2y ago

White House opens $45 billion in federal funds to developers to convert offices to homes

www.marketwatch.com

The White House kicked off a multiagency push on Friday to help finance real-estate developers convert more office buildings in big cities emptied by the pandemic into affordable housing, taking aim at the nation’s housing crisis.

The initiative looks to harness an existing $35 billion in low-cost loans already available through the Transportation Department to fund housing developments near transit hubs, folding it into the Biden administration’s clean energy push.

It also opens up additional funding sources and tax incentives, offering a new guidebook to 20 different federal programs that can be tapped by developers and offers technical assistance in what can end up being tricky and expensive conversions.

A third peg of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.

“These downtowns and central business districts that we are taking about today often already designed and orientated around public transit,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a press briefing. “Our intention is to make the most of this opportunity to add more housing near transit in ways that not only reduces the cost of housing, but also often reduces the cost of transportation.”

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2y ago

White House opens $45 billion in federal funds to developers to convert offices to homes

www.marketwatch.com /story/white-house-opens-45-billion-in-federal-funds-to-developers-to-covert-offices-to-homes-d335bf49

36 comments

- I am not sure if this is the win people think it is. Those are going to need MASSIVE retrofits to be meaningfully habitable. There is a reason why hotels are often in "weird" shapes as opposed to giant rectangles. And a lot of that has to do with making sure every room has a window, there is proper insulation (sound and thermal) between rooms, etc. Contrast that with office buildings where you tend to have a huge cube farm in the middle of the floor or people will shank one another over windows.
  Buildings with a big center atrium are well suited(-ish) to conversion, but have limited space as a result. And likely need significant work on the floors/ceilings.
  As for messaging: The Democrats have always been horrible at that. Part of it is because a lot of it is "this is basic human decency?". But mostly it is because Democrats are built around actually wanting something. I want UBI. You want student loan forgiveness. Sally wants basic human rights. Maybe we are both happy when Sally gets what she wants, but I resent that they are focusing on a stopgap measure with loan forgiveness and you resent that they are ignoring your personal needs with UBI experiments.
  Contrast that with republicans where all a candidate has to do is fuck over a gay person or a woman and then EVERYONE cheers.
  
  There were already multiple projects like this underway in my city, with several more buildings that would be good candidates for this kind of thing. We had lost a lot of office rentals before covid, and now with even more suburban people working from home, we have the double whammy of lost city income tax from the WFH people. We also have a housing crunch in my city, with a serious lack of available units in desirable areas driving up rents.
  So, my city has a looming cash flow problem, an already established housing crisis, and shitloads of square footage of real estate in pri) me locations sitting empty. Seems like a ready-made solution to all of these things is available, right?
  However, as you pointed out, converting these old office buildings can be trickier and more expensive. That's where these programs come in. I suspect that the Biden admin has looked at all these factors in cities across the country and seen that giving an incentive to developers (who were already interested in such projects) to move forward.
  Is it perfect? Hell no. I hate the idea of giving public funds to private developers just for them to be able to charge rents. I would also like at least some of these units be available for purchase as condos. That said, that's the kind of system the US has for solutions to every problem: put taxpayer money in the hands of private middlemen so that they can take a profit.
- This is more a problem with the media then the administration. Trump could blast shit like this because he could basically tell fox news what to show and how to show it. Biden doesn't have the same control over the liberal media and they'd rather focus on Mike Johnson being a religious zealot and the war in gaza right now because those scare people and drives views. Not saying that's a bad thing to focus on, just that it's hard for this relatively boring story to compete.
- Biden seems to take the philosopher's approach of not touting your own accomplishments, but just accomplishing. Unfortunately people are dumb and disinterested and if you don't tout your accomplishments they assume you have none.
- Dems suck at messaging, GOP is traditionally great it (not sure right now, but historically they’re very good at getting a consistent message to their base of supporters)
- Your commenting on an article of this information coming from the white house
I said it elsewhere and I will say it here.
The problem though isn't a lack of housing, we actually have plenty for everyone. The problem is corporations buying up homes to rent them and in the process jacking up home prices. If these new homes are left to the tender mercies of the market there won't be any new homeowners. Just new rentals.
- We simply need an exponential multi home tax that has no loopholes, like turning every home into its own business entity. Any home that is owned in any part by someone that already has a home should double in tax rates for both homes. If they own 3 homes all three should double again. There should not be any cap to this figure. Taxes should eventually cost more than the home itself. If you have the money to burn, good, you should be putting it back into the community you underpaid and abused when you collected it from them in the first place.
  
  One home for everyone before anyone gets a second one.
- Unproduction is an even bigger deal, that's exasperated by corporations buying up homes. We've been behind on home production (due to lack of federal support in home production, as well as zoning) before Covid. During covid, materials prices increased and home production dropped considerably. Does that mean we shouldn't tackle the fact that in the US buying multiple homes is a good investment? no. But making an effort to deal with the housing supply issue is very helpful. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-underbuilding-housing-over-the-past-decade-2020-9?op=1 https://www.npr.org/2022/03/29/1089174630/housing-shortage-new-home-construction-supply-chain
- Yes and no. The problem isn't just these corps buying up houses and renting them out. Everything, even corporate greed must follow the supply and demand model. It DOES NOT MATTER how much landlords own the building if there is no demand.
  Case in point, China overbuilt homes. There is literally 4+ homes available PER PERSON in China(calculating average sq/ft per home). The homes are literally pennies and the homes are all empty.
  So while I agree that there is a problems with corporate greed, the majority of the problem is the supply. You increase supply, pricing comes down.
Cuz people and corporations that own land in metropolitan areas desperately need government handouts. Let them take a loss or a mortgage, like anyone else.
- Keyword affordable
  
  Oh right. Doesn't this usually mean they'll make like 3 units "affordable" for a few years, then renovate those into a single unit they can charge market for as soon as possible? Basically the minimum they can get away with to close the grift.
- Yeah that aspects sucks, but if it gets more housing made in the US, this sounds like a good enough solution for now. We can work on sharing landlord and corporate profits while this gets rolled out.
They better not be converted to rentals if the government is paying for it.
- I assure you, no normal person can afford to buy an apartment in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise, even if everything was done solely at cost. Rental units aren't a bad thing.
  
  If one can afford to rent it + pay enough extra to make the rental have a profit then they can afford to own it. The government shouldn't be subsidizing profits for already large landlords, so there needs to be strings attached relative to how much money the government gives for the renovation.
  Additionally, that's fine if only e.g. a lawyer can afford to buy it. If a bunch of upper middle class people move out of other neighborhoods to move here then it frees up cheaper units elsewhere.
There it is folks yet another bailout for corpo scum! Can't have the corpos deal with the fallout of changing times, that's for Worthless™ "people" like us! They're even selling government owned property to help landleeches make more! Oh happy day!
Yet another program that supposedly helps the poor by giving money to the rich.
third peg of the program will see the federal government draw up a public list of buildings it owns that could be made available for sale to help bolster development.
Jesus Christ. If the government wants to build housing, then it should build fucking housing. Selling publicly owned buildings to private developers to turn into rentals for poor people is trickle down neoliberal bullshit.
About time this started happening.
- Yes, my city has a housing crisis, a looming income tax crisis, thanks to WFH suburbanites, and multiple empty office towers in prime downtown real estate. There were already two of these projects underway, and it would be nice to kickstart another two.
- They're just the standard reflexively antipathetic assholes who think it's cool to cynically spin literally everything as a negative that make using every social media platform on the internet a fucking chore.

36 comments