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Approved 8/3/2016 4 Patricia Roberts: I know your first responsibility is to get people housing but one of the things, and I’m a real estate 162 broker… People buy a house hoping to be upwardly mobile, to put equity in their house and the idea is when they 163 sell it they’ll be able to sell it, move on to something more desirable for them because they increase their status in 164 life. What I’ve seen when you do a whole neighborhood of affordable housing they’re not upwardly mobile. They don’t 165 have the 10 percent turnover like you need in a strong neighborhood. So you’re putting off your problem for maybe 166 10-15 years and their house has not increased in value because they can’t sell it on the open market. I just pull an 167 MLS, the habitat home over on Richmond Hills, nothing sold. 5-10, not a single house has sold on the open market. 168 But they’re not increasing their value, they’re not building equity, they’re not building wealth and that’s what I think we 169 want these people to be able to do. That’s the other thing; double wide’s and single wide’s depreciate. They do not 170 appreciate. So yes, they have a place to live but they’re not building wealth. And that’s the way out of poverty is to 171 help them build wealth. So normally a house in Mebane gets snapped up and no ones touched it. Because it’s the 172 stigma of everyone in the whole neighborhood being… It’s a habitat neighborhood. No one on the open market wants 173 to move into a habitat neighborhood. So what I’m trying to say is… keep that in mind. I think affordable housing is a 174 great idea, I’m suggesting every other house, every third house, a workforce housing so that you’re spreading this 175 out and it’s not a whole neighborhood. 176 177 Audrey Spencer-Horsley- So what do you define as a workforce housing? 178 179 Patricia Roberts: For firemen, a teacher in our community- a lot of our teachers can’t afford to live in Orange County- 180 but they may not meet the level of poverty that you were thinking of. The other thing is you need somebody who 181 knows… Maybe if you’ve never owned a house before you don’t know how to fix a $400 repair, or how often to mow 182 the yard or what to plant, if you’ve never owned a house there’s so much you don’t know. So to have people that 183 maybe have been incorporated in the neighborhoods and then you don’t have the stigma. 184 185 Maxecine Mitchell: In our neighborhood we have had people purchase homes that didn’t come through the habitat 186 program but they still fell within the income guidelines for Orange County. They weren’t eligible to do the habitat 187 program but habitat took and sold homes back into the neighborhood. And we all get along real well. And most of our 188 homeowners are, like myself, starting up our own businesses now. So it depends but I do understand your concern 189 because Richmond Hill is a beacon in the neighborhood and I actually tried to sell a house and the designs of the 190 home were a concern… And I know you can’t go build something elaborate but… And then, like myself, I’m just 191 knowledgeable enough so I try to do some improvements, try to maintain my home to keep the value. Also, with 192 habitat homes we walk into there with some good equity, but they also had to put regulations because I also used to 193 work the empowerment doing affordable housing development and people would get those homes and they would 194 sell them if they didn’t put certain stipulations and restrictions on them. And so you end up still losing affordable 195 housing stock that you have. 196 197 Paul Guthrie: Let me ask a question. On the edges of our neighborhood there are smaller houses and much more 198 modest price range, 2 of those houses were listed 10 days ago. The first one sold in 24 hours and the second one 199 sold to the owner at a contract offer the same day the sign went up. And I’m suspicious at least one of the sales is a 200 flipper. Is one of the problems in maintaining a steady market of modest homes the fact that the more modest homes 201 get flipped in an attempt to raise their price? 202 203 Patricia Roberts: Sure, it’s on the open market. Someone can buy it… Say the house in that neighborhood is 204 $400,000 and the smaller ones are like $200,000, they go in and add granite, maybe stainless steel and they put 205 $25,000-$30,000 and then they sell it for $75,000 over what they paid for it and they’ve made a modest profit. Again, 206 that’s the American way. 207 208 Paul Guthrie- It may be the American way but I think we ought to think about that as you’re developing a strategy to 209 build a larger group of modest priced houses… If we’re sitting here and thinking about what are some of the 210 alternatives that might be used to stimulate availability of modest housing for people with modest incomes, we have 211 to look at all the pieces of the puzzle and not just that one narrow thing that isn’t enough and people don’t make 212 enough money to live in. We’ve got to look at the market, we’ve got to look at what’s going on from a larger policy 213 stand point, and then you can get a good, strong, long-term thing. Otherwise you’re going to spin your wheels for the 214 rest of your life. 215