CRESCENT, Iowa (KMTV) — The State of Iowa announced this week that disaster-affected areas are being awarded grant money to help with housing needs. Crescent and Minden are among the communities receiving the grants.
- "I love it. There’s a huge need for it,” Realtor Clint Brunow said. “And it relaxes costs to people that need the housing. And it’s about time. We need it.”
- Crescent has little physical space to grow, so making it easier for neighbors to purchase homes in the new Golden Hills subdivision is important for maintaining the community's tax base.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
There’s a housing shortage, so why are there so many for sale signs in this subdivision?
I’m your southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter Katrina Markel in Crescent, and I’m here because this community recently received grant money to build a few more homes in this neighborhood.
So, what was it that was slowing their progress?
This year has been tough around Crescent, Iowa: the Arbor Day tornadoes, straight-line winds and floods; all at a time when housing inventory was already low in the Omaha metro area.
“There’s people out there that were impacted that their homes either – they don’t want to rebuild. Some people can’t rebuild,” said Realtor Clint Brunow.
He sells homes in the Golden Hills subdivision: a new neighborhood receiving state grant money to help with housing needs in disaster-affected communities. The announcement this week was welcome news.
“I love it. There’s a huge need for it,” Brunow said. “And it relaxes costs to people that need the housing. And it’s about time. We need it.”
Brunow says recent fluctuations in interest rates contributed to the slower housing market. Rates were historically low for many years, then raised by the Federal Reserve, which discouraged housing sales.
A sentiment echoed by Crescent Mayor Chuck Hildreth. He also told me over the phone, Golden Hills is important because the bedroom community has very little room to expand.
“We're landlocked unless we annex some property, we're pretty much out of space in the city limits to build a home,” Hildreth said.
And that means new residents in this subdivision are important to the city’s vitality.
The State of Iowa also gave grant money to a Minden developer to build 12 multi-family units as well as other disaster-affected communities.
