When designing a strategy to address the issues of vacancy, abandonment, and deterioration, it is critical that communities identify and analyze a neighborhood’s distinct market challenges and opportunities. Market dynamics vary neighborhood by neighborhood. REALTORS® can provide this unique market knowledge and their expertise should be leveraged during the development of strategies, initiatives, and programs aimed at building neighborhood markets.
Webinar Highlights
- Lessons learned from 2008 Great Recession and assumptions for the future
- Systems that affect vacancy and abandonment
- Indicators of vacancy and early intervention
- How REALTORS® can help identify and analyze market challenges and opportunities
Danielle Lewinski - Center for Community Progress
Code enforcement is a critical tool for preventing vacancy and abandonment. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic communities will experience an increase in foreclosures, evictions, and property deterioration as federal, state, and local governments have placed moratoriums on foreclosures and evictions resulting in deferred payments, as owners defer needed maintenance due to reduced disposable income. Code enforcement traditionally plays an important role in maintaining safe and healthy housing, and its role will become more pronounced given these new dynamics. Strategic code enforcement goes beyond property inspections and notices, instead weaving together regulation, policy, cost recovery, and “carrots and sticks” in the context of market realities.
Webinar Highlights
- Lessons learned from 2008 Great Recession and assumptions for the future
- What is strategic code enforcement
- How can strategic code enforcement prevent property decline caused by the COVID-19 crisis
- Using neighborhood conditions to inform effective, efficient and equitable code enforcement strategies
- REALTORS® as partners in preventing vacancy and abandonment
What happens when a property becomes vacant? What if it is also tax delinquent and the owner has abandoned their financial and maintenance responsibilities? These long-term vacant properties can devastate the economic and social aspects of communities. Delinquent tax enforcement, code lien enforcement and conservatorship are all systems that local governments can use to transfer vacant and abandoned properties to responsible ownership. Now more than ever, communities must ensure these tools are in place to support neighborhood stabilization and recovery strategies.
Webinar highlights
- Making the connections between property tax enforcement, vacancy, and neighborhood stabilization
- Efficient, effective, and equitable delinquent property tax enforcement systems
- Innovative uses of code lien systems
- REALTORS® working with local government
Jan Marie Ennenga - Yuma Association of REALTORS
Stephanie Lee-Howell - Lee Real Estate & Investments
Land banks can help resolve some of the toughest barriers that keep properties stuck in decline and assist in reestablishing property markets, stabilizing property values, and returning properties to productive use after sudden shocks or long-term decline. While land banking is often perceived as the “silver bullet” to addressing vacant and abandoned properties, it is important to understand what other systems should be leveraged to support the success of land banks.
Webinar Highlights
- Land banking – what is it?
- How land banks can be most effective in community revitalization
- Land banking as a tool neighborhood stabilization during economic crisis
- Successful partnerships between REALTORS® and land banks
Laura Lafayette - Richmond Association of REALTORS®, Central Virginia Regional Multiple Listing Service
