Cape Coral Town Hall: Let's make housing more affordable
Patricia Borns
When I rolled in to Lee County late in 2015 to start my job at The News-Press, I got the shock of my life.
With a U-Haul van parked outside the hotel, I looked high and low for an apartment in my pay grade, and, like many of you, couldn’t find one.
RentRange, which provides data to real estate investors, had just reported that Cape Coral and Fort Myers rent rates outpaced the nation’s top metro areas – great news for investors. but bad news for Cape restaurant workers buddying up to afford half a duplex on Vincennes Street,
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Home prices and sales were going gangbusters at the high end of the market, but almost nothing was being built in the $150,000 to $250,000 range.
It was enough to make me consider going back to small town Virginia, where a two-bedroom apartment within walking distance of downtown cost $550 a month. Instead, I wrote Out of Reach to draw attention to our affordability crisis.
Since then, communities across Southwest Florida have been exploring solutions, none more so than Cape Coral.
Out of reach: Many workers can't afford a home in Southwest Florida as area booms
What have we learned since then and how are we doing?
Please join me, engagement editor Tom Hayden and our panel of “housers” Wednesday at Big Blue Brewing Company for spirits and a spirited discussion about this hot-button issue.
Cape Coral City Manager John Szerlag will lead our conversation about an overlooked piece of the attainable housing puzzle: the jobs that decide how much house or apartment we can afford.
As we saw in Out of Reach, while the economy since the mid-2000s housing market crash has added back a healthy numbers of jobs, the three most common employment sectors in Cape and Fort Myers workforce pay less than $35,000 a year.
Wages even in the highest paying sectors have been virtually flat until mid-2017, with disturbing results.
Our high poverty census tracts — those with 20 percent or more people living below the poverty line — have grown 32 percent since 2000, according to an Apartment List report, with most of the growth in suburban areas.
“We need to be known for a job market that’s more than retail or working for a hospital.” Szerlag says. “That would drive demand for traditional housing,”
Cape Housing Coordinator Amy Yearsley has worked hard to chip away at the housing challenges of the workforce we have today.
“One of the biggest challenges in Cape Coral is the misconception of what is attainable housing," Yearsley says.
She’ll take on some of the myths behind the not-in-my-back-yard resistance Cape planning staff face as they reshape the zoning code to allow a greater variety of housing types and prices.
That includes tiny houses, a recent Cape initiative that’s set off a firestorm of debate.
Cape Coral says yes to tiny homes
“I see this town hall as an opportunity to inform people about what we have, what the need is, and what we’re doing over the time, and also an opportunity to garner information from our audience,” Yearsely says. “to ask, ‘how are we going in the right direction?’”
The mid-2000s recession turned many Cape home owners into renters as their underwater mortgages were foreclosed on and investors scooped up the homes for rental income.
‘Value’ homes on the rise in Lehigh, Cape
Suzanne Vasbinder, a Century 21 real estate pro, will share her tips for making the leap to home ownership for about the same monthly cost as renting.
“I deal with everyone from retirees to renters who never thought they could own because they were taught they could not,” Vashbinder says. “I want to let them know there are options out there.”
She and other Cape Coral real estate agents are able to tap into a bigger inventory of affordable homes, thanks to developers like D.R. Horton and LGI that have been buying up the city’s single-family lots to build homes priced right for people currently paying Lee County rent rates.
Boomerang buyers find new loans, homes in Cape Coral
A D.R. Horton Express brand model, for example, cost just under $200,000 in 2016, while a LGI model on a southwest Cape Coral lot started at $192,000; with a FHA loan, about $1,400 a month.
‘Value’ homes on the rise in Lehigh, Cape
Vasbinder will explain how to finance the down payment – the biggest barrier to entry, she says – for little or no money out of pocket.
Southwest Florida builder Brian Bishop of New Panel Homes is an out-of-the-box thinker who's constructed everything from Southwest Florida tract homes to custom homes at Babcock Ranch to Habitat homes that a mother can buy and maintain at almost no cost.
One of his concept homes is a cottage-sized shell that can be expanded as you're able to pay for it rather than taking a loan.
“Even if it takes three to four years to, building this way will pay you back for the rest of your life,” he says.
About our town hall host
Our venue Big Blue Brewing is the brainchild of owner JoAnn Elardo , who opened in a renovated bingo parlor in September 2016.
While offering a showcase for the region’s craft beer makers, the team also brews small batches of its own, inspired by local ingredients.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Community Town Hall
HOSTS: The News-Press and Big Blue Brewing
TOPIC: The affordable housing crisis and taking a closer look at building tiny homes as a solution
WHEN: 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday
WHERE: Big Blue Brewing, 4721 SE 10th Place, Cape Coral
COST: Free (Drinks and food can be purchased at Big Blue)
RSVP: Go to tickets.news-press.com
Follow this reporter on Twitter @PatriciaBorns.