Nelson added. “… It’s a nightmare getting to who actually owns the home and who actually needs to be talked to.”
This quote was taken from a recent article in Magnolia, Arkansas.
This demonstrates, the challenge still exists as does the need for MuniReg’s services.
To view the article, please click here.

“But no one has tried to buy and sell homes at the scale of Cincinnati, which is “a game-changer for the housing market,” reporter Konrad Putzier said on a recent Wall Street Journal podcast about the acquisition. “If other cities follow the example of the Cincinnati Port Authority, it could really have an impact.”

Cincinnati’s has undertaken a counterattack to skyrocketing housing and rental costs, which it blames in part on the big investment funds purchasing properties for rental income. After purchasing almost 200 properties, the city will now rent the homes at an affordable price with the hope of transitioning the renters into owners.

For more information, please click here.

In a related matter, the Wall Street Journal focuses on HOA’s “blocking companies from buying single-family homes, rewriting homeownership rulebooks to thwart investor purchases of suburban housing.”

For more information, please click here.

Heritage value is additional worth added to the market price of a property when it’s been in the same family for more 50 years. It could add 50 percent of the market value to the property’s value.

Two bills seek to change Missouri state law surrounding condemned property costs by allowing circuit judges to drop heritage value if cities can prove the property is in poor condition. According to the Missouri Municipal League, heritage value makes it difficult for many cities to tear down or repair old, dilapidated buildings, and allowing a judge to reject the additional costs would be a first step in addressing unsafe structures, thereby bringing the value of abandoned properties into a more realistic threshold.

For more information, please click here.

Monroe County (NY) has developed a comprehensive web resource titled “The Vacant Property Resource Hub”

Following are the list of resources and information available.

To access the Hub, please click here.

February 2022 report titled “State Policy and Problem Property Regulation” is derived is derived from a working paper prepared by Alan Mallach pursuant to a joint program agreement between the Center for Community Progress and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

“This report that can be a resource for practitioners and policymakers at the state and local levels. It focuses on the central theme that state laws and regulations largely determine what local governments can or cannot do to regulate problem properties and is designed to be useful to people working to frame more effective strategies to deal with problem properties and work with state governments and legislatures to enact new laws and amend older ones to that end. Moreover, it should be useful locally, alerting local officials and advocates to where their city may not be using (or misusing) the tools provided by their state’s laws, or to where opportunities for creative action exist by virtue of the absence of conflicting state laws.”

Elements of Problem Property Regulation
1. Laying the foundation
Relevant property information, such as registration ordinances; clearly defined, reasonable and transparent codes and standards to enforce; and the organizational framework, capacity and resources to enforce those standards.

2. Enforcing health and safety in rental housing
Having an effective regulatory program to ensure that rental properties are inspected regularly, and that all rental properties meet basic health and safety standards.

3. Addressing vacant abandoned properties
Minimizing harm while properties are vacant and getting them into responsible ownership and back to productive use.

Six Principles to Guide Sound State Policy
1. State law should grant clear and explicit authority to local government to regulate problem properties in the public interest.

2. State law should offer a diverse body of regulatory tools for use by local government to address the full range of problem conditions that may be present in the community.

3. Regulatory tools should be flexible in order to allow local government to deal effectively with conditions as they arise, up to and including provisions for taking control of properties where other efforts have been unsuccessful.

4. Regulatory tools should incorporate provisions that allow quasi-governmental entities such as land banks, qualified nonprofit entities, and residents, as appropriate, to act to resolve problem property conditions.

5. Regulatory tools should provide clear procedural standards to guide local officials, property owners, residents, and where appropriate, the courts.

6. Regulatory tools should provide for transparency and responsiveness to diverse community concerns, and actively further equity in enforcement.

To view the summary, please click here.

To view the full report, please click here.

To view the full working paper, please click on following link.
From State Capitols to City Halls

S5321 was recently passed in the New York State Senate and has moved to the Assembly.

Two articles discuss the opposing perspectives being debated.

Link to full article: Addabbo Touts Bill to Tackle Vacant Dwellings
“Vacant properties are not only an eyesore in neighborhoods, but they can also become the site of undesirable mischief or criminal behavior,” Addabbo said. “Homeowners who take pride in their residence should not be forced to live amongst dilapidated, unkept structures that are known to lower property values of homes within a ⅛ mile radius, through no fault of their own. These increased fines will prove costly to institutions if they continue to disregard the law.”

Link to full article: Borrello: Senate Zombie Property Bill Won’t Do Much
“Now I understand that zombie properties are really a plague, especially in parts of rural Western New York where I’m from,” Borrello said. “But if we really want to do something about that we should come up with effective ways to allow these banks to resolve those properties as soon as possible. But we’ve done the exact opposite here. We’ve made it more and more difficult for banks to resolve those foreclosures. And now we say we’re going to make it almost impossible for you to foreclose in a reasonable amount of time, and we’re going to make you pay for the maintenance of that property.”

St Louis has commenced utilizing firefighters to catalog and categorize vacant and abandoned properties.

Fire crews will be asked to spend at least one hour a day surveying vacant buildings and putting them into three categories.

Definitely a positive step, however there are still questions and concerns that exist.
As mentioned in the article “When we show up to a burning building our assumption is someone is inside.” Without doing interior inspections, how accurate are the assessments?
Will this be a “one and done” project? As properties are continuously being abandoned, the assessments should be ongoing.
Shouldn’t this project be done in collaboration with code enforcement (and others), to identify and communicate with the responsible parties to hopefully mitigate the safety, security, aesthetic concerns?
Will the focus be on the severely deteriorated properties (as profiled in the below TV report) or will it include the less obvious vacancies, but yet perhaps just as dangerous?

Perhaps, some food for thought.
For more information, please click on the following links

St. Louis fire officials collecting information for vacant building database to keep firefighters safe

St. Louis Fire Department creates vacant home database