Becky Booker

Spring Lake Park-Blaine-Mounds View Fire Department Community Risk Reduction Fire and Life Safety Educator Becky Booker recently retired after serving 21 1/2 years with the department.

Before she retired late last year, Booker was given a golden axe to mark over 20 years.

Becky is fantastic, and she will be greatly missed by the Fire Department, SBM Fire Chief Charlie Smith said. When I worked with her, Becky was the most kind, conscientious employee who was deeply concerned for the welfare of the city whole.

In 1996 Booker moved from California to Blaine with her husband, Kenneth, and their two sons after Kenneth received a new job building military tanks.

I immediately fell in love with Minnesota, Booker said. I thought this would be a good place to raise boys.

With a background in nursing, Booker began searching for a job in the Twin Cities but didnt want to work in a hospital.

Booker saw the SBM Fire Department was searching for employees in community risk reduction and fire prevention.

Fire prevention I thought would be reading books to kids, so I thought I could do that for a while until I figure out what I want to do, she said. Little did I know when I got there it was the beginning stage for prevention and the world was our oyster for what we did to prevent fires, so you really had to dig inside you and be creative because these are things that had never been done before.

Booker was hired, along with four other community risk reduction employees, by former SBM Fire Chief Nyle Zikmund.

We were the extremely fortunate recipient of her incredible passion, work ethic and limitless energy, Zikmund said.

Booker said Zikmund was very supportive of trying new things in community risk eduction.

We grew up trying new things, and thats very unique in the Fire Department, she said. Leadership has always been open to trying new ideas for serving the customer.

Since starting with the department, Booker has served as a fire and life safety educator, a registered nurse, a firefighter 1 and an arson investigator.

I loved being out in the community and serving people right where the issue was, Booker said. Im one of the luckiest people in the world. Every day is different. Every assignment is unique, and its pretty much set your own journey here.

SBM firefighters canvass an area in Spring Lake Park Nov. 26 after a deadly fire killed two brothers. The canvassing program, which checks smoke alarms, was created by Community Risk Reduction Fire and Life Safety Educator Becky Booker, who recently retired.

Booker was involved with multiple community risk reduction campaigns at the department.

Its incredible the amount of knowledge she has, said Community Risk Reduction Coordinator Lt. Jeff Lundquist. All the programs that she started and that have flourished under her is unbelievable. She has made the department what it is today.

In 1998 the SBM Fire Department was responding to a very dangerous fire. After the fire had been extinguished, Zikmund told Booker and other firefighters to go door to door and check residents fire alarms.

SBM Firefighter Kelly Pennoyer checks to make sure a smoke alarm is functioning Nov. 26 in Spring Lake Park as shes canvassing. The canvassing program was developed by Community Risk Reduction Fire and Life Safety Educator Becky Booker, who recently retired.

This inspired Booker to develop the departments canvassing campaign.

Smoke alarms are the number one thing that will prevent you from dying in a fire, because when youre asleep you do not smell, and the smoke alarm is going to wake you up, she said. Across America this is a problem, so we thought we should bring the solution straight to peoples doors by doing this.

Now, once a month, firefighters canvass one block, offering to check residents smoke alarms and installing new 10-year lithium battery detectors donated by the American Red Cross.

In the beginning people didnt like canvassing, Booker said. I was the only one who really saw the value in it because no one wanted to knock on someones door and interfere with their privacy. I didnt look at it that way. I was bringing prevention to their home, and they were really responsive to it.

The SBM Fire Department also immediately canvasses on blocks where fires occur.

We take that opportunity to make sure people are being taken care of, Boooker said. We know people are feeling vulnerable after a fire, so we do the canvassing so they can feel better about their fire safety.

On Nov. 16 the SBM Fire Department responded to a Spring Lake Park garage and house fire that killed bothers Richard Nelson, 56, and Rodney Nelson, 53.

When I think of the two deaths we recently had, that just makes us want to dig in and work harder, because my mantra is, Good enough is never good enough, Booker said. You always have to work harder to prevent the next death.

During canvassing, firefighters also encourage residents to sign up for the departments home safety survey, where a community risk reduction firefighter comes later to make sure a residence has the proper safety measures in place. The firefighters check everything from fire extinguishers to outlets to carbon monoxide detectors.

The home safety survey was developed by Booker. She said after the surveys were implemented, an agency reviewed calls and found incidents in Spring Lake Park, Blaine and Mounds View dropped by 28% over 11 years while Anoka Countys increased by 48% in the same time period.

Wanting to improve the home safety surveys further, Booker visited fire departments on the East Coast, in Canada and in England on her own dime to examine their practices.

Booker said she especially wanted to visit England in 2010 because it has the lowest fire deaths in the world.

The secret I found out in England is theyre all doing home surveys and its required by law, unlike in the United States, she said.

Through the home safety surveys, Booker said she discovered refugees and immigrants in the communities were being left behind in home safety.

I realized that we need to adapt what were doing as firefighters to meet the unique needs of our new refugee and immigrant community, she said.

Booker then joined the Anoka County Immigrant Refugee Committee, where she worked with the immigrant population on topics of public safety.

Booker recently brought a New American Academy to Blaine that teaches immigrants and refugees about public safety and other services available in Anoka County.

Booker also developed religious and cultural training at the SBM Fire Department.

I realized it wasnt enough to try and help immigrants and refugees, we needed to try and understand them, she said.

During her time at the SBM Fire Department, Booker has written nearly a dozen manuals on community risk reduction, from cultural competency to fire safety for manufactured homes.

Booker has also attended the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland, 17 times and has taught classes there. She has also consulted for the United States Fire Administration, which is the lead federal agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research and fire service training.

Becky changed the fire safety industry, Zikmund said. That doesnt happen. She brought an awareness of fire prevention, now called community risk reduction, that revolutionized it here in the United States.

Booker recently decided to retire due to health issues.

Im not leaving because I want to, she said. Im leaving because my body says its time to. I also want the department to get fresh ideas with someone new.

In retirement, Booker will teach public safety classes to English as a Second Language students in Ramsey and Anoka County. She will also work to help the Anoka County homeless population with a local nonprofit.

In addition, Booker will serve the department as a private consultant for the International Carbon Monoxide Project, which is a follow-up to the departments International CO Conference that was held in September 2018.

The project will develop solutions to combat carbon monoxide poisonings.

Booker said joining the SBM Fire Department proved one of her most life-changing experiences and shell miss her colleagues.

I love my job, she said. I work with the most amazing people. I love these firefighters so much. They have such humility, and they have such big hearts. They serve every single day, and they dont think about themselves.

Booker said she will also miss working with the residents of Spring Lake Park, Blaine and Mounds View.

I love our customers, she said. Ive had the unique opportunity to really see our cities from peoples homes on outward, and that just makes me love my job even more because we serve wonderful people.

More:
SBM fire safety pioneer retires after nearly 22 years with department - ECM Publishers

Since his landslide election victory in December, Boris Johnson and his returning party have doubled down on their commitments of inward investment to boost industry, infrastructure and transport, repaying their newly found voters in the North. Prior to the election, housing minister Esther McVey announced the governments ambition to create a Construction Corridor in the North of England to speed up the delivery of zero-carbon homes and build a 40bn-a-year industry that would create 80,000 new jobs.

The governments initiative kicked off by investing 30m into our factory. The money will boost our factorys production capacity to deliver 2,000 high-quality, sustainable homes a year increasing to 5,000 within the next five years.

As well as demonstrating Homes Englands ongoing commitment to modern methods, the deal will be significant in the industrys efforts to tackle the UKs housing crisis.

With housing affordability at an all-time low and over one million families currently sitting on council waiting lists, there has never been a more important time for an innovative solution to housebuilding. As part of the Conservatives election campaign, the party pledged to deliver one million homes over the next five years.

However, although things are looking up for housing delivery, with the latest government figures revealing that the number of new homes created in England hit its highest level in 30 years between 2018 and 2019, the industry is still 60,000 shy of the official 300,000 homes a year target.

Public sector investment will be crucial in ensuring housing supply keeps pace with demand. Just like the automotive or aerospace industries, offsite manufacturing demands high, upfront investment to acquire the specialist technology needed to manufacture at scale. This is in contrast to traditional construction, where housebuilders are often able to release funding at different stages of the build cycle.

Public sector investment also has the potential to speed up the delivery of energy-efficient housing. High energy prices have placed a worrying proportion of the British population in fuel poverty, with the most recent government figures estimating that there were 2.53m fuel-poor households in England in 2017, roughly 11% of the total number of households.

Without the kind of inward investment we received from Homes England, Britain will not be able to achieve the capacity needed to tackle the housing crisis.

Investing heavily upfront in capital intensive manufacturing capability will not only improve the UKs capabilities to deliver much-needed housing but also will help address growing skills shortages in construction. This is important because, without a workforce, homes wont get built.

Following the 2008 recession, the construction industry, worth over 90bn annually to the UK economy, shed 140,000 jobs. Now there is a new challenge on the horizon.

The industry is faced with a rapidly ageing workforce with the rate of retirement set to increase. Almost a quarter (22%) of the workforce are over 50, with 15% in their 60s. To make things worse, the industry is also losing out to competing sectors where work is seen as more stable and pay is more competitive.

Were working to mitigate risks posed by these shortages. Thanks to Homes Englands funding, weve been able to heavily invest in the ilke Academy: our onsite training facility where were training up the next generation of housebuilders to manufacture homes in a factory in a bid to ease the construction skills crisis.

Welcoming people from all walks of life, including military veterans, ex-offenders, school leavers and women all groups currently under-represented in the construction and manufacturing industries. The ilke Academy is allowing us to teach new recruits and existing staff a range of vital new skills including engineering, manufacturing and design.

Promoting skills such as these will be vital in breaking down outdated misconceptions of the industry by demonstrating that housebuilding can also be the kind of tech-savvy business the younger generation is increasingly drawn towards.

By manufacturing offsite, were able to engineer our homes to ensure they are airtight. Compared to a new build home built conventionally, homes manufactured offsite are 20% more energy-efficient, increasing to 50% when compared to the average UK home.

With our homes costing as little as 1 a day to run, British households could make huge long-term savings on their heating bills, saving on average over 700 a year.

As we look ahead to the new decade, its quite evident that offsite manufacturing will have an enormous part to play in delivering the high-quality, sustainable homes that British families are yearning for and the future is looking bright.

The latest figures from the ONS revealed that a housebuilding boom towards the end of 2019 helped the UK construction industry grow at its fastest pace in a year. But, if we are to reverse the fortunes of housebuilding, which has long been plagued with issues surrounding quality and the industrys inability to deliver, modern methods must sit at the heart of the solution.

Dave Sheridan

Executive chairman

ilke Homes

Tel: +44 (0)1904 924 100

ilketeam@ilkehomes.co.uk

http://www.ilkehomes.co.uk

Twitter:ilkehomes

LinkedIn: ilkehomes

Continued here:
Public sector investment key to redefining the housebuilding industry - Planning, BIM & Construction Today

Affordable housing organization and national home builder partner on white paper to examine solutions for the affordable housing crisis

MARYVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Clayton, a national home builder of site-built and off-site built homes, and Next Step Network, a national, non-profit housing organization, have released a white paper, "Off-Site Built Homes: An Evolving Industry that Meets Today's Affordable Housing Needs."The research paper explores the current challenges surrounding affordable housingon a local and national scale, and how innovations within the home building landscape are altering construction processes and housing design in new ways. Specifically, it focuses on the various ways off-site built homes (including manufactured, modular and CrossMod homes) can provide an attainable, quality housing solution with many of the same features and aesthetics found in traditional housing.

Todays off-site built homes offer beautiful, stylish floor plans at an attainable price range for homeowners of all walks of life.

"The affordable housing crisis has kept homeownership from becoming a reality for many hardworking people across America," said Stacey Epperson, president and founder of Next Step. "Clayton and Next Step are partnering to challenge common misconceptions around manufactured homes and educate the public about the modern off-site built housing industry. Today's off-site built homes offer stylish, new floor plans at an attainable price range with even more opportunity to appraise, zone, finance and appreciate similarly to site-built homes."

"At Clayton we believe 'to whom much is given, much will be required,'" said Kevin Clayton, CEO of Clayton. "The modern off-site built housing industry is poised to innovate the entire housing market through its efficient and sustainable home building practices, while adopting the best design features and building materials from traditional site-built homes. Together, we have an unbelievable opportunity to help more families than ever before achieve the dream of attainable homeownership in America."

As the number of today's homes for sale has not kept pace with household growth according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, many markets have become more competitive driving up prices, creating bidding wars and pushing attainable homeownership out of reach for many. Modern off-site built homeshave become both a smart investment for home buyers and a means to drive the housing industry forward, challenge norms and democratize housing for more individuals and families across America.

Read or download the full white paperand access the infographic, "An Honest Look at Manufactured Housing Today." The organizations have previously released a white paper together titled Shedding the Stigma: The Value of Manufactured Homesin 2018.

Key Findings:

About ClaytonFounded in 1956, Clayton is committed to opening doors to a better life and building happyness through homeownership. The company is a diverse home builder committed to quality and durability, offering traditional site-built homes and off-site built housing including modular homes, manufactured homes, CrossMod homes, tiny homes, college dormitories, military barracks and apartments. All Clayton Built homes are proudly designed, engineered and assembled in America. In 2019, Clayton delivered over 51,000 homes to families across America. Clayton is a Berkshire Hathaway company. For more information, visit claytonhomes.com.

Story continues

About Next StepNetwork, Inc.Next Step Network, Inc. is a national, nonprofit housing intermediary that works to promote expanded use of factory-built housing as a viable solution to address housing affordability. Our organization mobilizes a national network of mission-driven nonprofits, leaders in the manufactured housing industry and lending institutions serving home buyers and homeowners in their communities. Next Step's system Manufactured Housing Done Right connects responsible financing, comprehensive homebuyer education and delivery of high-quality, ENERGY STAR manufactured homes at scale, creating a model that brings more value to the homeowners andcommunities. Learn more atnextstepus.org.

Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media ContactChristina Honkonen615-260-4595Christina@hlstrategy.com

Clayton logo (PRNewsfoto/Clayton)

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clayton-and-next-step-publish-report-on-the-evolution-of-off-site-built-housing-300986038.html

SOURCE Clayton

Excerpt from:
Clayton and Next Step Publish Report on the Evolution of Off-Site Built Housing - Yahoo Finance

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Yesterday I indulged in a prediction not just about housing in the next year, but about housing in the coming decade. My argument is that when put together, anger about housing prices, socialist activism, and an incurious media and academia will lead to so much incremental regulation that, in effect, government will be running all rental housing in the country by 2030. Why is this happening? How do housing activists end up believing that the government must intervene dramatically in the housing economy?And whats the real solution to housing inflation?

A leading reason why were skidding toward government control of housing is because housing policy has been inappropriately saddled as the cause and the solution of various social ills. One of the best examples of this addled thinking is the battle over single-family housing. Lately, its in fashion to call single-family zoning racist. There is no doubt that in most American cities, many neighborhoods were deliberately set up to exclude African American families. This is something that is extensively documented by theMapping Prejudice Project, a collaborative effort by the University of Minnesota and Augsburg University.

But ramblers are not racist, people are. And when I talked with a planner in Minneapolis, the objective of their significant zoning changes were not to abolish a typology,but to expand possible housing supply.As Ive also pointed out, zoning not only segregates uses but also people. This is why zoning lent itself to a racist use and to the proliferation of costly commutes from home to work, work to shopping, and between anything and everything people want to do. Its far more accurate to blame zoning pushing apart uses like housing and commercial for climate change than to blame one zone, single-family, for racism. Yet, in this case, the association has stuck.

As Ive also said before,what is racist is the overregulation of housing production because that makes all housing scarce and therefore expensive. When that happens, higher costs disproportionately impact people of color since they are disproportionately in poverty. The real civil rights issue isnt gentrification from housing production or a zone, but local governments that boost equity in single-family homes and raises rents in multifamily housing through onerous regulation; the resulting inflation means money being siphoned from poor peopleinto the accounts of wealthy, and mostly white homeowners. What would help is not abolishing single-family zoning butgetting rid of zoning all together.

The assumption that one government housing policy created something bad like racism then leads to thinking that by government taking action against that policy will lead to fixing that problem. Single-family zones created racist outcomes like segregation, so then abolition of those zones will end racism. We see this in complaints aboutthe ratio of blacks to whites changing in some neighborhoods. This has to be stopped, were told, by limiting new housing in those neighborhoods to stop gentrification. But it turns out, that people move out of neighborhoods for lots of reasons, and redevelopment of older ethnic neighborhoodsis beneficial for everyone.

This thinking in the left about housing applies to multifamily rental housing too. The book Evicted suggests that, Eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty. So a person can be fine at the end of one month, evicted at the end of the next, and then pushed into poverty. It isnt a job loss combined with a big medical bill that leads to lack of payment of rent then eviction; it is the eviction itself that is the cause of poverty. Eviction isnt just one of the results of economic hardship it is the cause of the hardship therefore we shouldnt allow eviction, or tenant screening, or increases in rent. Government can make all the right decisions about where people should live and what they should pay.That will eliminate poverty!

When housing policy causes and solves all problems, then it is easy to see why theNational Economic and Social Rights Initiative says,It is the governments obligation to guarantee that everyone can exercise this right to live in security, peace, and dignity. This right must be provided to all persons irrespective of income or access to economic resources. Establishing housing as a right, like speech, means the government must act to be sure it is protected, something that a market, they argue, cant do. But freighting housing policy this way overpromises and underdelivers.

And keep in mind that socialists want to hand the same government institutions that created racist policies in the first place not just in housing but policing to take control of rental housing. That only makes sense if the socialists control the government.

Perhaps theyd be right about housing policy if somehow the production of housing was beyond the control of the government. In a place where, for example, food production was limited and entirely dependent on the weather, it might make sense to ration food. But that is simply not the case with housing. The production of housing is, ironically, something government can control. The only reason why housing is problematic in the United States is because there isnt enough of it being produced, something that is due to the imposition of limits on producing it by government.

Government can solvehousing problems with housing policy, specifically limiting how much it requires from those who produce and manage housing. Rather than expecting government to own and operate all housing, rationing it to people who need it through a bureaucracy in hopes of curing societys ills, activists should be urging government to do less, and get out of the way of seller and buyer. In those cases where a person truly doesnt have the means to pay rent, then we ought tosubsidize that persons ability to pay rent with cash. In a government manufactured housing crisis stoked by activism, the last thing we need is the government to take over housing.Tomorrow Ill post about how we can stop this.

Read more from the original source:
Prediction For 2030: Government Can Help Housing By Doing Less - Forbes

Progressive (NYSE:PGR) and Kinsale Capital Group (NASDAQ:KNSL) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, valuation, profitability, earnings, risk and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Progressive pays an annual dividend of $0.40 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.5%. Kinsale Capital Group pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.3%. Progressive pays out 9.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Kinsale Capital Group pays out 17.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Progressive has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years and Kinsale Capital Group has increased its dividend for 2 consecutive years. Progressive is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations for Progressive and Kinsale Capital Group, as reported by MarketBeat.

Progressive presently has a consensus price target of $80.77, indicating a potential upside of 8.78%. Kinsale Capital Group has a consensus price target of $102.00, indicating a potential downside of 3.66%. Given Progressives higher possible upside, equities research analysts plainly believe Progressive is more favorable than Kinsale Capital Group.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Progressive and Kinsale Capital Groups gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Progressive has higher revenue and earnings than Kinsale Capital Group. Progressive is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Kinsale Capital Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

78.7% of Progressive shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.7% of Kinsale Capital Group shares are held by institutional investors. 0.4% of Progressive shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 8.3% of Kinsale Capital Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Progressive and Kinsale Capital Groups net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Volatility and Risk

Progressive has a beta of 0.64, meaning that its share price is 36% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Kinsale Capital Group has a beta of 0.41, meaning that its share price is 59% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

Progressive beats Kinsale Capital Group on 10 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Progressive

The Progressive Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides personal and commercial auto insurance, residential property insurance, and other specialty property-casualty insurance and related services primarily in the United States. Its Personal Lines segment writes insurance for personal autos, and recreational and other vehicles. This segment's products include personal auto insurance; and special lines products, including insurance for motorcycles, ATVs, RVs, watercrafts, and snowmobiles. The company's Commercial Lines segment provides primary liability, physical damage, and other auto-related insurance for autos, vans, pick-up trucks, and dump trucks used by small businesses; tractors, trailers, and straight trucks primarily used by regional general freight and expeditor-type businesses, and non-fleet long-haul operators; dump trucks, log trucks, and garbage trucks used by dirt, sand and gravel, logging, and coal-type businesses; tow trucks and wreckers used in towing services and gas/service station businesses; and non-fleet taxis, black-car services, and airport taxis. Its Property segment provides residential property insurance for homes, condos, manufactured homes, and renters, as well as offers personal umbrella insurance, and primary and excess flood insurance. The company also offers policy issuance and claims adjusting services; home, condominium, renters, and other insurance; and general liability and business owner's policies, and workers' compensation insurance. In addition, it offers reinsurance services. The Progressive Corporation sells its products and services through independent insurance agencies, as well as directly on Internet, and mobile devices, and over the phone. The company was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Mayfield Village, Ohio.

About Kinsale Capital Group

Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. provides as a casualty and property insurance products in the United States. Its commercial lines offerings include construction, small business, energy, excess and general casualty, life sciences, allied health, health care, commercial property, environmental, public entity, inland marine, and commercial insurance, as well as product, professional, and management liability insurance; and homeowners insurance. The company markets and sells insurance products through a network of independent insurance brokers. Kinsale Capital Group, Inc. was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

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Originally posted here:
Contrasting Progressive (NYSE:PGR) and Kinsale Capital Group (NYSE:KNSL) - Riverton Roll

The nation is in the grip of an affordable-housing crisis.

A severe shortage of homes for working-class and low-income families is pushing up house prices and rents across the country, putting homeownership increasingly out of reach for many Americans and making rents so high that it is all but impossible for renters to save. With the presidential election fast approaching, the candidates should explain what they plan to do about it.

Half of families who rent and nearly one-fourth of homeowners pay more than 30% of their monthly income toward their housing costs, a level widely considered unsustainable.

After purchasing essentials, including food, clothing and utilities, the families have little left to cover the cost of health care, bridge the gap during a change in jobs or bear an unforeseen bill of any amount. And forget about saving for retirement or a childs education.

Fueling the rapid rise in rent and house prices is a severe lack of housing supply.

Nationwide, the percent of houses that are vacant has fallen to a more than 35-year low, translating into a shortfall of an estimated 1.6 million new houses.

This gap is increasing by about 300,000 units each year, as builders are putting up close to 1.4 million new dwellings yearly, including single-family houses, apartments and manufactured housing. But the yearly demand for new housing, largely from new households and dwellings needed to replace those lost in natural disasters and to old age, is consistently near 1.7 million units.

The entirety of this shortfall is for low- and middle-priced housing. The cost of constructing houses has risen significantly since the financial crisis and builders have struggled to make the economics work to construct housing that most Americans can afford.

Soaring construction costs have been driven in part by a rise in local government fees and stiffer local zoning restrictions. During the real-estate bust a decade ago, real-estate prices and property-tax revenues evaporated, forcing many local governments to jack up permitting fees to make up the difference.

Add to that often-tight local constraints on where and what one can build, and many of the communities that most desperately need affordable housing have rules in place making that housing almost impossible to provide.

The Trump administrations immigration policies arent helping, as builders cant find the immigrant workers they need, driving up labor costs in the construction trades, particularly in the South and West, where demand for affordable houses is especially strong. Labor shortages in the transportation, distribution and manufacturing industries are also making home building more costly. And the cost of homebuilding materials has risen sharply, driven in significant part by the trade war and higher tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and other building materials.

To cover these costs, builders have been focused on putting up houses in the top end of the market where they can still make a profit. The country has a glut of luxury apartments, high-end condos and large residences, and a dearth of workforce and affordable housing.

As a result, in recent years prices for the lowest-priced houses have grown consistently twice as fast as prices for the highest-priced houses and exceed what many families of modest means can pay.

This wouldnt be such a problem if wages kept up. But they havent. Recent census data show that while the median cost of rent and utilities is up 13% over the past nearly 20 years, median income is up less than 1 percent (both inflation-adjusted).

The widening gap between the growth of wages and the cost of housing has put homeownership out of reach for more and more families, particularly families of color. The home-ownership rate for African Americans has fallen to a half-century low.

This in turn is exacerbating the growing wealth gap. In generations past, the primary way lower- and middle-income households were able to build wealth was by owning a home.

More than investing in the stock market, more even than investing in their 401(k) and other retirement accounts, the middle class built wealth through the simple act of paying their monthly mortgage. But with fewer families able to buy a house, and more renters spending so much of their income just to keep a roof over their heads, housing is increasingly more of a drain than a source of wealth building.

The affordability crisis is also undermining labor mobility, another pillar of the American economy. Unlike in much of the rest of the world, Americans have historically been willing and able to move where there is economic opportunity. In todays economy, the best job opportunities are often in the nations big urban areas, but this is also where housing is least affordable.

Many are thus faced with the Hobsons choice of long commutes, unaffordable housing or forgoing good jobs altogether. Paralyzed by this, Americans arent moving as much, and our economy is diminished as a result.

And then it isnt hard to connect the dots between the affordability crisis and the mounting problem of homelessness. Homelessness is a complex problem with many causes, but it isnt surprising that the big cities in California and the Northeast have among the least-affordable housing markets and the largest number of homeless.

An increasing number of communities, including ones in California, Oregon and New York, are responding to the affordability crisis by imposing rent controls. At best this is a short-term financial salve for struggling renters. At worst it may exacerbate the problem, by limiting the returns to builders and their incentive to construct more dwellings.

What is needed instead are policies that reduce the cost of building houses more Americans can afford. Most obvious is beefing up the tried-and-true programs dedicated to reducing the cost of development, including the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and the New Market Tax Credit. These tax breaks have proved effective in addressing precisely the supply problem at issue. But instead of expanding them, last years tax cut reduced their value to developers.

The new Opportunity Zone tax credit, which provides tax incentives for investments in distressed neighborhoods, could also have a meaningful impact on the construction of affordable housing. But officials at all levels of government must do more to ensure that private investors target the neighborhoods that truly need the help.

Tax incentives alone wont be enough, however. The Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund, which were established in the midst of the financial crisis to finance more affordable housing, should be scaled up. The Housing Trust Fund provides money to state housing authorities for the development of affordable rental units.

Housing authorities have flexibility in allocating these funds, because they are often in the position to assess how best to address their states affordability challenges. The Capital Magnet Fund provides financial support to Community Development Financial Institutions and other nonprofit developers for increasing the supply of affordable housing.

Both of these programs have the infrastructure and flexibility necessary to scale up and get affordable housing where its most needed.

Finally, communities should be given strong incentives to ease overly restrictive zoning and lower high fees for building houses. Critical federal funds for roads and other infrastructure should be tied to how well communities are addressing their needs for workforce and affordable housing. Community development block grants could also be tied to such metrics.

However, policies to increase the supply of housing will take time to reap benefits. In the meantime, we need to ease the financial pressure on those hit hardest by the affordability crisis.

This means fully funding the nations primary federal housing voucher program, as currently, three in four families eligible for such rental vouchers cant receive them. It would also make sense to increase the value of the vouchers to provide low-income families the chance to move to low-poverty, higher-opportunity neighborhoods. Doing so has been shown to boost lifetime earnings and open a window to escape poverty.

More than a decade after the housing market took down the economy, the nation finds itself in the throes of a different kind of housing crisis. Its effects are subtler, and perhaps for this reason it has gone largely ignored.

But the nation must address this housing crisis in earnest, lest an entire generation of families whose parents found in housing a critical path to building wealth, find it blocking the way.

Some of the presidential candidates have put forth plans to address the affordable-housing crisis. Indeed, virtually every candidate putting forward a plan has taken on the supply side with admirable muscle. But none have put housing policy at the top of their political agendas.

Given the depth of the affordable-housing crisis and the existence of good, practical ideas to address it, it is time for the candidates to give it the attention it deserves.

Jared Bernstein, chief economist to former Vice President Joe Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Jim Parrott is a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and owner of Falling Creek Advisors. Mark Zandi is chief economist at Moodys Analytics.

Excerpt from:
The conundrum that affordable housing poses for the nation - Seattle Times

Mobile homes appreciate at rates on par with site-built homes.

Most people think mobile homes cannot be a solid investment because they are simply too easy to acquire. They depreciate, right? In fact, as someone who has fix and flipped more than 500 units, I have had other investors tell me that they dont deal with trailer trash. Remember the adage: It is the man with a little knowledge who feels he knows everything and the man with a lot of knowledge who realizes how little he actually knows.

Long has been the belief that mobile homes depreciate. For those who think there is an appreciation, they believe it is at a drastically slower rate than the site builds. They also believe they only appreciate if they are attached to land.

In researching the up-to-date data released from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and disseminated by the Urban Institute, this assumption is finally challenged and ultimately thrown out. In fact, the opposite is true, and this could mean major changes regarding the affordable housing crisis plaguing the nation. The index for home price on manufactured and mobile homes is growing at an average rate of 3.4 percent annually. What about site-built homes? They were growing at an annual rate of 3.8 percent. However, in the last few years, the prices of manufactured homes and mobile homes increased faster than that of traditional housing/properties.

One of the reasons these trends have been so misleading is that these houses arent as present in areas of the United States where the housing market recovery on a whole was more noticeable. These houses are more likely to be found in areas where recovery from the housing crisis was diminutive. California, for example, contains more than 17 percent of the entire U.S. housing market. Yet, in looking at the number of units shipped, only four percent of the manufactured housing market is represented in California.

Headline areas those featured for having had a noteworthy boom from the housing market crash simply arent areas that mobile homes have occupied. This unintentionally excludes their rise, leaving them out of the picture to those who take news at face value and make assumptions without digging deeper.

When comparing Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama to California, these states encompass 41 percent of the market for manufactured housing, but they have seen price appreciation increase at a slower rate than it has on average nationally. This is area-based. Not home-based. And that makes a big difference. We simply arent comparing apples to apples.

To learn more about Mobile Home Millions, visit mobilehomemillions.com.

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Global Manufactured Housing Market 2020 Growth, Trend, Size, Share, Analysis and Forecast to 2025 - Instanews247

While any presidential election year figures to be heavy on political talk, this year, many commercial real estate industry titans believe politics will dominate the commercial real estate conversation, far beyond the battle for the White House.

The United States is already in a contentious election cycle, and the House of Representatives has already voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Unpopular policies inreal estate circles, including rent control,vacancy fees and inclusionary zoning, are gaining steam in the countrys biggest cities.

But some say commercial real estate will shrug off all the political nastiness as it continues to chug along. After all, the industry has already overcomethe omens of potential economic recession last year, including theinverted yield curve when short-term bonds offered better returns than the 10-year Treasury a moderating gross domestic productand a decline in business spending.

The punchline is we have been studying these types of events for over 50 years. These types of geopolitical events don't have any material impact on the economy over a length of time, CBRE Research Chairman Spencer Levy said. People overreact to it.

But if theres anything real estate investors hate, its uncertainty. And the political uncertainty at play has caused many in the market to hold off on making major capital decisions, calculating that it is too risky to make any big moves.

I think the elections could, with so much divide in the country ... people are just so mad about it, saidMichael Bull, the founder of brokerageBull Realtyand host of the radio program Americas Commercial Real Estate Show. That could slow down some expansion and some growth.

Bisnow/Jon Banister

CBRE Americas Research Chairman Spencer Levy

Where commercial real estate will feel most of the effects of politics, though, will be on the local level. Some areas of the country have already seen agrassroots backlash againstgenerous tax incentives and abatements for private developments.

I do [believe] we'll see smaller incentives or incentives that go away altogether for big projects that truly don't impact disadvantaged areas, OA Developmentpartner Brian Granath said.

Peebles Corp.founder Don Peebles also said developers may need to expect to have less political persuasion on a local level because of not only a growing backlash against municipal tax largess, but also the widening disparities with income in many cities. Plus, politicians are harnessing the power of social media to raise campaign funding from individuals instead of relying on large donations from business leaders and developers.

The influence on the political process the industry has had for many decades is diminishing and very rapidly, Peebles said. More [backlash] is coming and the developers aren't going to even be able to fight it off.

Politics is the connective threadfor many of Bisnow's 2020 commercial real estate predictions, after interviews with nearly a dozen national experts:

1. Rent Control Becomes MorePrevalent

Three states instituted rent control measures on apartmentslast year, and a host of major cities are forcing developers through zoning regulations or as part of an incentive package to hold rents down on some of their new units.

While many experts contend that the answer to affordable housing is to build more and otherwise get out of the way, the push for regulated rents will only gain momentum in the new year, especially aswhen many municipal officials are up for election, according to CBRE's 2020 outlook.

It's a politically charged topic, Conway said of housing affordability. "So where do you get the most immediate relief? Rent control."

Avison Youngprincipal Kirk Rich who was recentlytapped by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to serve on the Atlanta Housing Authority's board of commissioners said governments are compelled to grapple with ways to curb housing cost escalations near schools and jobs in urban centers.

The pressure surrounding any affordable housing within any major urban market is increasing and troubling, Rich said. We have priced-out workforces as well as other diverse communities that deserve access to housing close to jobs and schools and other things most others take for granted.

Already, apartment investors are shying away from New York City and certain places in California due to rent control, pushing investors to cities with looser regulations, Bull said. And developers may be strapped from building more housing in cities where steeper affordability requirements are in place as well.

[Government officials] are trying to get elected and trying to make everyone happy. Mostly, they're not real estate experts, he said.

Multifamily construction will jump in 2020.

2. Multifamily Construction Rebounds

Apartment developers will likely continue to ride the jet stream of optimism that younger millennials and even baby boomers are more inclined torent overbuying homes.

Developers are expected to unleash 330,000 new apartment units in 2020, up from 303,000 this past year, according toYardi MatrixSenior Research Analyst Tara Jeffcoat.But this time, developers will likely outstrip demand.

Apartment demand is projected to be 240,000 units, a 20% drop from 2019, according to CBRE. That would shrink rent growth to 2.4% and elevate the vacancy rate to 4.5%, still below the historical average, CBRE reported.

TranswesternEastern Region President Bruce Ford, however said the fresh stock of college graduates may help boost apartment rent rolls.

I think what we're going to witness in the April to June time frame, with this graduating class across the country many of those students will have already secured jobs before they entered the market to rent and lease their housing, Ford said.

3. ModularConstructionBecomes More Popular

Rising construction and land costs and a continued labor crunch will have another effect other than rising development costs in 2020: development innovation.

The growing need for affordability in housing especially will have more developers using modular construction and other prefabricated methods to building apartments, hotels, low-rise offices and even some retail, Conway said. And in an effort to boost housing stock, more developers may be willing to chance manufactured housing, where building costs are substantially lower.

Verified Market Research predictsthat the total value of modular construction will be $131.9B in 2020 and more than $181B by 2026.

I think we're going to see a lot of innovation in affordable housing, Conway said."With modular, it's not just a residential story, it's a commercial story."

4. Office Demand WillSlow Down

Even with the debacle thatbecame the WeWork meltdown late last year, few see any major changes to office demand across the U.S.

I think the good news is our headline for 2020 from a commercial real estate perspective, it's going to be a good year, similar in many ways to 2019, CBRE's Levy said.

In its 2020 outlook, CBRE is projecting companies will absorb 20M SF across the country, well down from the total projection this year of 37M SF. As of the third quarter, companies leased 29.6M SF more than they emptied in the U.S., according to Newmark Knight Frank.

CBRE is projecting some 51M SF of new office completions this year, down from 59M SF in 2019.

Technology companies shouldcontinue to be the force behind the majority of the leasing activity, according to CBRE. As has been the story for much of this past decade, the central business districts in major cities are expected to keep winningthe majority of corporate America's office attention and demand.

But there will be a shift that will accelerate next year: Some companies begin to eye smaller cities that mimic the amenities and walkability seen in larger urban cores, Levy said.

We think that the reurbanization in the U.S. and globally will continue into the next decade, saidULIexecutive director of sustainability and economic performance Billy Grayson.

5. Industrial To Stay Strong

Industrial real estate should continue on its hot streak again in 2020, thanks in large part to the continued retail evolution to online shopping. Levy said that the question of whether the U.S. is finally at the top of its hot industrial market has been asked repeatedly for years, and is being asked again this year.

The short answer is, 'Not yet,' Levy said.

Still, developer exuberance may race ahead of actual tenant demand. CBRE predicts that developers may unleash upward of 30M SF more industrial space than actual demand in 2020. But new supply addressing niche needs, such as cold storage and last-mile distribution, should do well regardless, Levy said.

E-commerce demand for last-mile facilities of 150K SF or less will accelerate in 2020 as companies race to offer same-day delivery to customers, with continued rent appreciation as well, CBRE's report stated.

I don't think industrial is going to slow down for 2020. I think everyone is still pretty much in on industrial, Jeffcoat said.

Courtesy of Transwestern

Transwestern Eastern Regional President Bruce Ford

Transwestern's Ford said there is one particular potential for headwinds in industrial, namely the continued waging of the trade war, not only against China, but even the push to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

What does trade do in terms of an economic slowdown in terms of manufacturing and agriculture? That's the primary concern, Ford said.

6. Capital Will Flood U.S. CRE

In a flight for yield and investment-grade quality, commercial real estate investors will continue to flock into the U.S., warts and all, thanks to the spread of negative interest rates throughout the globe.

While yields on U.S. commercial real estate continue to get squeezed, even a return of 4% to 5% is more appealing than staying in some European banks where storing money in an account actually costs customers.

I think that the United States, and by extension the United Kingdom, are the two cleanest dirty shirts in the laundry, Levy said.

Granath said he expects the Federal Reserveto cut rates one more time this year, but avoid dipping into negative territory.

I think they lower rates one more time and I think we're entering into dangerous territory ... cut to a point where if we do enter a recession, there's nothing we can do left to help the markets," he said. "Because entering negative would be ... a sign that the markets are worse off than they actually are."

More here:
Predicting 2020: Politics, From The Election To Rent Control, Will Loom Over CRE - Bisnow

By Craig SwansonTrustee, Keep Sedona Beautiful

Sedona AZ (January 3, 2020) Keep Sedona Beautiful urges you to contact Yavapai County to make your feelings known about the proposed Spring Creek Ranch development, if you havent yet done so.

On Dec 19, Yavapai County Planning and Zoning narrowly voted to recommend against the Spring Creek Ranch mega-development, but the final determination is up to the County Supervisors.

At the Planning and Zoning hearing, much was made of the fact that only 15 residents wrote in to the County supporting the proposal, while 245 wrote letters or email opposing it. In response, the developer stated that they will be marshaling more support prior to the Supervisors meeting.

Those Supervisors will meet on Wednesday Jan 15 at 9:00 AM at 10 S 6th Street in Cottonwood to hear this matter and decide on whether or not to allow 282 acres along Spring Creek to be rezoned and developed.

Rezoning to Planned Area Development (PAD) would allow the developer to put 1,900 Manufactured Homes, 400 RV pads, 400 apartment units and a 200 unit Assisted Living facility on either side of Spring Creek. You can learn more about this proposal byCLICKING HERE.

If you havent yet made your voice heard, please write or email County Development Services, and write or email each of the County Supervisors.

In your email and/or letter, youmustinclude your name and address, or the County will not consider it.

YavapaiCounty Development Services:

County Supervisors:

Follow this link:
Action Needed on Spring Creek Ranch | Sedona.Biz - The Internet Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley - Sedona.biz