Trump Ends AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing)

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Trump Ends AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing)

Brad D.
San Diego, CA · Member since 2011 · 85 posts · 67 votes

There's been talk about this for a while:

https://www.businessinsider.co...

Then this today on twitter:

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

How will this affect investors/neighborhoods etc?

Good neighborhoods get better, bad ones get worse? Which specific cities/areas do you expect to be helped by this? Is this just a band-aid, even for good areas, against the coming housing crash?

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  • Steve Morris
    Real Estate Broker · Portland, OR · Member since 2019 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    6y

    Let's see existing laws don't seem to fix the "problem".  Hence what we need is more rules and more complex "tools" to fix the problem.  Oh yeah, and more govt employees to fix same problem.

    Sounds about right - Truly a govt solution to save us all.

    Ever since the CRA we've had anti-discrimination laws, how about just enforcing them instead of making more of them?

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  • Chris B.
    Chandler, AZ · Member since 2020 · 295 posts · 272 votes
    6y

    I am unfamiliar with the 2018 Obama addition.  I tried a google search and can only find references to the news of the removal of the rule but no details on the 92 grading questions and how it worked.

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  • Steve Morris
    Real Estate Broker · Portland, OR · Member since 2019 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    6y

    I think if you Google (NOT an endorsement of Google) AFFH pdf you can find something.

    What is mainly does (I'm not an expert) is add one more layer of "tools" to help govt determine if you're being truly "equitable" like

    1) Seeing if there are some unidentified barriers to lower-income applicants, then address the issue to fix it

    2) Look at things like what is/isn't considered qualifying income

    3) Making sure we don't put ALL affordable housing in the same neighborhoods.

    I don't think it impacts current owners as much as local govt that OKs construction and the builder/developers brave enough to try new construction.

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  • Brad D.
    OP
    San Diego, CA · Member since 2011 · 85 posts · 67 votes
    6y

    AFFH took the Fair Housing Laws a step further. 


    With the Fair Housing Act, you were innocent until proven guilty, and it usually applied to individuals. If you were alleged to be in violation of the laws, you would get sued by the Feds (like Trump and his father did in the 70's: https://www.politico.com/blogs...).

    With AFFH, they sought to add teeth to this, and go after cities, specifically nice suburbs, and it was really guilty until proven innocent. So cities would have to present a plan as to how they would 'affirmatively further fair housing' (bring in more low income housing). It was ill defined, and put a chill into suburban communities, as they could lose HUD funding if they didn't 'comply,' although the definition of compliance was ever established.

    Most importantly IMO, this should allow some freedom of choice. If city A wants to load up on low income housing because it's the 'right thing to do' and city B does not, for whatever reason, they don't have to. Then I get to decided which city I want to live in.

    The best way to build a nice society is to make sure people get to live under the consequences of the beliefs they profess. 

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