Bend Hardest Hit Housing Meeting Thursday AM, My Meeting Notes.

My notes from Thursday morning Bend industry focused Hardest Hit housing outreach session (public session is at 6 PM tonight).

• About 10 state and local gov and non profit attendees. (One lender organization rep was also in attendance).
  
• Extended discussion about what % should be allocated to 16 hardest hit counties; US Treasury leaving "substantial majority" definition to states to determine. (Should make for fun discussion next week when Portland outreach session is held).
  
• Discussion also about possible larger per unit allocations to areas with larger underwater loans (table handed out w county underwater loan data with Deschutes leading the pack),
  
• Bend resident Erik Sten (yes THAT Erik Sten![Wikipedia]) suggested pilot short sale non profit acquisition program (similar to idea raised earlier by David Corsi from Grants Pass ) and that seemed to be some interest to attendees (I pointed out need for funding of operations of lease to own homes as well as capacity to manage scattered site leased properties.(Wikipedia piece doesn't do Erik justice, ignoring his work on Dominion Capital work out that included non profit acquisition /leasing of substantial number of problem properties).
  
• Suggestion made (and I support) that income limit be the GREATER of 120% of statewide OR LOCAL median income (Use of only a statewide median would disadvantage Portland Metro, Deschutes, and some other counties where LOCAL median income is HIGHER than statewide median income).[Note also that HUD SHOULD be publishing new Median Income data ANY day now, and it is POSSIBLE that median incomes COULD be coming down a bit].
  
• I, and several others in attendance expressed appreciation to OHCS and Victor for outreach efforts being made to date. MUCH more than other states.
  

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.