Frasyer activist sees rise in home sales

Source: The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.self storageAug. 21--The head of Tennessee's Housing Development Agency and a state senator took to Frayser's back roads Tuesday to see some successfully rehabilitated housing in the beleaguered neighborhood.But the tour had a back story as well. State Sen. Jim Kyle, D-Memphis is pushing state government to make it easier to strip irresponsible property owners of their abandoned, blighted property so someone else can invest in them.The popular estimate for the number of abandoned houses in Frayser is 1,800, Steve Lockwood said as he led the tour through the northside Memphis bedroom community that grew up near a once-thriving industrial district.But Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser Community Development Corp., said he believes the actual number of long-vacant houses in Frayser is less than 1,800 because so many empty homes have been purchased and rehabbed by investors seeking rental income. "I think it's going down," Lockwood said of the number of empty houses. "I think the population of Frayser is rising right now."That's a change. Since peaking at about 50,000 population a decade ago, Frayser has struggled to hold on to residents. Now the population seems to be mending. So do home prices.The average sales price of houses in Frayser has risen 22.9 percent through the first seven months of the year, Lockwood said, up to $31,294. Of 21 Memphis neighborhoods, only Midtown prices have risen more as a percentage.Lockwood served as a neighborhood guide Tuesday for Kyle; Ralph Perrey, executive director of Tennessee Housing Development Agency, or THDA; John L. Baker, executive director of the city's Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board; as well as executives with ALCO Management, a Memphis-based apartment manager. ALCO has rehabbed five Frayser apartment communities comprising more than 700 units.Lockwood took the officials to see the 150-unit Todd Creek Apartments, a formerly distressed property which ALCO bought in 2011, extensively rehabbed and now manages. The company used local and THDA funding programs, including a local tax freeze and THDA's tax credit and multi-family bond programs, to "make it feasible," said ALCO president Robert D. Hyde."The resources help stabilize properties," Hyde said. "To do affordable housing, it kind of takes a village."Lockwood also showed Perrey a foreclosed home on Dells. The Frayser CDC bought it and is now rehabbing with help from THDA."We've spent a lot of money on this house," Lockwood told Perrey."How much?" Perrey asked."About $45,000," Lockwood replied. The Frayser C迷你倉C should easily find a renter for the three-bedroom home who'll pay $650 a month.Many residents could own as nice a home and pay, say, $450 a month in mortgage instead of rent, but they don't have the credit score to qualify for a loan, Lockwood said.Lockwood also described the difficulty in trying to find the owners of abandoned, blighted houses that mar many Frayser streets.Kyle wants laws tweaked to make transferring ownership of such properties easier."The government created the obstacles that prevents rehabilitation of properties," Kyle said. "The government can change and assist. And that's what I'm trying to stress to THDA. I've stressed it to other agencies that we can come up with a whole new way of doing things that protects people's rights." ... You just can't say it's working when you hear the problems."Now, Kyle said, it's too hard to buy and invest in blighted properties."We don't know who owns these properties," he said. "Well, there comes a point in time, when you're not meeting your responsibilities, to lose your property."Frayser CDC is doing the best it can within the laws, he said, adding, "There's no reason to say we can't change the legal structure ... The law is what 17 people in the Senate and 50 people in the House say it is."Asked about Kyle's views, Perrey said THDA does not play a direct role regarding the laws governing abandoned properties. "But we have worked in other cities with housing and redevelopment authorities who raise exactly the same point," Perrey said."It's not just in Memphis," he said. "There are areas in Knoxville and Nashville where people are anxious to do something, to arrest the decline of a neighborhood. And they are having difficulty acquiring clear title to a blighted property, to an abandoned property."In some cases a city council can address the issue with tax forgiveness, Perrey said. And the General Assembly could grant housing redevelopment agencies authority to acquire properties more easily."Once that's done, when someone like Steve (Lockwood) has the property, I think (THDA) has the tools to put it to use ... It's not that I disagree (with Kyle), it's just not something we are set up to do."THDA has passed Frayser CDC two allocations of federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding for repairs to 42 foreclosed or abandoned homes. One has sold while several homes are in lease/purchases and the remainder are rentals.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.) Visit The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.) at .commercialappeal.com Distributed by MCT Information Services文件倉