Condos ease housing crunch
In hot Chittenden County market, density can be beautiful By Matt Sutkoski | Free Press Staff Writer
Published March 28, 2005 RELATED LINK Housing Targets report
Walum Awotho, Lossi Budju and their three children moved last week
into their own home, a condominium in South Burlington.
The Ducharme family didn't move. They're in a Colchester apartment, hoping to find a home with a backyard for the kids, but a lack of affordable single family homes, and financial setbacks, mean the Ducharmes are still pining for a house.
"We have to have our own place. I'm 52, almost 53. My wife is 50.
If we don't get a house now, I don't know when we can," Eugene Ducharme
said.
The two families are among hundreds or thousands in Vermont who have struggled to buy homes in an era of soaring housing prices. A lack of new housing construction and spiraling prices for existing houses have locked many would-be homebuyers out of the Chittenden County housing market.
Part of the problem is a lack of land available to build new houses and increase the supply. A solution is the construction of more condominiums and townhouses, which increase the number of units that can be built on small parcels of land.
Condominiums, which are often less expensive than stand-alone houses, offer hope to people looking for affordable housing. Condos also often mean compromises for families dreaming of large back yards and sprawling vegetable gardens.
People who want to buy homes are up against daunting statistics. The median home price in Vermont reached $165,000 in 2004, up 10 percent from 2003 and 67 percent from 1996, according to a Housing Council and Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign. A Vermont household would need an annual income of more than $62,000 to afford such a house, the advocates said.
Housing is affordable when households with incomes below an area's median income pay no more than 30 percent of their income on housing, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In the Burlington met-ropolitan area, housing is considered affordable for a household with an annual income of $55,200 and housing costs $1,380 a month or less, said Tim Fluck of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.
Dense housing
Multifamily buildings such as condominiums and townhouses allow for more units on the limited amount of Chittenden County land suitable for development. The condominiums can hold down costs because developers do not need large tracts of land.
Condominium construction is clearly increasing in Chittenden County, according to an analysis by real estate consultants Allen & Brooks. In 2000, nearly two-thirds of the residential building permits for Chittenden County residences were for single family homes. By 2004, the two-thirds of the building permits were for multiunit dwellings, according to the March Allen & Brooks report.
The growth in condominium construction means some people can buy a home, but must defer the dream of a house with a yard and trees. Awotho and Budju did so happily because they wanted a home so badly.
Awotho, 42, and Budju, 33, left their cramped Burlington apartment for a two-bedroom, $169,000 City's Edge condominium. Refugees from Congo by way of Madagascar, they settled in Burlington in September 2002. Working toward home ownership wasn't easy, Awotho said.
He works 56 hours or more a week, splitting his time between nursing homes in Colchester and Burlington. Budju, his wife, also works at the Colchester nursing home. The couple has three children.
"To make enough to buy a house, you have to work hard. If you make a good plan, you can buy a house," Awotho said. "You have to accept that you miss your kids. You have to sacrifice, but maybe later you can be together and enjoy the life in your house."
Awotho and Budju took advantage of the Burlington Community Land Trust's NeighborWorks Homeownership Center. Participants like Awotho and Budju take an eight-hour class on how to prepare for home ownership, then counselors sit down, one-on-one, with would-be home buyers to explore options. The counselors advise people on how to reduce debt or improve their credit ratings, and steer them toward affordable loans, programs and housing developments.
It was the NeighborWorks program that helped convince Awotho and Budju to investigate the South Burlington condominiums. They're new, convenient and more affordable than most single-family homes, the couple concluded. "We're catching the opportunity," Awotho said.
Housing advocates are putting out the word that density is good. Putting four houses on one acre instead of the current one-acre zoning in many communities allows more houses to be built, reflects traditional settlement patterns and reduces the costs of services such as roads and sewer lines, said Anne Duncan Cooley, director of the Upper Valley Housing Coalition in White River Junction.
"The image people have in mind is 'urban is great big, tall apartment buildings,' but it can be done very attractively and be really great for the community," she said. The trick is to educate people that dense doesn't mean ugly. Upper Valley Housing Coalition has put out a DVD that demonstrates that point of view, she said.
Examples of such housing in Chittenden County include South Burlington's City's Edge development and the downtown Winooski redevelopment project, which when finished in two or three years will have hundreds of housing units, some of them regarded as affordable.
Back yards
Many of the condominium projects are nice, with parks, playgrounds and green space, Ducharme said. Still, he wants a house with a yard. He wants room for a vegetable garden, maybe a fruit tree, space for the kids to play. A combination of high prices for houses and financial setbacks have kept a home out of his reach.
Ducharme said he lost a good job at Dynapower years ago. He works for a subcontractor for the Department of Homeland Security, but hasn't had a raise in recent years. Pamela Ducharme works at a bank. Meanwhile, housing prices continued to spiral.
The Ducharmes put money aside whenever they can, but emergencies -- such as his wife's surgery, and the recent discovery that 10-year-old Katy needs extensive orthodontia -- keep pushing the family back. "My wife was in tears last night when we found out about the kid's tooth situation," Ducharme said last week.
There are, of course, ways people with modest incomes can receive help buying their first homes. Vermont Housing Finance Agency has a variety of programs with reasonable interest rates that don't require an enormous down payment.
The Ducharmes also have taken the NeighborWorks classes. Between that and the VHFA, the family remains hopeful. "We figure more places will open up as the weather warms up," Ducharme said.
