So FDIC Chair Sheila Bair she may be the “second most powerful woman in the world” and might even make the ‘top ten’ for most famous person to live in the People’s Republic of Amherst, but that still does not garner her an over 50% profit when selling her humble Amherst abode.
Purchased for $355, 000 in 2002 and renovated to the tune of another $89,500 the Victorian house went on the market this spring for $795,000 then quickly dropped to $695,000 to almost exactly its assessed value ($692,800) then, puff, came off the market to await better times.
The (currently rented) house is directly across the street from Amherst’s by far most famous resident, Miss Emily’s brick family home, owned by Amherst College. You would think (since the Dickinson Homestead will never be torn down to make room for a Wal-Mart) that would increase the value any property within spitting distance.
Oh well. I’m sure Ms. Bair’s salary and benefits, as FDIC Chair will allow her to carry the property for a year or two. And even if she gets the higher price, it probably will not be enough buy her a comparable sized home in Washington, DC.
Thus highlighting one of the problems in bucolic Amherst. Whiz kids come to our illustrious flagship Umass simply to use that position as a stepping-stone to BIGGER-and-BETTER things, and then want to flip their property for 50% over what they paid a few years earlier.
Thus the town Assessor considers those sales and, like a rising tide, increases the evaluations of every home in the neighborhood. Where some folks have lived all their lives (and their parents and grandparents before them) and simply can’t afford to pay those outrageous town property taxes.
Gentrification—of the snobby kind.
14 comments:
Whatever that house can bring in for rent, that is how you calculate the value of the house. The is the basic economic reality, and Bair ought to understand that.
The tax inequities you complain of are just a side effect of much larger distortions in the market caused by 12 years of really foolish tax and banking policies. If we can get out of the repeating cycles of bubble economics, this should work itself out in a few years.
Agreed.
But she is IN CHARGE of the current "market caused by 12 years of really foolish tax and banking policies."
You would kind of think, maybe, she would know better?
And if some trailer park Nitwit gets a loan at a local (FDIC insured) bank to pay full price does that constitute a conflict of interest?
Is there any other kind of gentrification?
Since she has only been in charge of the FDIC for a few weeks, I think we can let her dither and screw around for a couple years before going after her.
The only way she makes money on that house is if there is so much inflation that she gets a decent price for it. I expect we will see inflation, but nothing that bad.
In any case, she seeks the highest possible return for her investment. Success is unlikely now, but I can't fault her for trying.
Actually she was sworn in over three years ago (you know, under that other guy)
You're right Larry, we don't want these "whiz kids." We only want mediocre people living in Amherst.
Yeah, not too mention all the folks we subsidize at the East Hadley Road apartment complexes or Amherst Housing Authority operations.
Meritless claptrap framed to appeal to the joe the plummer crowd. Is ignorance bliss b/c you don't seem very happy. The Kelleys: fighting a culture war since 1821.
"Yeah, not too mention all the folks we subsidize at the East Hadley Road apartment complexes or Amherst Housing Authority operations."
You mean the people who mow lawns, wash dishes, and do the grunt work for the more affluent? I gotcha.
Yeah, them.
And often their employer doesn't pay workman's compensation, FICA, or employee training, or any of those state, local and Federal taxes/permit fees that fund, you know, UMass for instance.
Every day, a new complaint.
What an unhappy man.
No, actually they have been relatively few (issue wise) and quite consistent these past 25 years or so. Nitwit.
"And often their employer doesn't pay workman's compensation, FICA, or employee training, or any of those state, local and Federal taxes/permit fees that fund, you know, UMass for instance."
Yes, and in that case it's their employers that are to blame not them. Anyway, that's just a stereotype. I know people that live there that clean rooms at our local hotels and they get paid above board. They just don't get paid a lot.
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