Who Knew? Housing/Transportation Location Affordability Portal Up as Beta.

I haven't seen any HUD PR on this but on Monday night I stumbled across a beta test site for the long delayed housing/transportation location affordability portal; the "my transportation cost calculator " is HERE; home page for entire site is HERE. 

Site also includes location affordability index page HERE and downloadable data HERE for places, counties, metro's , and for metro areas only, data down to the block group level. (More than 100 pieces of data for each geography).

It is not clear how long this site has been up or how up to date it is; as I indicated there is no link that I can find anywhere on the HUD website. While Beta it still provides a starting point to understand the kinds of analysis that may be possible. 

More to follow I am sure; timing for formal HUD announcement not so much.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

HIGHEST Recommendation: CBO Releases Mother of All Reports on Federal Housing Spending.

The CBO has released what will I hope will be one of the most widely read reports ever on Federal spending for housing. The report focuses on FY 2009 and provides a detailed listing of programs and spending from the various sources of funding for home ownership and rental housing. The reports money conclusion:

In fiscal year 2009, the federal government devoted almost four times the amount of budgetary resources to supporting home ownership (about $230 billion) as it devoted to improving rental affordability ($60 billion).

The CBO report, the underlying data (an Excel worksheet) and a blog post from the CBO Director can all be found on the CBO web page for this report HERE.

I will update this post if anything specific results from after I fully digest all the data.

I cannot recommend this report to you more highly--it is the most current, comprehensive, objective, concise summary of federal spending for housing I have ever seen. (and I ain't no spring chicken).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Issues Oregon FY 2008 Proposed Fair Market Rents, Rural Areas Got Biggest Boost, Salem Virtually None. Comments Due Aug. 13

On July 12, HUD finally issued proposed fair market rents for use in the largest HUD rental assistance housing program in Oregon, the Housing Choice voucher program.

A quick review shows that for the benchmark 2 bedroom unit size: Rural areas got the largest percentage increase of 5% ($28-31 per month), while the increase in Portland was only about half of that at 2.7%,% ($ 20 per month). Marion County/Salem limped in with the lowest increase a meager .2% or $1 a month.

Exclusive Oregon Housing Blog Download Available: A one page MS Excel summary of Oregon 2 BR. Fair Market Rent Comparisons for 2007 and 2008 by County /Metro area is available for download here.

HUD Data Sources: The main HUD fair market rents page is here. (Readers encouraged to download and read the FY 2008 preamble here.)

Highly detailed calculations showing how rent increases were determined for Oregon can be individually searched here http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr/fmrs/st.odb

August 13 comment deadline: Despite HUD’s long delay in issuing the proposed FMR’s for FY 2008, comments on proposed FMRS are due August 13, a month after issuance.