JACKSONVILLE, FL – Multifamily real estate investment firm, Southeast Property Group, has acquired a two-property, 328-unit apartment portfolio in Jacksonville, Florida. Due to the distressed nature of the properties, Colonial Forest and Northwood Apartments will be re-branded to The Belmont and Avenue at 1601, respectively.
The Florida based investment firm has already begun a $9.7 million renovation program that includes significant updates, such as: new roofs, exterior paint, re-plumbing, amenity and landscape upgrades and other improvements, including updates to all of the apartment unit interiors.
“We are very excited to have had the opportunity to purchase both assets at below market pricing. We’re looking forward to improving not just the look of the properties, but the overall community for the immediate area as well as for the City of Jacksonville.” said Southeast Property Group Principal, Joe Rubin.
The properties were acquired from the Chetrit Group, headed by Joseph Chetrit and were originally acquired as part of an 8,000-unit portfolio, secured by a loan from JP Morgan. Southeast Property Group was presented the distressed opportunity from an off-market brokerage relationship.
“We are pleased with being able to transact with Mr. Chetrit. It was a very unfortunate situation, but thanks to our capital partners, we stand ready with plenty of dry powder to provide capital and expertise in these exact scenarios. In a very uncertain market, our team was able to move swiftly to make sure the transaction closed on the agreed upon price and terms.” said Southeast Property Group Principal, Richard Shuster.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – The Charlotte City Council will vote Monday night on a plan to sell more than four acres of land to developers who plan to build affordable housing on the site.
The city paid millions for the property but plans to sell it for a single dollar.
The property is along Reagan Drive near I-85 and West Sugar Creek Road. A Economy Budget Inn motel used to sit there, and was a hotbed for crimes, including robberies, shootings and murders.
In April 2023, the city bought the land for $4.2 million and tore the motel down. Now, the city has chosen to sell the property to Prosperity Hidden Valley.
The deal means the developer must build a minimum of 39 new townhomes to sell to families earning at or below 80% of the area’s median income. For a family of four, that is just under $80,000 a year.
The units must stay affordable for 20 years and may not be leased during that time. The purchase price of the homes will be limited and there will be down payment assistance and special mortgage financing.
City leaders said they selected the developer for its experience with creating affordable housing, especially for households impacted by racial disparities in homeownership.
Related: Charlotte leaders clash over motel demolition, move forward with project
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According to data, Melbourne is the only Australian capital city that has seen an improvement in affordability metrics over the past five years.
It might not seem that way when you look at the cost of some properties, but when you consider the lack of movement in the market and the steady growth of income, experts say Melbourne is tracking well.
“Five years ago, [Melbourne] would have been relatively expensive compared to the broader capital city market,” CoreLogic’s head of research Eliza Owen said.
“Now, it’s actually got a lower dwelling-value-to-income ratio.”
She said while Melbourne wasn’t what you would call an “affordable” or “accessible” housing market, it had seen subtle improvements in affordability over time, unlike other capital city markets.
“As we’ve come through the other side of rate rises, cost-of-living crisis, and households feeling the squeeze when it comes to trying to save for a deposit, Melbourne actually looks relatively affordable,” she said.
But how affordable is Melbourne really?
Can you afford a house in Melbourne?
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in November 2023 the average weekly earning for an adult working full-time in Victoria was $1,858.10 before tax.
That equates to about $96,621 a year or roughly $74,752 after tax.
It is generally accepted that if a person spends 30 per cent or more of their income on their mortgage, they are likely to be experiencing “housing stress”.
For someone on the average Victorian wage, that’s about $22,426 or more annually.
Based on that, and by using an average interest rate of 6.18 per cent over a 30 year loan, the average single person would need to borrow less than $306,000 to avoid housing stress.
That doesn’t include the 20 per cent deposit required to avoid Lenders Mortgage Insurance.
Based on today’s inflation rates and assuming a buyer has that 20 per cent deposit, they could purchase a property up to $362,400.
Given that, and the data obtained by the ABC, a single income household of an average Victorian wage, could not comfortably afford to buy a house in any Greater Melbourne suburb.
We doubled the figures and applied the same formula to see if owning a home was more achievable for a double income household who both earn the average wage.
In this scenario, couples could purchase a house up to $733,800 — borrowing no more than $611,500 combined with a 20 per cent deposit of $122,300.
Of the hundreds of suburbs in Greater Melbourne, about 70 would be considered affordable for these households.
It is important to note we haven’t added the cost of stamp duty to these figures which can vary in Victoria from about 1.4 per cent to 6.5 per cent of the properties value.
Bruce Carr, principal of Loanscape and independent mortgage broker, said lower income earners were being squeezed out of the market.
“What I saw in the last quarter is borrowing capacity improved slightly, but the average loan size increased. So the income required to get that actually increased,” he said.
“In July 2021 a couple with annual family income of $120,000 could borrow up to $785,000. That same couple can now access a maximum $520,000.
“It’s only wealthier families that can afford to borrow the amounts required to get into the housing market.”
Where are the cheapest suburbs for a house?
The median price for a house in Greater Melbourne is currently $942,779, according to CoreLogic data.
That’s a 4.4 per cent increase on the previous year and a 30 per cent jump on prices seen in 2019.
The cheapest suburb to purchase a house is Melton, in Melbourne’s west, where the median house price is $473,074.
It’s closely followed by neighbouring Melton South.
Both of these suburbs have seen property prices fall over the last two years.
In general, Melbourne’s west remains the cheapest area to purchase a house with a median price of $699,117.
The area also includes suburbs like Brookfield, Deer Park, Hoppers Crossing, Kings Park and Wyndham Vale.
Melbourne’s north-west which includes suburbs like Coolaroo, Dallas and Campbellfield, is the next most affordable area with the median price for a house $756,176.
While slightly more expensive, Ms Owen said first-time buyers were turning to the north-east and the outer-east of Melbourne, including Belgrave and Ferntree Gully.
“This seems to be where young family buyers are able to access a detached house for much cheaper than the inner-east,” Ms Owen said.
What about the cheapest areas for an apartments and units?
Melbourne has seen a shift towards buyers looking to apartments over detached homes, which Ms Owen said could partially be put down to first homebuyers turning to the cheaper option.
“Unit sales have held up more strongly towards the start of the year with about 5,900 sales in the three months to February,” she said.
“That’s above the historic five-year average of about 5,880.”
Despite its close proximity to Melbourne’s CBD and access to transport and other services, Carlton is the cheapest suburb for an apartment, with a median value of $349,078.
While it may not necessarily be attracting families, Ms Owens said it was a good area for investors.
“We’re talking about cheap, small apartments that are relatively accessible for investors and the rent yields on them are pretty good,” she said.
“What’s interesting for [Carlton], it’s actually in positive growth territory now, the price is rising.”
She said the cheap inner-city unit market was one of the markets with more momentum.
Melton and Melton South are again within the top five cheapest suburbs if you’re in the market for an apartment, about $100,000 less than the median cost of a house in the same area.
Where are Melbourne’s most expensive suburbs?
Principal partner at SGC Economics and Planning, Marcus Spiller, said house prices were typically linked to accessibility to jobs and opportunity.
“If you live in an area that has really good access to heaps of jobs within minimum travel time, it’s very likely that your housing will be more costly,” he said.
It’s reflected in the data, with Deepdene, about 9 kilometres east of Melbourne’s CBD, topping the list for the most expensive suburb to buy a house.
The median value for a house there is $3.6 million.
It’s closely followed by Brighton, which is home to one of Melbourne’s most popular beaches. A house there could set you back about $3.4 million.
Portsea — another coastal community located down the Mornington Peninsula, also sits within the top five most-expensive suburbs, with the median house price sitting at $3.08 million.
Ms Owen said the Mornington Peninsula as a whole had seen the largest growth over the last five years, with prices rising 40 per cent.
“That comes back to things like the socio-economics of an area, how exclusive it is, often these areas are waterfront as well and that certainly has a premium in metropolitans,” she said.
The closer you get to Melbourne’s CBD, the more likely you are to pay more than $1 million for a house.
The suburb where you’ll find the most expensive apartment is Ashburton where the median price is $1.3 million.
Beaumaris is closely following its tail, a suburb that had one of the largest increases in prices over the past five years — 29.9 per cent.
- In Japan, homes where a death has occurred carry a stigma that can make the home hard to sell.
- But some agents are making a career out of getting these “stigmatized” properties off the market.
- One expert estimates that some of these houses can have their prices reduced by as much as 50%.
The first time Koji Hanahara stepped into one of Japan’s “stigmatized properties,” it was the scene of a lonely death. An elderly man had died alone in his apartment, and his body was only discovered two months later.
It was unnerving, but it reminded Hanahara of why he chose to do what he did. As the CEO of Marks Co., a Japanese real-estate company that specializes in cleaning, renovating, and selling stigmatized properties, it’s his job to get these houses back onto the market again — despite their history.
“I thought I should be the one to do it. At that time, I realized again that it is my mission to help as many people as possible,” Hanahara told Insider.
Building a business around ‘accident properties’ that are hard to sell
The term “jiko bukken” — which translates to “stigmatized property” or “accident property” — is most commonly used to describe a property where a suicide, murder, or natural death has occurred.
“In Japan, it is said that there are about 30,000 lonely deaths at home, about 13,000 suicides a year, and about 2,000 homicides and fire deaths a year, making it a total of 45,000,” Hanahara said. “Not all these properties are rented or sold, but the current situation is that there are a large number of accident properties.”
Not only can these houses be hard to clean, but the stigma makes them almost impossible to sell.
“In Japan, many people have the impression that accident properties are ‘scary,’ ‘ghostly,’ and ‘dirty,’ which makes them exclude accident properties when choosing real estate,” Hanahara said.
While most real-estate agents want to avoid sharing grisly details, Hanahara does quite the opposite.
After working at a construction company for residential homes, Hanahara started his own real-estate agency, Marks Co., in 2016. He pivoted to specializing in stigmatized properties in 2019.
The listing information on his company’s site, Jobutsu Real Estate, includes a room description and details of how and when the previous owner died. “Suicide in December 2018” reads one listing currently available for 26.8 million yen, or $194,857. “The former owner died indoors in 2014” reads another that’s on the market for 21.8 million yen.
Cheaper to rent or buy
Despite the stigma that’s attached to these houses, there’s a big plus point for buyers and renters: price.
Hanahara estimates that properties where lonely deaths have occurred tend to have prices reduced by 5 to 10%, while houses where suicides have occurred tend to have prices reduced by 20 to 30%. The prices of houses where murders have occurred can be reduced by as much as 50%, he added.
On the Jobutsu site, a 29-square-meter stigmatized condo apartment in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, costs 21.8 million yen. A non-stigmatized condo of the same size in the same location costs 27.6 million yen, per data from the Japanese real-estate platform Utinokati.
For some young families, the cheap rent is attractive. Kasia Pawlus-Ono, a Polish stay-at-home mom, moved to Japan from Australia with her Japanese husband and their daughter in 2019.
They lived in a stigmatized property in Hanamigawa, in the Chiba prefecture, from March 2019 to May 2021. The former tenant was a young mother who had died in the house, Pawlus-Ono said.
“It was around 25,000 yen when it was half-priced,” Pawlus-Ono told Insider. “We paid one year of the rent basically up forward, because it was half price from the original because of the stigmatized property status.”
In contrast, the average monthly rent for an apartment in Hanamigawa is 56,084 yen, per Utinokati.
“I would say it was a positive experience because our neighbors were fine. It also seemed like they were quite happy that someone moved in because for them it was strange that it was empty for so long,” Pawlus-Ono said. She added that her rent went back its regular price — about 50,000 yen — after a year.
Rent may recover over time, but it doesn’t mean agents no longer have to notify future tenants about the incident. Japan’s Building Lots and Buildings Transaction Business Law prohibits realtors from intentionally withholding facts about the properties they’re selling, Hanahara said. And in October, new guidelines from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism specified that brokers must disclose deaths if they had been well-known incidents, involved foul play, or have a significant decision-making impact. Realtors must also disclose all past deaths, regardless of their nature, if tenants ask.
Scott Rothman, a technical director from the United States, moved into a stigmatized studio apartment in Shibuya, Tokyo, in September 2017. He lived there for slightly over three years.
“I got I think two free months of rent and the rent was quite discounted,” Rothman told Insider. “The value was way better than I ever could have actually afforded and I even got a couple of free appliances out of it.”
The previous tenant was an older woman who had died of natural causes in the house, Rothman said: “I was weighing the pros and cons of the apartment when I thought, ‘People have to die somewhere? What’s the difference?'”
How to find stigmatized properties in Japan
People can also find stigmatized properties in Japan on a website called Oshimaland.
The site maps stigmatized properties and provides the details and date of the incident that occurred there. However, it’s not an official record; anyone can submit entries to the site, website creator Teru Oshima told Insider.
“Landlords have an incentive to check the website since everything that’s written on it has a negative impact on the prices of their assets,” Oshima said. “They can send me emails, post comments, send direct messages through Twitter or Facebook or any other route to contact me to correct the information if it’s not true.”
Marks Co. receives about two to three notifications about potential property listings in a day, most of which come directly from the relatives of the deceased. The company also works with funeral houses and special cleaning companies to look for more properties, Hanahara said.
In terms of tenants, he’s noticed a trend of people in their 20s and 30s, single mothers, and single women living in stigmatized houses. And while the discounted pricing is one reason these apartments can be appealing — Tokyo, for example, is the fourth-most expensive city in the world to purchase property — it’s not only about money.
“When you think of living in an accident property, you may have the idea that you are choosing the accident property because you have no money,” Hanahara said. But the property might have other appealing perks, such as being located near public transport or in a new building, he added.
Some real-estate agents have reservations about dealing with stigmatized properties.
“I know there is certain demand, but it’s really risky,” Yuki Yanagita, a sales representative from real-estate company J&F Plaza, told Insider. J&F Plaza specializes in helping foreigners find property in Japan.
Along with a smaller pool of buyers, the cost of deep cleaning the house is borne by the agency — something not every company is willing to take on, Yanagita said. People in Japan often also closely associate stigmatized properties with the paranormal, he added.
But as for Hanahara, his goal is step in and handle exactly the stage of the process that others stay away from.
“We will help those who are willing to sell their accident property right from the stage when the accident occurred,” Hanahara said.