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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Affordable Housing Not Easy To Locate
By Karen Peterson
Of the Journal
In a recent posting on his santafereview.com Web site, city observer George Johnson says that there are more than 800 properties for sale in Santa Fe County for $300,000 or less — by Santa Fe standards, affordable. Given that, Johnson wonders, "do we need to be designing whole new neighborhoods of moderately priced homes?"
But let's deconstruct the figures. Www.realtor.com, a Web site compiled from the Multiple Listing Service used by Realtors nationwide, shows just over 1,000 properties for sale in Santa Fe for $300,000 or less. But more than half of these listings are for land or lots, not homes. According to the Web site, a total of 511 residential housing units are for sale in that price range. Of these, 266, or just over half, are townhomes and condominiums.
For comparison purposes, take a look at the Santa Fe Association of Realtors figures for a breakdown of residential units for sale priced under $250,000, a price more in line with what might constitute "affordable" outside Santa Fe. According to the association, there are currently only 277 of these for sale in Santa Fe city and county combined. Of these, 60 percent are townhomes and condominiums, and an additional 6 percent are manufactured housing.
Now contrast these figures with the equivalent from the Albuquerque metro area, courtesy of the Greater Albuquerque Realtors Association. (This association serves a much greater area; membership includes Realtors from Rio Rancho, Valencia County and the East Mountain area.)
The association reports 3,626 residential properties currently for sale in the Albuquerque metro area at or under $250,000. Of those, most by far — 80 percent or 2,887 — are single-family homes. Condos account for a mere 13 percent of the total, and another 253 of the listings — or about 7 percent — are for manufactured homes (interestingly enough about the same percentage as in Santa Fe).
There is certainly nothing wrong with townhouses or condominiums as part — maybe even a big part — of a city's mix of available housing. But a great number of the condos on the market currently in Santa Fe were, in the not too distant past, apartments. Whole complexes — and almost all of the bigger ones closest to Downtown — have been converted to condos. The units may now once again may be for rent, but with the insertion of an individual owner/landlord between the original developer and the eventual tenant. You'd think that would exert some upward pressure on the city's rent prices — not a desirable outcome in terms of affording housing policy.
More importantly, however, a significant portion of the condos and townhomes on the market here — in fact at least a quarter, by rough count — are very small one-bedroom, one-bath units or studios. These are often marketed as "getaway retreats" or vacation homes rather than full-time residences. Another 8 percent or so of the listings are fractional-ownership deals.
One-bedroom, one-bath units, time-shares and studios account for a third of the available condos and townhomes currently on the market in Santa Fe, and nearly a fifth of all housing units for sale here in the more-or-less affordable price range, according to the Santa Fe Association of Realtors.
Johnson's point in his Web posting is that with plenty of affordably priced housing apparently for sale, money for more affordable housing — such as the revenue that would be generated by a proposed new tax on the sale of high-end real estate, on the ballot in March — might be better spent beefing up programs that help people buy "existing housing stock," or homes that are already on the ground. In view of the current market information, says Johnson, maybe we don't really need to build more houses — resulting in more sprawl.
Kim Shanahan, the new director of the Santa Fe Area Homebuilders Association, disagrees. If you're talking about affordable housing for families, Shanahan says, there are "zero listings" inside the city of Santa Fe.
What he means when he says "affordable" is highly specific — housing that meets the city's criteria for financing through its affordable housing programs. That, says Shanahan, is a two- or three-bedroom/bath home for $175,000 for a family of four whose household income doesn't exceed the high five figures. There aren't any such homes inside the city limits, he said Friday, "and I checked the multiple listings two days ago."
Shanahan says he opposes the proposed real estate transfer tax to fund more affordable housing, but not because he thinks the need for that housing has been met. Santa Fe needs more money for affordable housing than the tax will bring in, Shanahan says. And it needs to continue to build homes in these price ranges wherever possible.
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