2013 in my Neighborhood

It’s end of the year time---you know, time for the year in review, lists and retrospectives. So I thought I’d check in with my favorite topic for hand-wringing: real estate.

Last year, in November 2012, I wrote an essay about Mott Park where I contrasted the calamitous real estate decline with the pleasures of an energetic neighborhood community.  [“Feeling a little subprime” at http://www.eastvillagemagazine.org/en/essays5/18749-essay-feeling-a-little-subprime].
 

An NPR blog in late October alerted me.  The national real estate picture has improved---measured by home prices through the first half of the year 2013. August 2013 was better than August 2012.  According to economist David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee, S&P Dow Jones Indices, the

monthly percentage changes for the 20-city composite show the peak rate of gain in home prices was last April [ . . . ].  Since then home prices continued to rise, but at a slower pace each month. This month [October 2013] 16 cities reported smaller gains in August compared to July. Recent increases in mortgage rates and fewer mortgage applications are two factors in these shifts.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/29/241594756/consumer-confidence-fell-sharply-this-month-shutdown-blamed.  (Accessed Oct. 29, 2013).

Detroit is in that 20-city composite list.  So is Las Vegas.  Two cities, one old and one new, with enormous real estate problems. If you like charts, see https://www.spice-indices.com/idpfiles/spice-assets/resources/public/documents/53129_cshomeprice-release-0924.pdf?force_download=true.

So how is my neighborhood, Mott Park, doing?

 “It’s true, the real estate market has improved over all, but while prices are still on the rise, there has been some slowing in the pace,” says my neighbor Ginny. 

A realtor with decades of experience, Ginny has sold a lot of real estate, both in Mott Park and throughout Genesee County.  She knows her stuff. We met on Sunday walks in the neighborhood. Organized by real runners, the Sunday walks get some of us less fit off the couch for an hour or so.  I pulled out some old track pants and got new shoes.  Some walkers take pictures for the neighborhood Facebook page.  Others pick up litter as we go. We learned how to roll plastic grocery bags so small and tight we could carry dozens in our parka pockets for litter pick up.  It is ground level struggle with neighborhood decline.

Ginny says the Mott Park real estate market is getting a little better, but slowly.  Foreclosures continue, but are fewer than before. Prices in the neighborhood have risen slightly.  And sales are moving faster.  

But it’s Genesee County that really looks better.  The average sale price is up---15 to 16 percent at the end of October 2013.  Real estate charts on Grand Blanc, Goodrich, or the fabulous Fenton are trending upward.  Areas with better school districts than city of Flint can be cautiously optimistic.  Genesee County has 31 school districts; buyers have choices.  

Mott Park loses in the school district sweepstakes, although it has two excellent private elementary schools: the Catholic St. John Vianney and St. Paul Lutheran. Ironically, families from better city neighborhoods drive their kids in.  

And another irony. This slowly rising market can mean frustration for buyers with cash in hand seeking to close on a bargain.  Banks calculate that it’s in their interest to move slowly and wait for the market to rise.  So short sale approvals remain in limbo; details about the sale pass from one asset manager to another, each supposedly checking some aspect of the sale.  Buyers wait and wait.

“It’s like the ‘Circumlocution Office’,” says Ginny. “You know, in Little Dorrit on Masterpiece.”  Little Dorrit is a Dickens skewer job on the economics and social safety net of Victorian England.   Two families illustrate who has fallen victim in the market place and who has profited.  The Dorrit family languishes in debtors’ prison; the Clenham family hoards a fortune made in textile imports.  Amy Dorrit (“Little Dorrit”) struggles with her father’s fate in prison---only a windfall gift can buy his freedom.  Arthur Clenham, scion of his family wealth, seeks to pay old Dorrit’s debt.  Arthur inquires at the Circumlocution Office about what Mr. Dorrit’s debt is. But the Circumlocution Office never answers any question directly.  Kind of like the banks.

As of mid-December, 17 properties in Mott Park are bank-owned.

Nevertheless, over sixty properties sold in Mott Park in 2013; a lot of movement in the ‘hood.  The picture is mixed. Buyers can be absentee landlords---uninterested, unscrupulous. Picking up properties sold as a package. But some are local investors, even neighborhood residents. A young couple on my block bought the house next door, provided a rental for an old buddy and guaranteed upkeep of the parcel next to them.  Good for summertime parties too. 

Renters are a mixed picture. Some are transient, bringing socio-economic challenges for Mott Park.   Others join the neighborhood Facebook page.  Their needs---from furniture, appliances, and children’s clothes to a Christmas tree---are shared on the page. They look for rentals for friends, post alerts about job openings, say farewell when they move out of state for work.     

The indefatigable Neighborhood Association elected new officers in December 2013, all women and two are new to the neighborhood.   A separate non-profit golf course group maintains the clubhouse and gets the course grass mowed in summer. Neighborhood gardeners maintain the flowerbeds.  In last year’s essay I concluded that despite the real estate challenges, the neighborhood was worth my living there.  

I still think so and I’m ready for 2014 in Mott Park.

Read more essays like this one in East Village Magazine at http://eastvillagemagazine.org/