Homes missing from mayor’s budget | Real Estate Newsletter

This week in things that make you go hmm.

The fate of a West Philly townhouse complex where residents got help to pay rent was uncertain for years. Last year, as part of a lawsuit settlement, the city agreed to take over part of the site for the development of 70 income-restricted homes to replace the ones that have since been torn down.

But Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s budget proposal doesn’t include funding to redevelop the site.

Keep scrolling for that story and to see how a reader was inspired to help first-time home buyers, peek inside a home garden with over 900 plants, get some home storage tips, and see what the local real estate market was up to in April.

📮 How have you been creative with your home’s storage? For a chance to be featured in my newsletter, email me.

— Michaelle Bond

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Mayor Parker has said that building affordable housing is a top priority for the city.

But the budget she’s proposing doesn’t include money to replace the University City Townhomes, subsidized rental homes that the property’s owner closed to cash in on rising property values. The landlord ended its federal subsidy contract that had been in place since 1983.

I first wrote about the townhomes in 2021, when residents and advocates rallied over the landlord’s decision to sell the property.

In the following years, there were protests, marches, City Council legislation, and a lawsuit against the city. It all ended in a settlement reached last year between the property owner and the city. The owner agreed to give one-fifth of the 2.7-acre property to the city for redevelopment.

But without city funding, the site could stay empty.

Pre-newsletter, in December 2021, I wrote a story that laid out some of the reasons why buying a home hadn’t gotten easier for Black Philadelphians over the decades.

Last week, I learned that my story inspired the creation of a fund that’s been helping people buy their first homes.

“I think everybody occasionally feels pricked by something they read,” Carol Shearon, who lives in Montgomery County, told me this week. “Your article was just so poignant and so true that I thought, ‘Oh man, I would like a way to help people get homes.’”

She saw that I’d interviewed the director of housing counseling at the Mount Airy CDC. The community development corporation has been counseling home buyers and owners since the 1990s, and nine out of 10 of the CDC’s clients are Black.

“I have lived a life of incredible opportunity and privilege,” Shearon said. When she considered national and regional inequities in home ownership due to racist policies, she thought, “I’d like to do something to repair the damage myself.”

She partnered with the neighborhood group to create its first-time home buyer fund in April 2022. Since then, the CDC has given out 27 grants totaling $53,000 in assistance for closing costs and down payments, said executive director Philip Dawson.

“There are significant challenges for people trying to become homeowners who have quite a hill to climb,” Dawson said. “The thinking was if we can do something to roll back some of that difficulty and give people a little extra to put down, it makes the hill a little bit less steep.”

The CDC has raised a total of $79,000 so far. Some people have given $25. Two people in the last six months have given $15,000.

Grant recipients don’t have to live in the Mount Airy neighborhood but have to be buying a home in Philadelphia.

For decades, the CDC has taught people about home ownership and helped connect them with financial assistance, “but we don’t often have control over the resources that are out there and certainly not over the larger market conditions,” Dawson said. “It’s refreshing to be able to do some direct aid.”

“Certainly, affordability has not gotten any easier,” he said. “If anything, it’s gotten more difficult.”

My bedroom in the old Philly rowhouse I rented years ago (the “mouse house”) had hardly any storage — just a few built-in shelves and a narrow cabinet.

Storage can be a challenge no matter where you live, but seasoned Philly rowhouses can be extra tight.

We’ve got some tips for homeowners and renters who can’t stand their closets — or lack of closets — and wonder what they can do.

The bottom line? You’ve gotta get creative.

Janet Novak and her husband, Chris Sarnowski, bought a Chestnut Hill property in 2004 that’s now their home. But at one point, a taxi service garage and driveway sat on the property.

The homeowners found out what that meant when they tried to plant in their back yard and found coal underneath a few inches of soil.

But they weren’t scared off. Novak added soil, compost, and mulch and now has a thriving garden of 930 plants. Novak, a self-described nerdy gardener, even keeps a spreadsheet where she lists the scientific and common names for every plant.

Novak and Sarnowski replaced the original front lawn with their garden. Plants also grow — by design — in crevices in a rock wall that spans the front of the property.

Novak’s garden peaks this month and next, but there’s something blooming in every season.

Take a look at this labor of plant love.

The beloved Hardware Center in Paoli — part hardware store, part garden center, part toy store — is closing next month. Loyal customers said they preferred the family-owned community staple over big-box home improvement stores.

Question: Roughly how many years has the Hardware Center been in business?

A) 47

B) 58

C) 73

D) 81

This story has the answer.

The local housing market was a mixed bag for buyers in April. Active home listings were up compared to last year. But so were home prices.

According to the multiple listing service Bright MLS, in the Philadelphia metro area:

🔺The median price of a home sold in April — $365,000 — was 11% higher than a year ago.

🔺Prices grew in April at the fastest annual pace since May 2022. And they rose fastest in the Jersey suburbs.

🔺Both closed and pending sales were up from last year.

🔺Active listings across the region were up about 10% from last year, and new listings were up about 15%.

🔺Every county in the region except Philadelphia had more active listings at the end of April than at the same time last year.

More supply is good news for buyers, but the market is far from balanced and remains competitive.

Do you know where this building is?

📮 If you think you do, email me back.

Shout out to Dorothy S., Lars W., and Bruce H., who had the specific answer I was looking for to last week’s quiz. It featured a photo of the newly relocated Bicentennial Bell. The Liberty Bell replica is on display at the Benjamin Rush Garden at Third and Walnut Streets.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

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