A Belknap County commissioner is hoping to use federal pandemic relief money awarded for infrastructure improvements as the “local” match for a $1 million grant from the federal government to improve the former Laconia State School property.
Belknap County received $5.8 million through the American Rescue Plan, and Commission Chair Peter Spanos told the Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission that, if federal guidelines allow, he would like to use $1 million of it to secure another $1 million in federal money channeled through the Northern Borders Commission to fund the initial phases of the redevelopment project.
The Lakeshore Redevelopment Planning Commission has been laying the groundwork for the conversion of the 250-acre property to multi-use development and has tentative approval for the federal grant, provided that it meets the match by September 30.
Home Prices Soar, Lumber Gets Cheaper
Two new reports show that home prices reached an annual gain of 14.6 percent in April — up from a 13.3 percent increase in March — while lumber prices fell more than 40 percent in June, for the greatest drop since records began in 1978.
Craig Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said, “The 14.6 percent gain [in housing prices] in the National Composite is literally the highest reading in more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data.”
Five cities — Charlotte, North Carolina, Cleveland, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, Denver, Colorado, and Seattle, Washington — had their largest annual gains ever, according to the report from CNBC. Prices have been rising for the last 11 months, as buyer demand continues to outstrip the housing supply.
Selma Hepp, deputy chief economist at CoreLogic, said, “Although home price growth is reaching new highs, the risk of price declines has fallen far below pre-pandemic and summer 2006 levels, when homes prices last peaked. This is likely because favorable mortgage rates and income growth continue to keep the ratio of mortgage payments to monthly household income much lower today.”
Meanwhile, lumber prices are down more than 18 percent this year, and are headed for the first negative first half since 2015. Yet, at their peak on May 7, lumber prices had hit an all-time high of $1,670.50 per thousand board feet.
CNBC quotes Brad McMillan, chief information officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, as saying, “This drop suggests that the cause of that inflation — the mismatch of supply and demand — will not last forever. As suppliers across industries get their acts together, those shortages will fade, along with the inflation. That looks to be happening for lumber now and will happen for other inputs later.”
With the soaring home prices, the housing market experienced a record shortage of existing homes this year. In April, one-quarter of the homes for sale were newly built, Historically, new homes make up about 10 percent of the housing supply.
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