Everything Austin Apartments

There isn’t much to add to this full report from the Austin Tenants Council

All the news here

I think this is a good idea.

The advantages to the property owners are obvious, but I think there is a not so obvious advantage to most renters.  If it is easier to evict people…owners are more likely to work with people.  They may accept people with lower credit or may cut you some slack if you get behind if they know it is easy to get rid of you

Here is the link to the page for the owners

A workshop for property owners is scheduled Aug. 6 from 6:30 – 8 p.m. on the second floor of the Williamson County Courthouse at 710 S. Main Street. Space is available for 100 people to register. To RSVP to the event e-mail jp1@wilco.org or call 512-248-3223 for details.

According to this article, government officials are considering a plan to pay the mortgages on houses that would otherwise be foreclosed on and then rent those houses back to the former owners at a price they would be able to afford.

This idea comes as a response to the slow progress that the initial housing rescue plan has made.  Red tape and rising interest rates have slowed the progress to refinance mortgages and lower payments for homeowners.

In 2008, the shadow market absorbed a lot of renters, as homeowners attempted to recoup some of their losses by renting out their homes.  More and more of those rental units are being foreclosed on and driving renters back into the apartment market.

If the housing rescue plan goes through, Mr. Willet’s predictions that “[rent] revenues will come down a little bit more, maybe somewhere around 2 percent…and real recovery will take place between 2011 and 2013,” would certainly seem accurate.

Bill H.R. 2336 or the Green Resources for Energy Efficient Neighborhoods Act of 2009 (GREEN Act), which was recently reintroduced in the House by Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), authorizes new federal resources for green affordable development while providing incentives to the private sector to invest in green affordable homes for low-income people.

The GREEN Act would require the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to go green and adopt minimum building efficiency standards with rewards for higher performance. To jumpstart these efforts, HUD recently issued a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) to public housing authorities (PHA) applying for the Capital Fund Recovery Competition Grants under the stimulus.

The NOFA requires that if a PHA wants to compete for $300 million to be used for new construction or substantial rehab, they must use select elements of Enterprise Green Communities Criteria.

There are a few more details here.