A2168 is back up for a vote in the full Assembly on Monday, June 25 at 1 PM. This so-named “New Jersey Residential Foreclosure Transformation Act” had been previously pulled due to lack of Democratic votes. Its companion, S1566, is also up for a vote in the full Senate at 12:30 PM. If passed in both, it’s onto the Governor. By now, you know what to do to kill this largest state land grab in history, its growing negative results, upside risk, and a huge, fiscal cost even defined by the Office of Legislative Services as “indeterminate”.
It’s Back for a Vote :The Foreclosure Transformation Act or “Neighborhood Destruction Act” ,that your neighborhood in Ridgewood
June 25,2012
by NJ Tea Party Coalition
Ridgewood NJ , The Foreclosure Transformation Act or “Neighborhood Destruction Act” threatens all homeowners in New Jersey with massive wealth destruction. The essence of the Act is that the State needs to sell bonds, create a new bureaucracy, buy homes out of foreclosure and convert or sell them to people who will use them for low-income housing, rehab centers or other social welfare purposes which destroy the character of their neighborhoods they are in. The stated goals of reducing the supply of homes for sale and supporting home prices will fail on both counts.
The uses for these converted properties, as contemplated by this Act, are simply not considered desirable by neighbors even if they are considered otherwise socially beneficial. Location matters and prices reflect that reality. When you put homeless shelters or rehab centers next door homeowners will prefer an abandoned foreclosure every time, because that house will ultimately be bought by someone and recover its value. With this Act and its 30-year deed restriction on converted housing, you will cause the value of all properties to crash, and then to stay down. What happens next is even worse — current homeowners will rush to sell their homes before the value goes to zero. It will be a fire sale environment, as this Act will achieve precisely what it purports to prevent – an oversupply of homes on the market, sharply reduced demand among homebuyers, and a massive housing price drop.
The solution to the so-called lack of affordable housing is to foster a climate where people feel comfortable buying and keeping their homes, it is not to create affordable housing by destroying the value of everyone else’s homes. The solution is to remove all price supports. Prospective buyers know that prices will eventually drop when the supports end, and they won’t buy until that time. There will be a temporary and perhaps sharp price drop, but then prices will recover as demand finally rises at various price points to meet the supply. You fix the housing market by recognizing that a price drop is inevitable, not by trying to prevent the inevitable.
1) Contact info here – email your legislator and call them (both) :
https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/districts/districtnumbers.asp
and
2) call the Governor:
Governor Christie: 609.292.6000