WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 1, 2011 – (RealEstateRama) — National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chairman Bob Nielsen joined with Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory and members of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati today to kick off National Homeownership Month at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new residential development in the city’s Bond Hill neighborhood. The development, called Villages at Daybreak, is a product of Cincinnati’s long-running CiTiRAMA® public-private partnership that has helped invigorate urban neighborhoods by encouraging the development of attractive and walkable new communities near the city center.
“At the start of National Homeownership Month, it’s important to realize all that we have achieved in making this country the best-housed nation on earth,” Nielsen said. “Because, looking down the road, changes that have been proposed to our national housing policy and programs could eventually make it much tougher for the American family to own a home.”
Proposals to eliminate or reduce the mortgage interest deduction, remove government support for the housing finance system, and tighten lending requirements to the point where millions of credit-worthy buyers would be unable to qualify for a mortgage are now being debated in the Administration and Congress. Such proposals would seriously impact the average family’s ability to obtain a home of their own, Nielsen said.
“In this day and age in which the trend seems to be to discourage people from achieving their dreams of homeownership, Cincinnati deserves credit for the path it has taken with the CiTiRAMA partnership, through which it is expanding homeownership opportunities in areas near public services and amenities. From educating new home buyers, to supporting the development of new housing through engagement in public-private partnerships, Cincinnati has embraced the idea of homeownership and housing opportunity as a means to greater prosperity for its citizens.”
According to NAHB estimates, every new single-family home built in America creates three new jobs and generates $90,000 in federal, state and local tax revenue, $145,000 in wage income and $86,000 in net business income. The income earned from construction activity is spent and recycled in the local economy, and the new homes that are built become occupied by residents who pay taxes and buy locally produced goods and services. Those tax revenues help pay for a wide range of government services, including local school teachers, police departments and road repairs.
An additional feature of the CiTiRAMA public-private partnership is its linkage with the Cincinnati Community Action Commission’s “Blueprint for Success” initiative, a pre-apprenticeship construction training program that promotes self-sufficiency among the city’s youth. Students from the Blueprint program are participating in the development of each of the new home sites in Bond Hill by shadowing the participating builders from start to finish of their projects, learning valuable new skills along the way.
Nielsen praised this innovative program, describing it as “one more way that Cincinnati’s home builders are contributing to their community, which will result in long-term economic benefits for all concerned.”
For more information on the benefits of homeownership, please visit: www.nahb.org/forconsumers.
