An Affordability Crisis

Issue 8.49

December 9, 2022

Economic Development Includes

a Focus on Affordable Housing

By Richard T. Przywara | Woodlawn Trustees

Affordable housing has a direct link to workforce development and economic mobility. Delaware leaders—beginning with the Dupont Company and Bancroft Mills—began building affordable housing for their workforce in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Their thinking was that if their workers had a nice house close to where they worked, it would be conducive to their health, contentment, and efficiency. Entire neighborhoods were created to house the growing workforce, necessitating the addition of grocers, barbers, shoe stores, dry goods stores—we are all familiar with this cycle of economic development. Read more >

WHAT IS AFFORDABLE HOUSING?

In today’s housing market, the Milpitas School District in California is asking residents to rent rooms to teachers because they cannot afford to purchase a home in the district (median price exceeds $1 million for a home). And in Delaware? For a teacher with two years of experience and a salary at $50,000, they could purchase a home at $180,000. Could they live in Union Park Gardens? No, houses there are $239,000. How about McDaniel Heights? Houses there are in the mid $300,000s. What about renting? The average monthly rent is $2,350 for a home in Fairfax.

To take a step back, how do we even define affordable housing? Affordable housing is housing which is deemed within the means to those with a household income at or below the median. Affordability is also intrinsically linked to income. Quality housing needs to be affordable compared to the wages we are paying. Read more >

AN AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

DELAWARE NEEDS A NEW EMPHASIS ON HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

By Kevin Kelly | LNWA

Rising mortgage rates and little or no abatement in material and labor costs will continue to be strong headwinds for the home building industry through 2023. As a result, housing production in Delaware is down 31 percent (year to date).

Even without the significant run up in mortgage rates, tens of thousands of Delawareans as well as families across the country are facing a “housing affordability crisis”. Housing supply is simply falling short of needs. The mortgage giant Freddie Mac estimates the shortage to be 3.8 million homes. Other studies estimate the number is closer to five million. While there is nothing state and local policymakers can do to change the trajectory of mortgage rates, there are steps they can take to make housing more affordable. Read more >

According to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, more than 27,000 Delaware families pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing.

DELAWARE'S PROPERTY TAX REASSESSMENT

THREE THINGS COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

OWNERS SHOULD KNOW

By Donald N. Isken & Katherine H. Betterly | Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell

Delaware is among the few states that does not have a constitutional or statutory requirement to periodically adjust property values for purposes of real estate taxation. As a result, the last county-wide property tax reassessment took place in New Castle County effective 1983, Kent County effective 1987, and Sussex County effective 1974. As would be expected, the intervening decades have witnessed widely divergent rates of appreciation in market value amongst the hundreds of thousands of properties located throughout the state. Read more >

SEEKING NOMINATIONS!

SUPERSTARS IN EDUCATION & TRAINING AWARDS

We are searching for education and workforce development programs that contribute to preparing Delaware's workforce for success. The Superstars in Education and Training award recognizes workforce development programs for their outstanding achievements and model approaches to education and training. Learn more >

WARRIOR FRIENDLY

BUSINESS AWARDS

The Warrior Friendly Business Award honors businesses’ efforts to support service members, veterans, and their family members through workplace initiatives. The award is given to one

small and one large business. The

deadline to apply is December 16. Download the nomination form >

President's Message

We all know the narrative: inflation is up, borrowing costs are up, wages are up, and unemployment is low. So what does all this mean for the retail and restaurant sectors of our economy and state? Deloitte surveyed retailers a few weeks ago to get their read on how they believe the last few weeks of the year will play out. Read more >

PHOTOS OF THE WEEK

We celebrated Delaware Day in Washington, DC

with the First State's Congressional Delegation and more than

20 culinary vendors

L&W Insurance

held a ribbon cutting

at their new

Greenville office

location

NERDiT NOW held a

grand opening event at

their new 50,000

square foot warehouse location in Wilmington

IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING YOUR MEMBERSHIP:

Over the last few years, we have updated and modernized functional areas of our operations. The next planned change is to transition our membership dues billing cycles to a calendar-year cycle.

In order to complete this transition, you will be invoiced a one-time prorated membership dues amount which will ‘pay you up’ through 12/31/23. Please be on the lookout for your prorated invoice. You should receive it via email no later than December 2. Members already on January billing cycles will not see any changes or prorated bills. Moving forward, members will be billed your annual membership dues in mid-November for a January 1st effective date.

These changes will enable us to be more efficient and bring added focus to the delivery of great events, communications efforts, and policy advocacy to Delaware's business community. Please contact Melissa Brayman at mbrayman@dscc.com with any questions. Thank you for your continued support!