For this week’s update, we share more news about The Town of Matthews attempting to modify controls over short-term rental rules. REBIC’s opinion is that their decisions would drastically infringe upon personal property rights. With the assistance of the Canopy Realtor® Association, we have obtained a legal interpretation produced through the National Association of Realtor’s® (NAR’s) Land Use Institute that outlines several problems in the proposed ordinance, including:
The legal review we are referencing in this newsletter specifically and comprehensively addresses the short-term rental ordinance proposed for the Town of Matthews, North Carolina and delves into defining how the ordinance affects existing rules for Short-term Rental Categories, Zoning Districts, Homestay and Whole House Rental Standards, and Bed and Breakfast definitions. And even includes reference to the 800 Foot Separation Requirement proposed. In essence this document cites several examples of legal precedence which, in our opinion ONLY, exposes the vulnerabilities The Town would be subject to if they go down this path.
REALTORS®, if you want to read the entire document, please reach out to Rob Nanfelt by email here.
My take: REBIC’s stance on volatile issues such as this, is we must approach the Town’s Leadership and share our concerns. I have reached out to Town Leadership to open a dialog that may be helpful in informing the situation. At the bottom of our newsletter is a link to the meeting scheduled on August 12th. We encourage you to keep your ear to the ground as we work to discourage this kind of drastic policy overreach. Do you have a question?Email me and let’s discuss.
One of our Six Stated Strategies to address the need for Attainable Housing is to Amend The Housing Authorities Act – Move 20% set aside for 60% AMI to 10% and 80% respectively. But what about also understanding the numbers on either end of this scale?
Affordable Housing problems have been the elephant in the room for years. Choosing the right metrics to inform decisions about how to apply AMI percentages while considering affordability sectors is a moving target. In that vein, we believe we’re not having enough discussions around the moving scale of mortgage eligibility. We reached out to some well respected mortgage professionals with Movement Mortgage, and asked them to create a profile of the potential buying power of 120% AMI. The results are sobering.
Get access to this memo, here, in PDF form.
My take: By my quick calculation, which I know is not exact, you’re still looking at a monthly payment that is well over $2,000 for a house or unit in the $275,000 to $300,000 range which pretty much doesn’t exist and would be barely affordable for an income in the $60,000 range.
Having said that, if a household income were to be in the $80,000 to just under $100,000 range (the lower end of the annual salaries for certain first responders), and we had more townhomes available in the $350,000 to $400,000 range, it could provide homeownership opportunities to a wider range of consumers. Consider this bite #1 of the elephant.
Also, if you want to discuss this in more detail, reach out to Rob Nanfelt, or contact the Bishops Mortgage Team.
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