Canada’s unlikely new housing minister, two high profile property sales where the sellers took a big loss, and HUD’s commitment to Indian Country housing. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of May 12-16.
Miss: The Wrong Man for the Job? Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney appointed Gregor Robertson as the nation’s new Minister of Housing and Infrastructure. Robertson gained national prominence as mayor of Vancouver from 2008 to 2018, but his record on housing during that time was not stellar – the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation noted that housing prices in Vancouver soared by 179% during Robertson’s decade as mayor. Robertson took no responsibility for that spike and blamed then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government for allegedly having no interest in addressing Vancouver’s housing problems. Hopefully, Robertson will learn from his mistakes in his new position – either that, or he’ll need to find someone else to blame for his bumbling.
Hit: More CFPB Changes. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is considering the elimination of the Biden-era Nonbank Registration Regulation designed to track companies that allegedly ran afoul of consumer laws. Reuters reports the registry was meant to target repeat offenders among debt collectors, mortgage originators, payday lenders and credit reporting companies. CFPB Acting Director Russ Vought is proposing to end of the registry “based upon concern that the costs the rule imposes on regulated entities, and which may in large part be passed onto consumers, are not justified by the speculative and unquantified benefits to consumers discussed in the analysis proffered in the NBR Rule,” The agency is seeking public comment on the registry’s proposed cancellation – hopefully, the public will back this onerous regulation and vote scrap it.
Miss: The Wrong Wright. Back in 2012, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residence in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was purchased for $200,000. The owners went on to spend $800,000 in renovations and updates to the property, which was built in 1950, and listed the property for $1.8 million last June – and then, nothing happened until nearly one year and a $1 million cut later. The buyer of the Usonian-style property, known as the Robert D. and Winifred L. Winn House, is getting the fully restored residence along with all the home’s furnishings and lamps – which were built by the sellers and based on Wright’s designs – plus with the master architect’s blueprints featuring his handwritten notes. That’s not bad for an $850,000 purchase. However, this is not the only case of a well-intended seller getting an XL-sized negative ROI…
Miss: Nature Calling. This week, Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection paid $4.1 million for an undeveloped, 643-acre property that includes four lakes in the Town of Killingly. This was also a discounted sale – the original listing price was $5.9 million – and the state will maintain the property as a wildlife management site. CTMirror.org reports the seller was developer Mark Greenberg, who acquired the land in 1989 and planned to build a sub-development with over 100 homes – but he scrapped that project after realizing he couldn’t cover the costs of building roads and other infrastructure. Greenberg transacted the sale by wistfully declaring, “Looking back, I wish I had not purchased it – it was not a good purchase for me.”
Hit: Staying the Course. This week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner announced more than $1.1 billion in Indian Housing Block Grant program funding for eligible Native American Tribes, Alaska Native Villages, and Tribally Designated Housing Entities to carry out affordable housing activities in Indian Country. Thankfully, this was not among the programs that were slashed as the department rightsized itself away from wasteful expenditures. HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the new grant funding “reaffirms our commitment to serve Tribal communities while working towards meeting Indian Country’s housing needs. HUD has a strong partnership with Tribal nations, and I look forward to collaborating directly with Tribal leaders to expand housing opportunities and remove burdensome regulatory barriers that impede progress.”
In Memoriam: Bendix Anderson. This week, Affordable Housing Finance shared the news of the passing of longtime writer Bendix Anderson at the age of 53. Anderson wrote for AHF for more than 25 years, and last year he received two awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for his reporting. Anderson’s housing-focused journalism also appeared in Commercial Observer, Urban Land Magazine, National Real Estate Investor, Multifamily Executive and City Limits magazine. Outside of real estate journalism, he was a children’s book author and his output included “Quetzal and the Cool School,” “Birds of Prey,” and “Security Dogs.”
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo courtesy of MicroStubHub / Getty Images
