia Glen, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development, told the New York Times. These programs rest on the assumption that mixed-income communities benefit low-income residents. Poorer...

This past week, following the nation’s celebration of the birthday of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the U.S. Supreme Court heard an important case related to landmark law enacted during the civil rights era – the Fair Housing Law of 1968. This case highlights how some policies that followed civil rights era legislation – in this case government low-income housing projects – actually have hurt the very communities they were supposed to help. The Court heard arguments in the case Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v The Inclusive Communities Project, a non-profit defining itself as...

When you buy a home, a lot of the money you spend isn't going toward your home equity. The cost of homeownership includes the money you spend on fees, taxes, and interest. These costs do not increase the value of your home nor do they reduce the principal on your mortgage. We did some analysis on the cost of homeownership versus the cost of renting. Rental costs are offset by the interest you make on the cash you did not have to put toward a down payment. Homeownership costs are offset by the tax deduction you get on your mortgage...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Rochester, NY (WROC) - LaTanya Daughtry needs a new place to live. The single mother of two boys is on disability and gets a Section 8 housing voucher. But many online classifieds ads say "No Section 8." "It just makes me feel people look at me differently because I'm on Section 8," Daughtry said. "A lot of ads say no Section 8 right off the bat." Section 8 is a federal housing program run through the Rochester Housing Authority. Recipients pay a portion of the rent and Section 8 pays the rest. Section 8 vouchers are in short supply. In...

Case-Shiller's 20-city home price index dropped 0.1% MoM in October (on an unadjusted basis) - the second monthly drop in a row and biggest drop since the Polar Vortex. Year-over-year, home prices rose 4.5% - the weakest growth since October 2012. While this modestly beat expectations (+4.5% vs +4.4% exp.), it is the 11th month in a row of growth deceleration. Also of note: the Top 20 Composite index is now down for the second month in a row, dropping to 173.36. The question now is whether the downside momentum will pick up.Worst annual gain since Oct 2012 and...

Say transgender kids should choose which sex to live with Health and Human Services released long overdue guidelines Friday ordering facilities that house illegal immigrant children to set up sexual abuse prevention programs, and to be prepared to deal with tricky cases such as transgender or intersex children. The rules, which congressional Democrats had demanded earlier this week, govern everything from pat-downs to evaluating each child for their likely risk of being targeted for sexual abuse or harassment, and govern how the children should be housed while at the private facilities, which operate under a government contract.

Dear Mona,It seems like homeownership is a common data filter in the social sciences. But nearly everyone I know who “owns a home” is paying a mortgage. How many “homeowners” have actually paid off their houses?John, 34, Mount Vernon, Washington Dear John,Your question is an important one, not only because home ownership can have big consequences for the economy, but because 56 percent of all the housing units in America (that includes trailers, apartments and houses) are owned by the people who live in them.According to last year’s American Community Survey, one in three of those owner-occupied housing units doesn’t...

Mortgage website HSH.com has updated its estimate of how much annual income a household would need to buy a home in major cities in the US according to Q3 data. The site looked at median home prices from the National Association of Realtors, along with interest rates for common 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages and property taxes and insurance costs, to figure out how much money it would take to pay a median-priced home's mortgage principal, taxes, and insurance — and how much you would have to earn to afford it. 15. Detroit Population: 921,147 Median Home Price: $151,500 Monthly Mortgage Payment:...

Since May, CEO confidence among America's largest companies had stagnated - even as stocks did what they do and rise, rise, rise. That changed when Bullard (now explained as "misunderstood" by the market) set fire to stocks with his QE4 hints and Plunge Protection Team rescue. However, the last 2 weeks have seen a noticable collapse once again in CEO confidence, according to Bloomberg's Orange Book index, even as stocks reach new higher all-time-er highs. As Bloomberg's Rich Yamarone notes, recent earnings calls highlight the headwinds companies face: Executives cite “softness in consumer spending,” a “challenging” climate, “fairly stagnant economy,”...

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES SUBJECT: Creating Welcoming Communities and Fully Integrating Immigrants and Refugees Our country has long been a beacon of hope and opportunity for people from around the world. Nearly 40 million foreign-born residents nationwide contribute to their communities every day, including 3 million refugees who have resettled here since 1975. These new Americans significantly improve our economy. They make up 13 percent of the population, but are over 16 percent of the labor force and start 28 percent of all new businesses. Moreover, immigrants or their children have founded more than 40...

They are going there to get subsidized Section 8 housing vouchers to take to another state. Refugee resettlement is a euphemism for importing whole Muslim communities, importing jihad. I have long documented the targeting of gateway cities (smaller cities) overwhelmed with Muslim refugee immigration from countries like Somalia — cities like Emporia, Kansas, Nashville, Greeley and Fort Morgan, Colorado, Lewiston, Maine et al. The over-saturation and drain on city resources has driven these immigrants northward to settle in Wyoming, according to these reports. Organizations like Lutheran Family Services profit enormously from the Federal government handling these refugees. The sharia compliant...

Federal regulators are attempting to lower credit and lending standards for home mortgage loans during a time when there is little demand for housing, some experts say, a move that could create another destabilizing bubble if the economy improves.

WASHINGTON — SEVEN years after the housing bubble burst, federal regulators backed away this month from the tougher mortgage-underwriting standards that the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 had directed them to develop. New standards were supposed to raise the quality of the “prime” mortgages that get packaged and sold to investors; instead, they will have the opposite effect. Responding to the law, federal regulators proposed tough new standards in 2011, but after bipartisan outcries from Congress and fierce lobbying by interested parties, including community activists, the Obama administration and the real estate and banking industries — all eager to increase home...

Republicans are the adults in Congress while the Democrats, liberal to the core, will never admit we are being set up for another financial crisis It is a cliché, but true, that history repeats itself. This is largely due to the failure of each new generation to learn anything from the past as well as the human tendency toward the bad habits of greed and power-seeking. Only the names and faces change. That is why the next financial crisis is entirely predictable. On October 23, The Wall Street Journal had an article, “Relaxed Mortgage-Lending Rules Clear Final Hurdle.” The financial...

... But there's a second reason why San Francisco's problem is emblematic of a national story. Liberal cities seem to have the worst affordability crises, according to Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko. In a recent article, Kolko divided the largest cities into 32 “red" metros where Romney got more votes than Obama in 2012 (e.g. Houston), 40 “light-blue” markets where Obama won by fewer than 20 points (e.g. Austin), and 28 “dark-blue” metros where Obama won by more than 20 points (e.g. LA, SF, NYC). Although all three housing groups faced similar declines in the recession and similar bounce-backs in...

Following misses in yesterday's Markit Service PMI, Existing Home Sales and the Dallas Fed report, and today's Durable Goods numbers, we just made it a pentafecta for misses in US econ data, when the just released August Case-Shiller data for August confirmed once again that US housing is rapidly slowing down, when the Top 20 Composite Index (Seasonally Adjusted) posted another decline in August, its fourth in a row, declining by -0.15% and missing expectations of a modest 0.2% rebound (following last month's -0.5%) decline. The best summary of the situation came from S&P's David Blitzer: "The deceleration in...

The last time US homeownership declined down to 64.4% (which the Census Bureau just reported is what US homeownership declined to from 64.7% in Q2), was back in the fourth quarter of 1983. It goes without saying that this is about the bearishest news possible for those few who still believe in the American homewonership dream. Of course, those who have been following real-time rental market trends would be all too aware there is no rebound coming to the homeownership rate. The reason is simple: increasingly fewer can afford to buy, instead having no choice but to rent, which...

Since January 1 of this year, James Barnes has had pretty decent health care. He gets insulin for his diabetes and the needles to inject it, blood pressure medication, access to a psychiatrist and counselor and optometrist, and frequent visits to the doctor, all for free. Barnes lives in Maryland, one of the dozens of states that expanded Medicaid to people with incomes at or below 138 percent of the poverty level as part of the Affordable Care Act. For Barnes and thousands like him, that expansion has meant access to services like physical therapy, mental-health treatment, x-rays, dialysis, hospice...

Sales of previously-owned homes rose in September to reach their fastest pace in 2014, even though investors are leaving the market. That’s good news for regular people, who are enjoying low mortgage rates and decreased competition for homes. Sales of existing-homes rose 2.4% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.17 million, according to National Association of Realtors data released Tuesday. Though at their highest pace of 2014, sales remain 1.7% down from a year earlier, when the pace stood at 5.26 million. “Low interest rates and price gains holding steady led to September’s healthy increase, even with...

In Atherton, Calif., 94027, the most expensive home currently on the market is a 12,840-square-foot Mediterranean mansion with a $21.988 million price tag. Not a millionaire? Good luck finding a place to live in this Silicon Valley enclave. The least expensive home for sale in the 94027 ZIP code is a 1,370-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath bungalow. In other words, a starter home–with an asking price of $1.499 million. The median price of the 24 homes listed for sale over the summer was $9.03 million, making Atherton the most expensive ZIP code in America for the second year in a row. “Atherton...

I started this narrative bibliography for "The Case for Reparations" back in June, but, regrettably, I didn't finish the final section before I left for the summer. Some time has passed but I think it is very important that, as much as possible, I complete this public acknowledgement of all the previous work that contributed to my own. As I've written, the process began with the understanding that racism was a "done thing" and not an irrepressible clash between people of different hues. Another way of putting this is to say white supremacy is not an invention of white people;...

It's an old saying: First we shape our buildings, then they shape us. But like many old sayings, it may be more pat than true. It may sound like a great tribute to the power and influence of architecture in our lives, but it's too neat. It sounds too much like an insight to be one. Which explains why it's become more a cliche than an observation. Because the power of architecture surely depends on the power of the architect -- and our own power to accept or reject it, or adapt it to our own idea of what constitutes...

Our family just started looking for a home to purchase. Just curious.... How long did it take you to find the perfect house? Our lender took two years. We are finding something wrong with all of them.

Mortgage originations for the first quarter of this year fell off a cliff. JPMorgan reported a decline of 71 percent, as I recall, and I think Citibank reported a drop of 66 percent. Now, the second quarter’s bloodletting has come in and the numbers are about the same… down more than 60 percent year-over-year, if memory serves and it often does. Even credit unions went straight into the tank this year, originating an annualized $42.6 billion in real estate loans in the first quarter, down from $102.9 billion in the first quarter of 2013, according to an Nation Credit Union...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The federal government wasted millions of dollars in building a housing project for Border Patrol agents in Arizona near the Mexican border, spending nearly $700,000 per house in a small town where the average home costs less than $90,000, a watchdog report found. The analysis by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection overspent by about $4.6 million on new houses and mobile homes in the small town of Ajo southwest of Phoenix. The agency has spent about $17 million for land, 21 two- and three-bedroom houses and 20...

The crushing news came less than a year after Diane Robinson and her 24-year-old son moved into an airy two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. The city, which helps pay her rent, wrote this summer to say she would have to downsize into a one-bedroom apartment or pay $240 more a month in rent. A public school aide, Ms. Robinson, 48, decided to stay in the apartment, in the Castle Hill neighborhood. But on an annual income of about $25,000, she is struggling, she said, and she does not know how long she can hang on. Moving to a one-bedroom apartment...

<p>It's no secret. California is expensive. But is it a little more nuanced than that; coastal California is very expensive while inland California is just moderately expensive. Yet, despite being a well-known fact, Sacramento doesn't appear too concerned with California's growing price tag even though there is evidence it could be slowing the Golden State's economic growth.</p>

'World's smallest house' comes with much larger price tag September 8, 2014, 12:00 pm Yahoo7 Finance What could well be the world's smallest house is for sale - but the price they want for just 188 square feet is gobsmacking. If you thought Sydney house prices were spiralling out of control, spare a thought for those poor souls across the seas in London. What could well be the ‘world’s smallest house’ has hit the market, but don’t expect a small price tag to go with it. The term ‘house’ in this case is a bit of a stretch of the...

It’s not easy to prevent the Supreme Court from deciding an issue once the justices have agreed to hear a case. But over the past two years, civil rights advocates have managed to do just that by coaxing settlements in a pair of high-profile housing discrimination cases weeks before the court was set to hear oral arguments. The advocates’ goal was to remove any chance that court conservatives might undermine a powerful legal doctrine the Obama administration and others have used increasingly to enforce the Fair Housing Act. […] In disparate impact cases, plaintiffs rely on statistics to show that...

In May, we reported on the salary needed to buy a home in 12 major U.S. cities, based on first-quarter data analyzed by mortgage website HSH.com. The site has updated its data according to 2014 second-quarter numbers, which we've listed here (with the addition of Washington, D.C.).Spoiler alert: It's only gotten more expensive.The site looked at median home prices from the National Association of Realtors, along with interest rates for common 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages and property taxes and insurance costs, to figure out how much money it would take to pay a median-priced home's mortgage principal, taxes, and insurance — and how...

Between 1970 and 1990, the population of Philadelphia shrank by a quarter, dropping from 1.95 to 1.59 million. Like many American cities, it seemed caught in a downward spiral. Since then – like many American cities – Philadelphia has stabilized. The population now appears to have bottomed out at the millennium, and has been regaining residents over the past decade. But as it rebounds, Philly is becoming a different kind of city. In the two most recent decades, which comprise the bounce of the city’s population curve, owner-occupied housing dropped even more steeply than in the ’70s and ’80s. Between...

As part of a legal settlement that will allow some illegal immigrants who deported themselves from Southern California to return to the United States, the federal government has agreed to advertise the settlement on various Mexican and Spanish-language media outlets. The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit last year on behalf of eleven illegal immigrants who deported themselves. The settlement reached on Wednesday will only cover "longtime California residents with relatives who are U.S. citizens and... young migrants whose parents brought them into the country illegally" who deported themselves between 2009 and 2013. An ACLU official has indicated that there were...

Most real estate experts believe the U.S. housing market is roaring back. Few have anything to negative to say about real estate. But what if they’re wrong? Real estate analyst Keith Jurow, author of the Capital Preservation Real Estate Report, is warning that the real estate market is not as strong as it seems. Says Jurow: “I never bought into the idea that we had a recovery at all.” His research leads him to conclude that home prices will be heading lower. Why? Largely because home listings are going up but sale prices are not. Jurow discovered that as of...

Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder’s record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America, Investors’ Business Daily reports: Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation’s largest bank to create a massive slush fund for Democrat special interests. The deal requires billions of dollars in debt forgiveness payments to delinquent borrowers. It also requires Bank of America to make billions in...

There was some glumness in the latest news on housing prices. There shouldn’t be. Slower home price rises — and in some markets, outright declines — are a sign the housing market is starting to move past the boom-and-bust cycle of the last dozen years toward a market where sensible prices driven by local economic conditions prevail. The S.&P./Case-Shiller home price index showed prices rose 8.1 percent in 20 major cities in the 12 months ended in June, the lowest rate of increase since 2012. Compared with May’s prices, national home prices actually declined oh-so-slightly, by 0.1 percent, with six...

Generation X homeowners are far more likely to be underwater on their mortgage than millennial and Baby Boomer homeowners, a generational block that could limit the market for years, according to the second quarter Zillow® Negative Equity Reporti. The overall national negative equity rate fell to 17 percent in the second quarter, with more than 8.7 million homeowners with a mortgage owing more than their home was worth. Approximately 42.6 percent of Generation X homeowners (those aged from 35 to 49) are underwater on their mortgage, compared to 15.3 percent of millennial homeowners (20-34 years old) and 31.1 percent of...

A local organizer in a town neighboring Ferguson, Mo., shows a typical “porch.”On the surface, the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., was about local police using deadly force on an unarmed young man. But on a deeper level, it reflected the increasing poverty and economic decline that affects ethnic communities all over America. Despite rosy reports in the media about the end of the national foreclosure crisis and the recession that followed, all is not well in our inner cities and suburbs with largely minority populations, like Ferguson. The foreclosure crisis was hard on many Americans, but it was a disaster...

Although investors hang on every comment by Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to get insight on the direction of interest rates and what it means for the economy and asset prices, the real power to determine U.S. interest rates may be in the hands of China, according to Lombard Street Research. Facing an overvalued currency that is hurting corporate profits and slowing growth, China appears ready to dump its $1.3 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds to drive U.S. interest rates up and strengthen the dollar... (snip) China tried to slow the fall of the dollar by increasing its holdings in...

Supply of homes at the bottom-third of the market is down 17 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile the top-third home supply is up 15 percent while the middle is up a modest 3 percent according to Redfin. The bottom third is anything priced below $198,000. But $150,000 or $200,000 does not buy in terms of size and location what it did just a few years ago. Overpay or Be Shut Out So once again, first-time buyers face the question "overpay or be shut out?" And once again it appears many make a very poor choice.

America’s wealth is concentrating in fewer hands, and while the rich are getting super rich, the once vital middle class is nearing extinction. [SNIP] But today, after decades of expanding property ownership, the middle orders—what might be seen as the inheritors of Jefferson’s yeoman class—now appear in a secular retreat. Homeownership, which peaked in 2002 at nearly 70 percent, has dropped, according to the U.S. Census, to 65 percent in 2013, the lowest in almost two decade. Although some of this may be seen as a correction for the abuses of the housing bubble, rising costs, stagnant incomes and a...

The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents. But that's not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center. The tenants moved in over the past two years as part of a push by the CHA to expand its housing voucher program...

Both ABC World News with Diane Sawyer and NBC Nightly News failed to mention a new, troubling report from the Census Bureau on Thursday night that sales of new homes decreased by 8.1% in June and that May’s originally reported double-digit increase was revised lower, from almost 19% to only 8%. The CBS Evening News did cover this story, but it only was in the form of a 12-second news brief from anchor Scott Pelley. Pelley grimly reported that: “Today's report on the housing market is raising concerns about the economic recovery. Sales of new homes dropped sharply last month,...

While the world is sizzling and percolating in conflicts and wars, and U.S. is roiling in manufactured crisis after crisis, real or imagined emergencies, overwhelmed by the constant invasion of illegal immigrants, The Washington Post writes on the front page, “Thinking inside the box on D.C. housing costs,” living in repurposed dinged freight shipping containers. Two days before, Deborah K. Dietsch featured “Thinking big in a small way.” (Michael Laris, July 21, 2014)

In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson shocked senators of both parties when he disclosed that it costs between $250 and $1,000 per day per person to house the illegal immigrants that have been surging across our border with Mexico. "There was an audible gasp, a bipartisan gasp," Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) recounted. "I could take a luxurious Caribbean cruise every day of the year for a lower total cost. I cannot fathom why the spartan accommodations we are providing for these people should cost so much." Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Patty...

US home construction fell 9.3 per cent in June, a surprising sign of weakness for a sector that has struggled to maintain momentum over the past year. Housing starts sank last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 893,000, the weakest showing since September 2013, the Commerce Department said Thursday. It was the second-straight monthly drop....

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting the labor market recovery was gaining traction. However, a separate report showed U.S. housing starts and building permits unexpectedly fell in June, suggesting the housing market recovery was struggling to get back on track after stalling in late 2013. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 302,000 for the week ended July 12, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's claims were revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast...

It's really hard for a middle class family to buy a house along the California coast.Real estate research and marketplace site Zillow routinely calculates an index of housing affordability. First, they use a proprietary statistical model to estimate housing values in a metropolitan area. Then, they calculate the monthly mortgage payment for a median price house in each metro area. Finally, they calculate the percentage of the median monthly income for each metro area needed to pay that mortgage payment.For example, Zillow's estimate for the median home price in Abilene, TX during the first quarter of 2014 was $98,600. After...

A few days ago we finally closed the door on any argument who the marginal buyer in the US luxury housing segment was - the answer: Chinese oligarchs, scrambling to launder their "hot" domestic money abroad (as we predicted first two years ago) and now that Switzerland is no longer a safe offshore venue where one can park cash, they picked US luxury housing as the best money laundering alternative. This means that far from indicating a recovery, as the recent surge in the high end of the US housing segment had long been touted, all the relentless move...

Relocation Map Key As with all maps, you can zoom in and out, and click and drag the map for a different view. (For a larger version of this map click here. You can see a full list of all the communities in the left column.) NumbersUSA is daily updating this interactive map to show which communities are under threat of the federal government moving large numbers of illegal aliens there from the border.