“Real Estate Solutions: Best Practices for Today’s Housing Market”-a daylong conference to help community leaders throughout Georgia return to the tax rolls, foreclosed and vacant homes, unfinished subdivisions and abandoned developments-will be held Dec. 17, at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel.
“Few communities in Georgia have been spared from the housing crisis,” said Anne Sweaney, chair of the department of housing and consumer economics and director of the Housing and Demographics Research Center in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “Most communities have large numbers of unsold, unoccupied houses, and many have one or more partially developed subdivisions with vacant lots and vacant homes.
“In planning this conference, we have found some excellent strategies to deal with these challenges,” she added. “Vacant homes and vacant lots take a toll on property tax revenue and can result in blight. Many communities, though they would not have chosen the crisis, are making it work for them.”
Among the speakers at the conference will be Dan Immergluck, associate professor of city and regional planning at Georgia Tech. He has conducted extensive research in housing and mortgage market finance; subprime lending, foreclosures and their community impacts; community reinvestment and fair lending; and the impacts of tax increment financing and related policies.
The conference also will include talks by Patricia Hoban-Moore, deputy regional director of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development department, and Shirley Sherrod, state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They will each provide their perspectives on housing issues following a video presentation by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Several speakers from Georgia will discuss how they are restoring properties to the tax rolls in their communities such as the city of Fitzgerald, which has taken advantage of the reduced price of foreclosed properties to improve housing affordability.
The $55 registration for the conference can be made by phone,(706) 542-2134, or online, http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/conferences/2009/Dec/17/housing.phtml.