How to Purchase a City-Owned Property

by it is presented by theresa stevens who is our director of neighborhood development and outreach um as you may have just heard we are recording these workshops for viewing by those who cannot make it tonight or if you want to review the workshop you'll be able to go on our youtube dhcds youtube location and view the recording my name is eric lee i'm a neighborhood development officer with dhcd we also have with us tonight kelly bakula and daniel reynolds we're here to answer any questions that you have the presentation is going to be about 20 to 25 minutes and then question and answer will follow please type what questions you have into the chat and we will proceed to answer the questions accordingly teresa enjoys the open dialogue so at the end of her presentation we will probably uh unmute everyone as long as we can operate in a decent and orderly fashion and be able to answer questions and engage in good dialogue so with that i want to again present teresa stevens our director of neighborhood uh development and outreach and she will give her presentation thank you so much eric hello everyone thank you all for joining us i'm going to bring up a powerpoint presentation to uh just to discuss how to purchase city-owned properties okay hopefully everyone can see my screen everybody good you can see it okay all right so welcome so i'm excited to see so many people that are interested in purchasing city-owned properties and my name is teresa stevens i am the director of neighborhood development and outreach in the division of development with baltimore city's department of housing and community development this evening we're going to talk about how to purchase baltimore city owned properties photographs in these photos in this powerpoint presentation are true all of our properties are mainly most of our properties are in need of full gut renovation so as you decide about purchasing a vacant in the city of baltimore and we'll go through this in the presentation a very important piece is to understand the needs of the renovation and what those costs look like and this is actually a property that we did sell um the after photo i do not have but it is definitely much different than it looks in this photo so one of the challenges that the city of baltimore faced was a population decrease and it left the city with a high number of vacant and abandoned buildings throughout many of our neighborhoods one of the things that i like to share during this presentation is 75 to 80 of the city's vacant properties are privately owned so what we're going to discuss today are the city-owned properties that we have and the best way to use the resources from baltimore dhcd to purchase city-owned properties part of the vacancy value strategies include streamlining the process prior to vacants to value it actually took a little bit of close to almost two years to go from the application to settlement and since the vacants to value process we have reduced the time of the application from four to six months and i will give a little i guess uh caveat that with covid and courts closed or on delayed schedules we are probably hitting around 8 to 12 months at this time streamlining code enforcement facilitating investment in large black cluster areas targeted incentives that are provided to both the home buyer and in some cases the developers supporting large-scale development in distressed areas maintaining cleaning and holding and the green and healthy homes initiative are all part of the strategies of the vacants to value program so vacancy value is not specific to just the sale of city-owned property but the support of development projects and the encouragement of homeownership through the incentives so the development division and i'm really excited to have eric lee who is the master of the eastern area the northeast area kelly bakala who is the mistress or master master of the um northwest area neighborhoods like park heights and garrison um forest park etc and danielle reynolds with us tonight we actually and i call us the rose gold glasses team rose colored glasses team because one of the things that's necessary when you are considering purchasing these properties is to really be able to see beyond the current condition so some of the things that we do are we participate in the community meetings keeping them informed about city-owned properties in their area we approve and review site inspection requests uh we host workshops as we're doing tonight and actually this is the final workshop in a series about homeownership or about purchasing city-owned properties and we also prepare the inventory that you'll learn about today in this presentation the development division is broken into five different districts so we have a northwest area northeast area western area east area and southwest area and the best way to work with us is to work with the different neighborhood development officers these talented team members are in aware of where the development is happening in those communities where there's a need and can help you identify different parcels and areas um based on your needs and your budget for your project benefits of purchasing and um this is you know something that we probably could add more of the bullets that are here but definitely it's an opportunity to create a design or a home that you've always wanted to have you can also apply and receive tax incentives it helps to stabilize a neighborhood and i think the most popular reason is that it is a bargain but one of the things i will continue to say through this presentation this evening is please do not focus on the price of the property please understand that this is a project that needs to have a full plan and project and budget in order to make this this property become more productive and useful in the community so as you decide to purchase these are the things that we would like you to consider having through the process vision expert assistance and resources with the vision identifying the characteristics where do you want to be and for those that are on the call that are realtors or have been in the real estate investment um uh a real estate investment um world for a good while understand that location is everything and with the city-owned properties that we currently have most of our inventory is in areas that don't have strong home ownership or are looking for full black outcome to help stabilize the blocks so location is key size and zoning are also extremely important pieces as you put together your vision for the project are you looking to do multi-family is this a single family home that you plan to do for resale or for rental and does the current zoning on the property allow you to be able to do that expert assistance this is key and believe it or not is one of the pieces that we don't hear a lot about through the process or the project understanding that the renovation of some of the city's properties is specific baltimore city has a lot of historic homes laughing plaster oil heat radiator heat things that are if you're planning to keep that in your home would require a specialist and or someone that can explain to you how to take those things out of the home to replace them with new and upgraded materials it's very important to have a licensed contractor as a part of your team and participate in the site inspection so that you clearly understand what your budget is going to look like and what needs the property is going to have as you go through the renovation process and finally resources understanding what the property needs working with our baltimore city planning department and there was a very good workshop pre-development by eric tiso which is included on our youtube channel we did last week where you can actually sit with the planner meet with them talk to them about your project understand zoning before you actually begin to spend money and put your project together and knowing your community very very key piece communities are much different today and they want to know who's coming into the community what type of use you have planned and they'd like to become or have a relationship with the developers that are coming into the communities finally and most important is understanding your budget and making certain that the property that you are planning to purchase fits the budget that you have available for the project so our website is a great place to learn a lot of information about housing and the different agents the different aspects of our agency from our code enforcement activity to tracking properties that have been sold through vacants to value it's also a great place to understand our different home ownership incentives and learn about upcoming events so i'm hopeful that you guys were able to visit this website to register for this evening's event and we'll continue to visit our website for updates on transactions and activities happening in the development division how you find our properties the best way to search for city-owned properties is to use the baltimore city code map and there's actually a tutorial on our website to teach you how to look for properties using codemap additionally we do send out email announcements so i would encourage you if you have not subscribed to baltimore housing's email newsletter list that you do that this evening or sometime this week and additionally you can also look at the development map that is available on the site in addition to sales of city-owned properties both vacant land and vacant buildings our department manages the adopt-a-lot program which is a very popular program that allows persons to steward city-owned land for community green space gardens and pocket parks one thing that i do want to make certain that i highlight on this page is when you see a property that is not city owned and you'd like to know information ownership property history the maryland real estate database the maryland department of assessment and taxation has a really good database that will allow you to search by address to identify who the owners of those properties are and reach out to those folks so we are a marketing department slash sales and neighborhood development and we use social media as an opportunity to promote activities upcoming events and details that are happening in the department of housing and community development um so please find us on facebook twitter instagram and our youtube channel is very good to get uh workshops that we've covered in the past and things that are happening in the real estate market in baltimore city so the meat for today's presentation are there are currently five ways to purchase city-owned properties from fault from the city of baltimore the open bid process the bundle purchase opportunity side yard program expression of interest and request for proposal and as you can see by the median sales price this information was provided by the multiple list system baltimore city is still the most affordable in the region so it's still a great place to consider putting your development project or becoming a homeowner in the city of baltimore so the open bid process is our most popular properties are listed for sale we encourage the interested buyer to perform an inspection right of entry of those properties to get an estimate of what the budget is going to require to renovate and get this property into productive use once we receive the application we send a public announcement out indicating that we've received an application for the property we do not share who the applicant is or what their offer price is but this is an opportunity for anyone that is interested in competing in the bid to submit an application within that two-week window in the application details listed here are information that is critical that we have included in your application who's purchasing and i know this sounds really simple but one of the things that's really important in the beginning is understanding that the new when we transfer the property from mayor and city council to the new owner if you are becoming an llc if you are not sure if the partnership is going to create an entity that information is is important for us to know in the beginning portion of the application process do you own any other homes are those homes in good standing meaning they don't have any outstanding liens or debt on the property there don't have a vacant building notice how you plan to rehab this property where are your funds and what is your proposed use what's the plan those are things that we definitely would like to have included in your application here's a quick view and this actually is included in our website of the process the city ensures that the property is ready for sale when we sell the property to a new owner that property is transferred without any debt or any outstanding liens it is definitely a clear title with authority for the city to sell we encourage the applicant to go in with their contractor architect engineer team and get an idea of what needs to be done in this property before submitting an application so that when you submit your application you have a clear understanding of what the uh what the price for this project is going to cost once we receive the application which covid has been um a positive in this way there is not a 100 application fee um so you can apply online now for free that application is then forwarded to the neighborhood development officer who will contact you ask for any detail try to get some clarity about the application and prepare it to be transferred to a real estate transactions team once the application has been confirmed that it is complete there is a public announcement that goes out it's also posted on our website applications that we've received with the bidding deadline the bidding deadline i do want to say is not similar to ebay or who's got the highest bid it really is that the city is looking for a good package is this an experienced developer do they know what they'd like to do with the property and are the resources available to get this property into productive use are key the application is then forwarded to our real estate transactions team you will be assigned a real estate officer who will then become your new friend they investigate the entity that you are applying in they make certain that there are no outstanding debt or liens on any of the properties that are in your name or your individual or your company's name or affiliated with your company and then they render a preliminary application decision which in this case we are really going to hope is an award at that point you are going to be asked to provide a 10 deposit of the offer price that you've made to the city so if you've offered us ten thousand dollars for the property ten percent of that will be as asked of you before we begin to put together the contract which is called the land disposition agreement at that point it moves to a review committee and i actually call this group i got to come up with the better name i don't like devil's advocate but they actually really scrub the application they want to know is the community in support does this help the community grow in a positive way is this developer experienced do they have an experienced team is the resource available to make this thing happen it's the final scrub before we actually start to move to settlement and at that time the applicant should be prepared with a title company and estimated settlement fees so that we can transfer the property from mayor and city council to the new owner at that point we still become we're still involved in the sale so to speak we want to make certain that you are pulling permits and that the promise that the city of baltimore has made to the neighborhoods and the stakeholders in the community that we've identified a qualified developer are actually happening so you've purchased the property you've shown us your resources we're ready to see you start to pull permits and get some activity happening on the property these are just an overview after the award you'll have to have your title company review and sign the contract the 10 deposit once it's yours the city is giving 12 months to complete the job so from the date of settlement that's when the clock begins to count to hope that in 12 months this property now has a use and occupancy and it's either being occupied by a new owner a commercial homeowner or rental but it is no longer a blight to the area where it was once housed and you actually become the manager of the property so registering your property with the permits office and keeping in touch with us in case we can help through the process is what we'd like to do at that point bundle purchase is pretty much bundle purchase in the photograph that you see you'll see a grouping of houses below our grouping of lots it is our intention to create a full block outcome so we would not sell one property in the middle of that block of vacant properties we would be looking for a developer that has the capacity to purchase all of the city-owned vacant properties in the bundle benefits of this opportunity give you negotiating privilege so that 12 months to get the property into a used and occupancy state you could possibly negotiate with the city on changing that timeline or creating some type of a deal with the pricing for the properties because you're now purchasing a full bundle of properties the side yard program is another way to purchase city owned properties if your property is adjacent to a city owned vacant lot if that lot is 1500 square feet or less the homeowner that's adjacent is eligible to buy that lot for 500 yes people i said 500 it's one of the best deals that they have in the city the the fine print on this 500 is that you are not allowed to there's a restriction written where you are not allowed to build a building a livable space on that lot for 10 years but it does allow the adjacent homeowner or non-owner occupant or commercial owner to be able to create some additional green space possibly a parking pad and be able to use that space in a productive way for persons that are not homeowners that are living next to or if there's a landlord that has a vacant lot next to them that lot would sell for a thousand dollars if it was 1500 square feet or less anything above 1500 square feet or less is 33 per square foot for homeowners and 66 cents per square foot for non-owner occupants and i believe that the capacity on the side yard goes up to 3 000 square feet so in the early portion of the presentation i talked about the fact that the city of baltimore is not the owner of all of the vacant properties we deal with the fact that there are a high number of privately owned and abandoned vacants we work with our baltimore city department of code enforcement to encourage these vacant property owners to do something with their property initially it's a letter it's a call it's it's possibly an email in this virtual world that says hey we really want to solidify this community this property has been vacant for a long period of time and it's becoming a nuisance following that letter there's a 900 citation that goes to the property owner hopefully that will get their attention and they will decide hey i need to do something with this property it is vacant it's possibly causing damage to an adjacent owner and i really need to either sell it renovate it or do something with the property because it is a blight that first 900 citation is then followed over probably a 10 to 12 month period by two additional 900 citations it's not the intention of the city to have anyone lose their investment but it is the intention of the city to reduce the amount of blight that we have in some of our blocks so once those properties have gone through that process and there has been no attention put on what happens to this vacant property it goes into receivership and the city petition has appointed a third party which is one house at a time onehousebaltimore.org is their website as the receiver for the city of baltimore for only vacant buildings so if you are looking for possibly to purchase properties through that aren't on our list that are privately owned i would encourage you to check out onehousebaltimore.org to see what type of properties they have currently listed the next auction is scheduled for tuesday august the 10th and the bidding deadline or the opportunity to participate in the auction closes on tuesday august the 3rd ohat applications require financial ability business experience and good standing as a property owner in baltimore city so they too are trying to make certain that the properties are getting into an experienced hand or developer that has experience with the city evolved with renovating properties in the city coupled with in vacants to value our incentive programs so vacancy value booster grant is one of our popular grants this is actually a soft second mortgage that goes with the fha loan for the home buyer and it is reduced 20 over a five year period so if the homeowner remains in the house for five years they do not have to pay that ten thousand dollars back for investors that are on this call this is a great way to market your property it has an incentive ten thousand dollars off of your sales price is a really nice plug to be able to market to new home buyers that are coming into baltimore city additionally baltimore city the live baltimore organization offers the buying into baltimore grant which is five thousand dollars and those activities happen in may and i think there's one coming up in september and then there's the baltimore city homeownership program for city employees live near your work is a really popular program as well johns hopkins some of our biggest stakeholders university of maryland grace hospital in the poppleton area are all participants in the live near work program and you can visit our website to see the list of living your work and participants for home buyers that are on the call participating in tonight's workshop i would strongly consid ask you to consider using hud's 203k program this program allows you to purchase and fix the property all in one loan there are also mechanisms in this program that will protect you from a contractor that may not be as knowledgeable about the right way to do things so before those contractors are paid there are inspections where they come out make certain that the windows have been put in correctly the doors the floors the roof etc and they helped to manage the development project for the home buyer i try to talk most folks out of purchasing city owned properties because it's definitely it looks easy on tv a lot of the diy shows have made renovation look like it's you know just like that you know i can do this property but this 203k program is a program that i would strongly encourage folks that are purchasing for their own homes primary residents to consider doing if they're planning to purchase a vacant property in baltimore city another way to purchase through the city and this actually is currently active right now is our expression of interest and the dhcd uses this expression of interest to gauge interest in some of our larger properties currently we have 13 sites seven of which are former school sites locker man bundy is actually coming up tomorrow as a site inspection but the expression of interest is a way for entities or individuals to express to the city that they have an interest and experience and they're ready to take on something that's a little bit larger than our individual row home i wanted to give some inclusion because we do have site inspections scheduled for tomorrow 1101 winston where you can actually meet eric lee he'll be there tomorrow at 2 p.m and 301 north polanski you can meet robina yelly and my zoom is covering that time from 11 to 2 so if you i'm sorry it's not from 11 it is from 11 to 2. so if you are interested in either or any of these properties or would like to talk a little bit more about how you could apply for some of these larger properties please reach out to us at dhcd.eoi baltimorecity.gov once we receive the responses from our expression of interest it helps us to create a formal request for proposal where we are actually looking for development teams and financial resources with a proven track record to purchase some of our larger properties the photographs are listed in this were properties included in our fall 2020 rfp we have made a number of awards with these properties and some are still in discussion but we were really excited to get some strong interest in the properties that you see listed here i wanted to put a couple extra properties in here so i could give a shout out to robin a yelly 306 north fulton in the franklin square neighborhood uh 2125 i can't see this site let's see if i can move this i don't care not okay 2145 division 3313 garrison kelly bakala is on the call tonight um typically if we were in a room i would give all of you guys rose-colored glasses so you guys could join the team and be able to see the potential of some of these great properties but we are really looking forward to working with you and appreciate your participation in tonight's call our office is located at 417 east fayette street we are open from 8 30 a.m till 4 30 p.m unfortunately because of covid our offices are still closed but we are still working 8 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m and you can reach us either via the website contact the neighborhood development officer and just identify the neighborhood that you're looking at or you can reach out to us at v2vinfo baltimorecity.gov so really appreciate your time and i'm looking forward to any questions or comments that you may have thank you teresa and and again thank you everyone for participating in this workshop um kelly uh was answering most of the questions as they were coming through in the chat let me unmute kelly just one minute all right okay so i have a list of all the questions theresa if you want to just go over them i did answer some of them but i think you can probably add insight to most if you want we can address the ones if you you know any that you think we might need to touch base on but we don't have to go through all of them if you've been able to answer those sure not a problem okay so um just some questions that i think would be good for you to mention um the first two questions we got were about um how we decide which neighborhoods of the city will be vacants to value and can neighbors neighborhoods submit blocks to be considered for vacants to value so i thought you might want to explain the difference i think that i'm hearing that we don't select a particular vacance to value neighborhood the city of baltimore vacant value program is geared toward any city-owned property um available for sale throughout all of the 280 plus neighborhoods in baltimore i think that that may have addressed the question i'm not sure i wish i could see it on that in writing or if someone could answer ask i think you're good um there were also a few questions about the submission of the application so i'll just read them real quick it's two or three and i think you can answer within one question but are architectural drawings required when you submit an application and how what level of financial commitment needs to be uh submitted for the application and if so will you help will you assist developers with finding available funding for a project [Music] so with the architectural drawings it is not our recommendation that you uh unless it's a request for proposal let me let me put that as a come back to point um but for the architectural drawings we do not require that they come in with the application but it is important that your estimate and your inspection of the property include real numbers so that you as well as the city understand that this renovation project is going to take us a hundred thousand dollars to do so the level of financial commitment that would need to be seen at that time would be a hundred thousand dollars possibly i would say 120 just as a having a contingency in case of things that you didn't know about the property um and then um the only other thing uh we had a few ques questions about the difference between receivership and our program um and one of the questions uh was does the 900 citation process occur on every private vacant or those only in particular areas and then how does the property get targeted for receivership that's a great question um and and before i go just making a note for that um what i do want to talk about before i move to this question i should have added here is we the city of baltimore does work closely with baltimore community lending they actually are scheduled to do a workshop next month with us online through our baltimore builds workshop and they work with developers in areas where it may be difficult to get an appraisal and they understand working in neighborhoods where there's high number of vacant properties so i do want to add that in reference to the 900 citation typically that is something that the neighborhood development officer the neighborhood planner and the code enforcement officer work together to identify so if there's a block where there's activity permits are being pulled and there's six vacant properties on that block that are privately owned that block becomes a block that's targeted for code enforcement assistance and to try to get a full block development project and then uh did you just were you just giving information about the baltimore community lending workshop is that what you just answered i did yes and um eric may have that date um we also just finally um people are asking about a possibility of purchasing a bundle of properties is there a way to identify bundles of properties that we have for sale for example a whole block or something like that most of the bundles that we have um identified are currently there are two vacant lot bundles um that are included in the expression of interest the 500 block of north mount street in harlem park and the 2100 block of chester and castle in the clifton park area working with the neighborhood development officer is the best way to identify sites where there is possible bundle purchase but also understanding that that bundle purchase has to have a plan for the development of those vacant buildings or vacant lots but in most cases if it's larger than three if it's i would say three or more it would probably be something that would fit our expression of interest or or request for proposals and those are basically the gist of the questions um we did just get one more question about walking through our interactive v to v map and i'll just mention that we do have on our youtube page a couple of tutorials about how to use that map um as well as when you go to the map a prompt pops up immediately that helps you to guide you through the map as well um i do see something any suggestions if you reached out to a private owner and have not received the response sorry i was just going to read you that one this would definitely be a question for one of our code enforcement attorneys to possibly give you some help but this is also where the neighborhood development officer can be of assistance in that case as well can you repeat the harlem park bundle so the harlem park bundle is the 500 block of north mount street if you are if you go to our expression of interest site um let's see if we have it here it's currently on the screen um [Music] it is not because it is not a site inspection it is a vacant building i mean a vacant lot sorry so it's not actually a need for a site inspection but the 500 block of north mount street includes i think uh 10 vacant lots and it's located in the neighborhood of harlem park howard tutman is the point of contact for the harlem park neighborhood and would be a really good resource to help you navigate that area and availability thank you kelly i said that and the link is now in the chat um um janet asks uh what is a community development zone i'm not sure what she means by community development zone um maybe the cluster community develop we did reference the community development cluster um so the goal is to try to stabilize blocks and in some cases creating a development site or a cluster of area for a developer that has that capacity is what we would like to do to try to get a full black outcome or even help to support those smaller blocks that have one or two properties that are vacant but there's a developer that's qualified to do all of those city-owned lives i hope that that helps i think so yeah she did say that the area is outlined in blue on code map which are the clusters so yes that's that is uh i think a good answer um and then jermaine asked uh if i plan to purchase a property with cash and then use a construction loan for the construction would i just need the pre-approval for the construction loan for the application yes i'm having trouble also having trouble connecting with community association leaders is there an agency or the planners are absolutely a really good resource there is the mayor's office of neighborhoods that should be able to provide you with the contact additionally i would suggest that you reach out to the city council representative or the delegate for that district um as they may be able to help you with an introduction to community association leaders all right this was great i hope everyone um has been able to get some of their questions addressed i really look forward to talking with with you guys if you're looking to purchase city-owned properties and we welcome you um we've been doing this um we're entering into year number 14 i believe 13 and it's really exciting to see some of the neighborhoods where we started no longer have city-owned vacants and one of the issues that we need to focus on now is how we address or or deal with those privately owned vacants that have been an issue or causing blight in communities so i'm going to turn it back over to you eric thank you all so much again we want to thank you for participating um i did put in the chat that um we're having a workshop with the baltimore community lending is tentatively scheduled for july 28th uh it would be if you go to our dhcd website and uh look at events that's where you would register for the workshops um but again it's tentative we are confirming that this week we want to thank obviously our staff everyone who was from dacd that was on this call tonight and of course you all the participants who are committed to improving the quality of life in baltimore if you have any questions whatsoever please reach out to any one of the neighborhood development officers um and we'd be happy to help you particularly those who need some help with cold map we can help you with understanding the legends uh peter did say earlier peter subbanus did ask if we can clarify between uh properties that are city owned by dhcp and those that are owned by habc which are housing authority of baltimore city on the cold map houses that are owned by properties owned by habc are shaded brown and the properties owned by the city are shaded green so um if you need some help with understanding how to use the codemap please reach out to us thank you very much everyone and have a great evening have a good evening everyone thank you this is awesome i'm also putting a link in the chat to the planners um so you can click on that and get information for what planner is in the area that you're interested in and also just real quick um we do have people who speak spanish in the office so if you are a spanish speaker or feel more comfortable speaking spanish we do have spanish speakers in the office and the city also has a service to help communicate with any language so if you are interested in contacting us please let us know and we'll set that up so that we can speak to you in hopefully any language necessary um we'll definitely work our best to do that all right good night everyone thank you great job eric and teresa thank you i'm gonna try to copy the check because i don't think we will keep it if we close this out i think i put all the questions in my email but as we started asking the questions i stopped so um about half of them probably aren't in my email wow you've been busy there were some really good questions that's great there were yeah oh let me put the youtube link in the chat too real quick recently we had 70 participants at our highest all right how can i look at the video on youtube i'm sending the um youtube link to our dhcd when do they usually get posted to youtube the next day or i would comfortably say probably friday by friday okay well the link is going in the chat now it's a good workshop teresa great thank you all right well i'll see all you fun folks tomorrow audio take care take care everyone okay

Channel: Baltimore City DHCD

Views: 7,982

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Id: N8Zp4TBuYWI

Length: 46min 26sec (2786 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2021