Atlanta.
Median-Priced Homes Not Affordable for Average Wage Earners in 71 Percent of U.S. Housing Markets
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ATL, yeah I am sure inventory around the central city is nearly tapped. Which is why the suburban sprawl around ATL is growing. Everyone wants to live close to the central city but everyone can't.
It is the right and smart thing to do however everyone does not have the type of job that affords them to do that and if they have kids it makes it even harder. Most Americans live check to check and the Federal shutdown by Dr. Zaius proved it.
Yep 20% down is the responsible thing to do but I'm sure most aren't doing that.
Precisely!!
The cost of living in the US is high and it’s almost impossible to save if you have a low income.
^^^
Man, It's loony in the burbs now!
96k is balling in ATLBingo! People fail to understand this. In a smaller market you will make less in salary than one of the bigger markets (LA, NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia and etc.). Even if it's a "good paying" job you will still make less. I know an Associate Media Director at my old job that made about $116k but when she moved to Atlanta she took about a $20k paycut because of the market. She didn't give me the exact number but she said around $20k
116 is living comfortable in NYC
Sounds like a good trade off to me
My parents saved nothing for retirement and nothing for my college. They live off of their social security in poverty.
If we didnt help with the house that would be nothing too.
Things are rough out here for baby boomers and millenials alike.
96k is OK in Atlanta. biweekly after taxes and maxing the 401k(20%) you get about 2k. Thats decent, but far from balling when a nice place in a good part of town will run you about 2k in rent.
My boys mortgage in atl is $1200 and he dont live in the hood
Hood or the burbz man, unless he put down a pretty hefty downpayment.
This indian chick I talk to folks just bought a 280k place in alpharetta. Put down 100k though and its still a pretty big monthly mortgage.
I hear you …. I'd be paying them off quick as possible …. even if it meant a part time job ...
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I usually try to drop a grand a month on it. I dont do part time jobs though. If something catches my fancy consulting-wise I'll do it, but my free time holds a premium for me these days.
I had to quit my last job because they wanted to do code uploads on saturday after we had already put in 40 hrs during the week
Look at it this way …. part time shit should only be for a couple of years ….. by then the loans should be knocked down or paid off …. leaving you stress free with loads of spare time ….I usually try to drop a grand a month on it. I dont do part time jobs though. If something catches my fancy consulting-wise I'll do it, but my free time holds a premium for me these days.
I had to quit my last job because they wanted to do code uploads on saturday after we had already put in 40 hrs during the week
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Yeah I didnt go to college to have to work part time. I know it sounds extra but I cant roll that way
I didn't go to college either ….. but with the 24/72 schedule at the fire dept …. there were times I worked three jobs cause I had the time to …...Yeah I didnt go to college to have to work part time. I know it sounds extra but I cant roll that way
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Lol I went to college, 2 degrees. I didnt do that to have to work part time jobs though. Its a nonstarter for me.I didn't go to college either ….. but with the 24/72 schedule at the fire dept …. there were times I worked three jobs cause I had the time to …...
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I did the devops shit where they would be calling me at 2 am, expecting me to work 8 hours, and then doing QA and code deployments on the saturdays. I dont do it.
Agreed. The B.C. market is a frustrating one. A head scratcher as to when to buy, sell, get into the market, etc. Bought 10 years ago, and even then it was an uneasy feeling. Not knowing if it was wise/sound. Fortunately it has been over time, but damn - prices are so out of line. 2- and 3-bedroom condos going for 400 - 689k. 3-bedroom townhomes in the 800k - 1.2 million range. Homes often in the 1 - 3 mill' and more range. Brother bought his place closer to Alberta a few years back. Fortunately he's able to rent out some rooms to help pay down the mortgage. Even then it's a cold climate, primarily with seasonal workers mostly around for fall/winter, and out by spring.
No way $180k is a hefty mortgage. That’s less than $1300/month. Unless she has fucked yo credit.
is the job matching that 20%?
How a small municipal entity is helping property developers get tax breaks
A state tax incentive was meant to boost affordable housing development, but some say there isn’t enough oversight in how the rule is used.
How a tiny Texas government is scoring big tax breaks for developers across the state
Eric Dexheimer, Austin Bureau
Oct. 6, 2022Updated: Oct. 6, 2022 12:31 p.m.
In 2019, Texas lawmakers granted a small group of Central Texas businessmen permission to form their own government to develop agricultural land near the Austin airport.
Yet recently the SH130 Municipal Management District No. 1 has thrown its civic weight around far outside its own narrow boundaries, using its status as a public agency to quietly arrange tens of millions of dollars-worth of property tax breaks for private developers across the state.
UNFAIR BURDEN: This Texas tax incentive boosts development. But who is really benefiting from it?
No local elected body reviewed the deals to determine if it made sense for taxpayers to subsidize the tax-exempt real estate projects in their backyards. In fact, city and county officials often have been unaware the money was being taken from their schools, libraries, hospital districts and local governments.
The small district, meanwhile, stands to collect generous profits from the exemptions it helped arrange. Some of the deals also involve businesses tied to its board members, raising questions about how they are using the government entity they formed.
How businessmen with vacant land in rural Travis County came to peddle under-the-radar tax breaks to developers hundreds of miles away with scant oversight is a story about the high cost of legislative sausage-making.
In 2015, a single sentence grafted onto a dense finance bill in the closing days of the Texas legislative session created a new property tax break in exchange for modest affordable housing concessions. Yet even its author seemed unclear how it would work.
READ THE SERIES: UNFAIR BURDEN
Since then, developers have flocked to use the obscure law, removing hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of real estate from the tax rolls. Having so many projects that don’t pay property taxes “was not the intent of the program,” said Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), who says he hopes to tighten the rules.
In the meantime, the SH130 Municipal Management District is pushing the limits of the law in ways that have alarmed many who encounter it.
So-called special districts typically wield authority only within, or just outside their small and very specific borders. By contrast, the SH 130 district is using its 1,100-acre piece of land to create valuable tax breaks in far away jurisdictions — making it "the poster child" of all that is wrong with the new affordable housing tax break, Bettencourt said.
“Good grief,” he said. “We can’t have this.”
When a parcel of property is removed from the tax roll, local taxpayers must make up the difference in revenue to pay for police, firefighters and teachers. Typically, such decisions are made by state or local lawmakers who represent their citizens’ interests — not a handful of businessmen in a distant county, said Pedro Alanis, executive director of the San Antonio Housing Trust.
“That loophole needs to be closed,” he said. “Local communities should have a say in their own property tax issues and housing affordability issues.”
Aundre Dukes, a spokesman for the SH 130 district, said it is working within the law to provide a valuable public benefit that traditional affordable housing agencies couldn’t or haven’t, creating desperately needed housing for priced-out middle class professionals. “No one questions that this housing crisis exists,” he wrote in a statement. “But no authority appears to have the resources to move expeditiously toward a sustainable solution.”
‘It’s an amazing deal’
Although details can vary, the 2015 affordable housing program’s developments generally look the same. A government entity — usually a local housing authority or trust whose members are appointed by elected officials — creates a spin-off called a public facility corporation, or PFC. The PFC acquires title to development projects pledging to include some affordable apartments. It then leases the property back to the developer to build, manage and profit from for up to 99 years.
The PFC keeps only a sliver of ownership and has virtually no control over a project. But because on paper it is owned by a public entity, the project pays no property taxes. In exchange, the housing authority or trust collects fees and a percentage of the tax savings it arranged, often using the money to support more affordable housing for the community.
RELATED: Lawmakers killed a costly corporate tax break program, but loopholes will still cost Texas billions
PFC developments have exploded in popularity. One reason: “It’s an amazing deal” for developers, said Walter Moreau, executive director of Austin’s Foundation Communities, a nonprofit that develops and operates housing for low- and very-low income residents.
For large projects, a 100 percent exemption on property taxes can be worth $2 million annually, said Heather Way, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who studies PFC deals. Developers also enjoy a sales tax exemption on the project’s building materials, worth another $1.3 million per development, according to her 2020 analysis.
What the public gets in return has been more debatable. The law requires developers to set aside half a project’s units as affordable housing. Supporters say it fills a growing need among middle-income residents unable to keep pace with the state’s soaring real estate costs.
In her study, however, Way found the definition of “affordable” meant many PFC apartments rented at near-market rates. The projects also generally weren’t subject to the same oversight as other government-supported affordable housing.
Using a section of the law allowing local governments to form their own PFCs, the SH 130 Municipal Management District created the Texas Essential Housing PFC in August 2021. Since then, Texas Essential Housing has pursued property tax breaks for at least 40 multi-family developments in a half-dozen counties, its records show.
Local officials too ‘prideful’
The lost revenue has surprised local officials.
“Why is it Bexar County residents are being asked to shoulder the tax burden for an organization in Travis County?” Conry Davidson, an attorney for the Bexar Appraisal District, recalls thinking after receiving notice it had to remove a 30-acre lot valued at $5 million from the local tax roll.
Williamson County Commissioner Valerie Covey said she learned about several of the Travis County organization’s tax-break projects in her precinct only by chance.
“If you can just sweep into any county in the state and cause any property to be exempt without the local government’s knowledge, it’s concerning,” she said. “Nobody the taxpayers could hold accountable is having a say in it, which is not the way it’s supposed to work. I don’t know how it’s legal.”
“It’s not taxation without representation,” added Charlie Crossfield, an attorney who represents Williamson County, which recently had to remove a $1 million, 15-acre parcel acquired by Texas Essential Housing PFC from its roll. “But it is exemption without representation.”
Appraisers and lawyers said the deals appear to carefully follow rules as passed by state lawmakers. Rather, they said, the Austin businessmen have figured out how to use the statutes to their benefit by making profitable deals far outside the district’s borders.
Dukes, a former state government executive related to former State Rep. Dawnna Dukes who sits on the Texas Essential Housing PFC board and serves as executive director, said the organization has appropriately used the PFC law to respond to a dire statewide need for “missing middle” housing. “We know the TEHPFC can help fill the void of agencies that don’t have adequate resources to keep up with the escalating demand on their own,” he wrote. The organization “provides that expertise and service, without forcing taxpayers to shoulder an extra penny on their tax bills to repay bonds or face losing teachers.”
He dismissed the complaints from local authorities, saying he was “100 percent open to working with” them. But, he added, “When we have requested meetings with those officials, they seem to have more interest in protecting their turf, some are prideful and reject our assistance to help solve the crisis with proven solutions.”
Imagining an anti-Austin
In exchange for arranging the deals, the Texas Essential Housing PFC requires developers to turn over 10 to 15 percent of their annual property tax savings, according to its agreements. That’s worth millions of dollars over the lifespan of each deal. It also charges hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, according to the contracts.
But the money doesn’t stay in local communities to pay for more affordable housing. Instead, it flows back to the office of the small Travis County special district. According to SH130MMD meeting minutes, the deals were projected to “bring significant revenue to the district.”
Texas lawmakers voted to allow formation of the SH130 Municipal Management District No. 1 in the waning days of the 2019 legislative session. In a public hearing, author Rep. Sheryl Cole (D-Austin) called it a “template” bill - “the most mundane piece of legislation you could imagine,” a spokesman added. The only people to testify were Warren Hayes, who said the district would create jobs, and his attorney.
Like utility districts, municipal management districts can be created in neighborhoods to raise money from local property owners for improvements that cities and counties typically cover, such as streetscaping and revitalization. Outside of cities they collect money from landowners and, later, through fees and taxes, to build multi-use developments.
Despite its name, the SH130 Municipal Management District No. 1 has no official connection to the highway overseen by the Texas Department of Transportation. Most acreage in the district is owned by Austin-area developers, including Hayes, who is the management district’s president.
They have floated ambitious plans for the property east of Austin. One proposal would create an eco-friendly tech community that promised builders an anti-Austin regulatory environment, — “an independent privately-controlled city” outside the rule-heavy capital with “No required public hearings and council approvals, no required building permits, inspections, height or density restrictions and detention ponds.”
The bill establishing the district identified its board members: Hayes; Jim Young, another local developer; Stephen Shang; Robert Walker; and Albert Hawkins. They, in turn, appointed directors of the Texas Essential Housing Public Facility Corporation, who include Hayes’s wife; Stephen Carpenter, whose family owns much of the district; and Dukes.
Several officers from the two boards have had close business ties to the tax-exempt deals, according to state and local public records.
‘We will not apologize’
In October 2021, the Texas Essential Housing PFC board approved a deal to develop a tax-free affordable housing project in eastern Travis County. Appraisal district records show at the time the 56-acre parcel was owned by Hayes and his wife.
Appraisal and state records show they later transferred the land to a company owned by fellow board member Young, who transferred it to Houston developers. The Texas Essential Housing PFC acquired the property the following day, according to the Appraisal District. The $1.3 million parcel was removed from the tax roll this summer.
Dukes said the connections presented no conflict because as board members of the management district — and not the public facility commission board it appointed — Hayes and Young had no direct involvement in the deal.
State records show companies controlled by Hayes and Young also owned and developed Cheatham Street Station, a student housing project in downtown San Marcos. It opened in 2020 and is valued by Hays County at just over $20 million, paying about $370,000 per year in property tax revenue.
Texas Essential Housing PFC approved a deal to take the property off the roll last year. Appraisal records show the PFC acquired Cheatham Street in March, entering into the arrangement with a company Hayes works for.
Hayes, who said he is battling health issues, referred questions to Dukes, who said there was no conflict — again, because Young and Hayes did not serve on the PFC’s board. The “transaction received identical economic terms and subject to the same affordability requirements” as any other SH130 project, he added. As an employee of the developer partner, Hayes received no financial benefit from the deal, he said.
Last year Texas Essential Housing PFC approved a deal with a company to develop another Hays County tax-free project on land near Interstate 35. According to state corporation records, the company, San Marcos JYAD Ventures, was controlled by management district board member Young; and Dukes, of the PFC board.
Dukes said there was no conflict because he abstained from voting on his own project. Young has since resigned from the management district, he said, adding that the JYAD deal had since been dropped “to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.”
Bettencourt said he will ask the attorney general if the far-flung tax breaks being arranged by the Travis County management district and its PFC are legal. Dukes said the organizations intend to continue their work.
“The SH 130 MMD has statutory authority to conduct business anywhere in the state,” he wrote. “We will not apologize for providing high-quality workforce housing to residents in dire need.”
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