Neighborhood Stabilization Program Public Meeting Flagler County Government Services Building, Board Chambers February 25, :00 p.m.

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1 Neighborhood Stabilization Program Public Meeting Flagler County Government Services Building, Board Chambers February 25, :00 p.m. City Manager Jim Landon gave a brief overview of the program. The City is requesting feedback from its citizens. These are not Obama stimulation dollars, but rather a Bill signed by Bush. It is an owner-occupied program. Senior Planner Beau Falgout gave a presentation including: - Background information - Purpose - State allocation - Qualified individuals/families - Reason for Palm Coast being targeted - Locations and condition of foreclosures - Overview of the program - Strategies - Housing finance assistance explanation and example - Citizen participation forums - Timeline - Opportunities for businesses and non-profits, including the bid process - Other related efforts Mr. Landon began the question and answer session: Q: How will the price of house be determined? A: Through appraisals at the time of purchase, plus a 15% discount. Q. Does the appraisal price include foreclosed homes? A: It will be a professional appraisal, based on their criteria. The appraisal has to follow Department of Housing and Urban Development standards. The goal is to get houses back on the market. Q: Are the only homes being considered foreclosures? A: Yes, it has to be owned by a bank to qualify.

2 Q: Are only refurbished homes being considered? A: No, the house would be refurbished if necessary. Q: Foreclosures are selling. Any time there is a large influx of money, you are creating an unrealistic number. This will create jobs again, but after 18 months, then what? We need to realistically let the market establish the price of homes, not the City. A: We re talking about maybe homes not a huge number. The alternative for some of these homes is, they become dilapidated, are issued a condemnation notice, and we have to tear it down. Also, when values get down to a certain point, investors will buy them for rental. We would like to avoid this by keeping it owner-occupied. Q: Why aren t the banks responsible for upkeep of homes they own? It s just another bailout for the bank. A: Banks are responsible. Code officers are as diligent on bank owned homes as anybody else, but they are insensitive to the program and slow to respond. Ordinances are being drafted that require banks to put the City on notice when they begin the foreclosure process. Q: When will the Ordinances be drafted? A. They are being drafted now and should be coming to Council in April. We don t have to take the money, we didn t seek it, it was offered to us. We are trying to get empty houses owner-occupied. Q: How many foreclosed homes are there in the City? A: Hundreds. Q: Fixing 20 or 30 homes will not do anything. A: We can turn away and Florida will spend the money on another community. We didn t create the program. Comment: homes are better than none. It will help to stabilize the neighborhoods and community. Q: What are the criteria how will houses be chosen? A: We don t have the details yet. Our goal is to partner with the private sector to connect a buyer with a home. Q: You could help a lot more property owners by helping people who are struggling and not in foreclosure yet. A: This is not a choice of ours it s what the Federal government handed to us. Q: What do contractors have to do to get the bid? A: There will be a pre-qualification process. Provide your contact information to be added to the contact list. We will keep it as local as possible, while still keeping within Federal guidelines. Q: What happens to the money the City makes from a sale? A: We have to give it back to the Feds. It can t be re-used. If it were a non-profit like Habitat for Humanity, they could keep it. Q: What assurances have we been given from lenders? A: If the banks aren t willing to sell us the house at the 15% discount, the money goes back to the State. Buyers have to qualify just like everyone else.

3 Q: In all likelihood, the banks don t own these houses. They re just collecting the money and sending it to Freddie Mac and Fanny May Federal programs. The banking system will be interested in unloading these properties. They don t want to be in the real estate business or the business of rehabbing homes. A: We are just administering a Federal program. It s a temporary program. Q: What about damaged structures, like those that are burned out? A: If they are so damaged that they must be demolished, they won t be part of this program. Q: What price range is being looked at? A: $200K and below, due to the income level requirements. Also, the buyer must maintain homestead exemption. This cannot be a second or investment home. Q: Where do realtors come in on this? A: There will likely be a management company in the private sector that will hire realtors, etc. It will all be part of the bid process. Q: Would the realtor get commission? A: They buyer chooses their realtor - it will be a standard real estate transaction. Q: Don t bring developers. Why can t we put our own citizens to work? A: We re not talking about the typical developer it s a generic term. However, you may need to partner, because if you do not have the expertise to handle all aspects, including construction management and the closing process, we will have to choose someone else. Federal regulations say we can t give local preference. Make sure you do your homework up front and know the criteria. There will be an optional pre-bid conference March 13 th. Q: Is this a done deal? A: No, City Council will have to take action. This is scheduled for March 31 st at City Walk at 9:00 am. Q: Who determines what gets rehabbed within the house? A: A private company and building inspectors. It must meet local and national codes. Comment: Banks don t care about the community - it is up to us. If we don t help our own city, no one else will. Q: There was a very similar program in early 90 s and it was very successful. The market determined which houses people wanted to buy. It helped the community significantly. A: Our alternative is sitting back and doing nothing. Q: How many new levels of bureaucracy are we adding locally? A: We are not hiring any government employees for this. We will contract with the private sector to administer this program. Comment: These are taxpayer dollars and we might as well bring them back to our community. Q: Is there any other foreclosure program going on in Flagler County right now? A: Flagler County has a mortgage foreclosure prevention program, but it is not for homes that are already foreclosed.

4 Q: When will these homes be occupied? A: We have to spend the money in months from the date the application is approved. If you spend the money faster, you might get more money from communities that don t spend it quickly enough. Q: Will these homes be in the City or County? A: The homes must be in City of Palm Coast, the County did not qualify. Q: months is not enough time. Banks move slowly. A: We ll do what we can if it s 2 houses, it s 2 houses. Comment: 18 months of work is 18 months of work. That work will pay the mortgages of carpet layers, cabinet installers, plumbers, etc. Comment: Habitat for Humanity has buyers in place now and can work with City on this. That way all of the funds from the sales will stay in the City. Q: What if a big company we can t compete with comes in from Orlando or Miami? A: We will not advertise for bids outside of Flagler County. The City currently gives preference to local companies; however we cannot do that under this Federal program. Q: Will bid be put out on each house? A: Yes. It would be better to refurbish homes because it would put more people to work. We have discussed limiting the number of jobs each contractor can have. Q: How can you adopt the Uniform Property Maintenance Code without increasing staff? A: We will have to address that when the time comes. Q: Do we have Section 8 in the County currently? What is public housing? A: Flagler Housing Authority in Bunnell is Section 8. It is completely subsidized, mostly rental housing. Q: Is the appraiser looking at the foreclosed price? A: No, free market price.

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