Buffalo Rising Online

Now that is what I am talking about!

This is exactly what should happen. Growth of edge communities to expand and secure even more prosperous neighborhoods like EV, Midtown & Allentown. How many homes have been renovated with that 1.5 million dollars he is talking about? 20 - 10 - 50? I would also like to see a comparison of housing values for the whole neighborhood before and after this investment. I am willing to bet that the 1.5 million dollars has paid for itself at least once in the amount of value increase overall. If it hasn't then what has been the improvement? In 2 years will it have appreciated more? If I even had a list of these addresses I could pull some numbers out myself.

Plans and projects like this that secure neighborhoods in need by building on their strengths. Now what if another 9 million dollars now slated for demolition went to actually restoring ny in this fashion. Would it be too much too fast or would it actually give people who can't afford Elmwood prices an option and further the west side's recovery. I have a feeling that there is still a lot of demand for people who want to stay or move into the city if giving the right type of amenities. New homes, old homes, neighbors that care and contribute, proximity to a lifestyle they enjoy, closer commute to downtown to work, a price that allows them to own instead of renting etc etc.

Great work and I hope you can keep the momentum going until you hit waters (or the 190's) edge.

I have driving around this part of the West Side. This is one of the sections of the City that I am most interested in. (The other is the West Village - LWS). I think that some of these streets have a lot of character (hopefully not too many characters though).

This is a nice antidote to the slash and burn program otherwise found hiding under cutesy title "5 in 5."

LivingForge - No, both approaches are good and solve different problems.

The WSCC approach makes sense on strategically-selected blocks that aren't too far deteriorated. It doesn't diminish need to realistically deal with 1000s of houses too far gone. Mayor Brown deserves praise for 5 in 5. Even 5 in 5 will still leave over half of Buffalo's vacant houses standing. Extremists should be ashamed of themselves for advocating that 1000s of too-far-gone abandoned houses remain forever standing, rotting, creating blight and danger. There's nothing cutesy about the city clearing blight from devastated blocks and trying to avert tragedies such as happened to Mark Reed in a long-vacant house.

From an AP report yesterday: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080205/ny_abandoned_homes.html?.v=1

Buffalo Tackles Vacant, Abandoned Homes Tuesday February 5 By Carolyn Thompson, Associated Press Writer BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Mayor Byron Brown likes to tell people about the $4.3 billion worth of office space, condos and other projects the city has landed over the past two years, including the billion dollars' worth of construction under way right now. But he's also quick to talk about another big outlay - the $100 million he's spending to reduce 5,000 existing buildings to rubble. ... "We just don't have the people to fill all the houses," said Richard Tobe, Buffalo's economic development chief.

...the houses are easy targets for vandals in search of valuable copper piping and architectural adornments and they shave thousands of dollars off the value of occupied neighboring structures. Some become drug havens. In 2007, 215 were torched by arsonists.

In Buffalo's harsh climate, it doesn't take long for values to plummet. "The rough rule of thumb is if we've had a house that's been unheated for two winters and it's 100 years old or so and wood frame, it's almost impossible to save economically," Tobe said. "And the vast bulk of Buffalo's structures are wood frame and most of them are around 100 years old now, so once they're unheated and the water gets in, the deterioration is very, very fast." Brown last year announced a "5 in 5" plan with a goal of demolishing 5,000 vacant structures in five years. The city will put up $20 million of the $100 million cost, ask the state for $60 million and the federal government for $15 million. The rest will come from a unique city-community matching fund program, in which the city would match a goal of $2.5 million raised from community donations.

That funding piece was the idea of a firefighter's mother who spent 52 days at her son's hospital bed after he was critically hurt battling an arson in a vacant Buffalo house in June. Mark Reed, 36, suffered 20 fractures in his face, a fractured skull, seven broken ribs and a right leg damaged beyond saving when the chimney collapsed on top of him.

As Barbara Reed's emotions ran from shock to sadness, there came also anger that 120 Wende Street -- and so many other blighted homes -- were still standing. ... "I don't want any other mom or family to go through this," Reed said. "How senseless was it?"

The WSCC proactive approach sounds great and I wish it success and increased funding instead of frivolous pork projects. But it's obviously not a one-size-fits all solution.

That asking price is way off the mark. You could buy some big homes east of Richmond for that number. Still, the fact that the concerned folks in that area have the right idea about focusing their work nearer to stronger real estate values is encouraging, and they're working from their own plan not something the city cooked up. Atwater is right, this work and demolition are both necessary and in different doses depending on the neighborhood. Take a look at the full Yahoo AP article in Atwater's post. Seems the city leaders are starting to wake up to the recommendations of the Blueprint Buffalo vacant property report that has been on the fixBuffalo website for so long. But the first sentence drives me nuts. The mayor says that the $4.3 million in projects he likes to talk about were landed over the past 2 years. Please! Look at the list, much of it was planned and announced over 7 years ago. Amazing how the current administration needs to pump itself up and can't acknowledge the work of others before them.

At $195k, definitely a leap of faith for any potential buyer. The listing says this is the first of three bungalows to be renovated on the block (by this investor presumably?). So there is a load of potential on the street, if this sells, the next one would probably be priced higher. Looks like they're gutting the house and it will have a fairly maitenance free exterior. One bedroom+ with loft at 1100 sq.ft. On the bright side, cheaper than a suburban patio home or waterfront condo. :)

Sorry, it took me a while to respond to some of these questions I had some login trouble.

First Atwater- I agree that we do have a lot of properties that need to be demoed, I would just like to see more than just a demo strategy. We've knocked down a lot of houses so far on the East Side and it hasn't turned the area around yet (and by itself - it won't). There needs to be more options than demo - but yes demo is going to be necessary. On the West Side there are very few that we want to come down.

Second Sbrof - the $1.5 million (which is actually a low estimate) is comprised of:

- The three cottages (one pictured above) which are getting over $100,000 each which are 75, 79, and 83 Chenango. We have kept them boarded, evicted drug dealers, winterized them, and marketed them until we were able to find a good buyer for them. The owner is Jeff Ingersall. He's a local contractor who loves the City - he's one of the founders of the Central terminal Restoration Corporation. He and his wife plan on living in one of the three cottages.

- The warehouse complex (I believe it's 86 or 87 Chenango) pictured above which has certainly had over $100,000 put into it. The current owner uses it for his construction business and has been looking into building artist lofts on the second floor. He owns Apollo Construction and lives a few blocks away.

- 76 Chenango which is owned by the same individual as the warehouse. It has been vacant for over 10 years. He is in the process of completely rehabbing it. He put an expensive new roof on this year, has stripped all the vinyl siding off it, and is in the process of replacing all the windows.

- 85 Chenango which we helped transfer to a low-income single mom who was already renting in the neighborhood. We do actually want to keep a good economic balance on the street so we sought her out rather than selling them (it's actually a front and back property) to Jeff or another developer. She bought the two of them for $8,500 and she has already put on new roofs and is restoring the insides.

- 129 Chenango is PUSH's latest project. This property has also been vacant for a long time and was close to demo. PUSH's current budget for this project is $138,000.

- Prime 490 (corner of Rhode Island and Chenango) has spent several hundred thousand dollars completely redoing the inside of the property after purchasing it from Rosland's.

- I didn't include the recent investments made by Liz Kolken from Quaker Bonnet, or Mike Christiano on the employee lot he constructed behind Quaker Bonnet on Chenango, or the Habitat for Humanity remodel, or the $400,000 + that went into the Shea Carriage House on Chenango. Or of Mike and Tony Chistiano's rehab of 35 Chenango - another formerly vacant house that they now rent out to their employees.

Third John Martin - the whole West Side Community Collaborative project is still very much in process but the reason we are seeing all the investment is because we have shown that we can decrease crime, increase property values and homeownership. When we started you could buy a house on Essex for $2,000 and we had a Dominican drug gang and a prostitution ring working off the block. Another property sold for $6,500 and we bought 4 at one time for a total of $15,000. One of those recently sold for $65,000, then another one sold for $75,000 (both after being completely rehabbed). Then one across the street sold for $80,000. The next one to go up for sale could easily go for over $100,000. Yet there are still several owners on the street that paid around $30,000 for their properties.

Part of the reason so much investment is happening on Chenango is because they can leverage all the investment on Essex (and other surrounding streets) as well as each other's investments - the risk is much lower when you spread it out. We also wiped out the major crime in the area which was concentrated on the next block over (19th street) - we won a national award for this project.

I hope I answered your questions about how we protecting the neighborhood from gentrification (in addition to all this bigger investment on Chenango we have a habitat house, a PUSH house, and a new low-income owner who purchased for $8,500 right next to the $195,000 cottage - she'll be able to send her daughter to college with the equity she'll gain). But let me know if you have any more questions.

We've saved over a dozen properties from the demolition list (only a few of them on Chenango), planted a dozen community gardens, several parks, hundreds of trees, and we even bought a building and several lots and started up a community owned garden center that has become a huge hit. The atrocious schools you are talking about are seeing major turnarounds. Grover Gleveland is going to be 100% college prep and school 38 just received millions of dollars in renovations and has an amazing new principle.

Suffice it to say that Chenango, and the rest of the neighborhood, is coming back strong and we are doing most of it without any public funding (I believe the PUSH house will use some public funding). In fact the WSCC has no money - we are all volunteers and I'm an unpaid Executive Director. One of our goals is to show that you don't need to sink millions of dollars of public money into a neighborhood to bring it back - but yes another key goal is to demonstrate that vacant properties have more value to the neighborhood than vacant lots if you put the right strategy around them.

I understand the cynicism - but I'd ask you to imagine how many people told us that we were crazy when we started this project 5 years ago. If we would have let pessimism stop us that little chart up above would still be sloping downwards as it has for the past couple of decades, Chenango would have lost most of those 12 vacant properties, Essex would still be awful, there would be no new Garden Center, parks trees, or hope.

We will have safe vibrant neighborhoods from Main Street all the way to the waterfront within a few years (we are already half way there with property value increases). I'd like to think we can make major progress East of Main at the sane time.

Just something to think about.

Harvey

Harvey - Since it sounds you have in mind at least a few ('very few') addresses in your neighborhood which you think demo makes sense, have you considered sending a written list of those to Tobe and Comerford for consideration as part of the 1000 planned this year? You could also copy Rivera and/or Golombek and ask them to lobby for it as part of Council's oversight role. Making clear proactive suggestions might help improve decisions and lessen the number of 11th hour crisis. You could also ask if they'd meet with you and other neighborhood leaders periodically to get feedback about demo choices and criteria. Just a thought.

I agree with more funding for your group's rehab efforts compared with many public spending ideas I see (Hyatt hotel rehab, loans to new bars, restaurants, and beauty salons, etc., and many other projects I'm too polite to mention), but not with diverting funding from the demo program. Both rehab where feasible and demo where necessary are of high priority.

We actually work very closely with Tobe, Cummeford, and Rivera. PUSH and the WSCC worked together to remove several properties from the Mayor's 5 in 5 list and to prioritize around 20 that we thought needed to come down soon. Tobe has always been good about helping us pull things off the demo list when we have a viable plan.

Although most of the time we operate as if City Hall doesn't exist - we do this to encourage the neighbors to stop waiting for City Hall and to take ownership of their own neighborhoods. But, in most cases, when we need them the City is there for us. We make it easy for them to succeed rather than just complaining and setting them up to fail. The only department that we still have trouble with is the Real Estate Department and they are under a great deal of scrutiny right now.

Although it would be nice to see more neighborhood level strategy coming out of City Hall - the department level stuff works pretty well - far better than it did in the last administration. And when we do run into a problem we now have people we can escalate to.

Harvey

Oh, and to be clear - we aren't looking for public funding. I prefer to attract private investment in the way of homeowners - it's more sustainable and the momentum builds quickly.

Harvey

The property taxes on that 195K one bedroom bungalow are $4800 per year, that’s $400 per month. Lots of luck

Keep up the productive work Harvey. The house I purchased on W Ferry near S Putnam for $2,000 in 1997 sold for $25,000 then $54,000 in the last few years. The incease in value is tremendous and certainly outpaced the national real estate trends.

Cool. I have a steak dinner riding on it going for at least $150,000 that I'd really like to win.

Several commenters here who repeatedly claim City Hall is interested only in forcing demolitions and refuses to fund rehabs should read Harvey's comments a few times and let it sink in. He says his group does not want public funding, and he says the city govt is cooperating closely with his group to prevent demos when feasible:

Oh, and to be clear - we aren't looking for public funding. I prefer to attract private investment in the way of homeowners - it's more sustainable and the momentum builds quickly.

We actually work very closely with Tobe, Cummeford, and Rivera. PUSH and the WSCC worked together to remove several properties from the Mayor's 5 in 5 list and to prioritize around 20 that we thought needed to come down soon. Tobe has always been good about helping us pull things off the demo list when we have a viable plan.

You guys really don't get it. This has nothing to do with a $195,000 price tag on a house. The point is that real people are investing real money West of Richmond Ave. Property values are rising, home ownership is going up, vacancies are declining, crime is dropping - and hope is back. We've worked hard on all this - why all the ire?

And by the way - I'd recommend either Prime 490 or Left Bank for your Steak with a quick stop at the Essex Pub afterwards for a drink with the neighbors - I'm buying. There's usually a decent show at the Big Orbit Art Gallery too.

Harvey

Harvey, lets not pop the chapagne too soon, the lower west side has a long way to go, but is a cool neighborhod with potential

BetterThanDetroit - I'm not using a metaphor or formula. I used the real example of the selling prices of 463 West Ferry St since 1997- look at www.city-buffalo.com.

Gausted - we still have a long ways to go on Chenango. I still have several rough properties including a couple that are still boarded. The crime is gone on 19th but the properties are still pretty rough. I'm not saying we're done and it's time to hang back - I'm saying after 5 years of hard work we have some good stuff to show. I'm proud of what we've done - it's working and we need to keep at it.

At the same time I have to say that the number one challenge I've run into isn't City Hall, drug dealers, police response times, or vacant houses - it's pessimism. And in my opinion - it's the number one thing holding Buffalo back as well.

Harvey

Harvey, point well taken...it is sometimes difficult to stay optimistic in 29 degree freezing rain, dreariness, while looking at vacant houses and boarded up stores - knowing that we may never see a real turn around in our lifetime....sincerely -

I commend your valor and follow through.

Not being from Buffalo it took me a long time to respect the decades of decline that led to the mass depression here. I get it, and I respect what this town must have gone through - but I can honesty say from one personal experience after another that Buffalo is holding itself back by not expecting, and therefore not participating fully in, turning itself around now. And I say this knowing how hard everyone is working in their own way - while at the same time disempowering themselves from doing more by pointing out all the things that are holding them back.

Most of what we do on the West Side is empowering residents by showing them that by waiting for City Hall, complaining about graffiti rather than removing it, not re-boarding vacant houses, not planting their own trees and community gardens - that they are the problem and not City Hall, vacant houses, graffiti, and debris.

We don't wait for the City - we are the City.

HARVEYAGARRETT FOR MAYOR -

Harvey you are a true inspiration and I agree with you 100% There are too many times people in this community wait for someone else to make changes. I have often said on this site that everyone needs to be more proactive, including myself....it is the only way to succeed.

Hey - wait. We have bungalows for $25,000, Who is Platt4 and when do they want to see them?

Harvey

Let me take a stab at that, Wizard. I bought a house on Rhode Island Street 17 years ago. I was young and naive and I wasn't from the area and nobody told me to stay east of Richmond and west of Main Street. I also paid way too much for my house. But the realtor sold me on it because it was a solid house built in 1890, had a nice back yard and $300 of my $400 mortgage was going to be paid by the upstairs tenants. As my wife's and my income got higher, we ditched the upstairs tenants. We have probably spent $100,000 in improvements on our house in the past 17 years, all in cash. We have 3 years left on our mortgage and have never, ever had to scramble to make a mortgage payment. We take elaborate vacations twice a year.

So I will be 47 years old when my house is paid off and my property taxes are $600 a year. We live like people with a household income three times what we actually make. I have never had a problem with crime. 10 years ago, I wouldn't have invited any neighbors into our house and now we have like-minded friends too numerous to count, all living within 6 blocks of here, all west of Richmond.

It's not Harvey's money that's tied up on Chenango, so don't feel sorry for him. $195,000 is too much for that cottage, but that really is not the point. The point is that someone is taking the chance and thinking maybe it isn't. And that'll snowball.

Hey - now we have celebrity commenters. RhodeIslandBoy forgot to mention that he is the primary founder of the new Urban Roots Garden Center. I agree with everything that RIB is saying and I'd add that word of mouth is the primary marketing tool right now. Once you are living over here, especially if you picked up a place reasonably, you tell all your friends.

The culture on the West Side has also become a very hands on one that is very appealing to many. There is a great deal of satisfaction in being a part of bringing Buffalo back. And although we still have some nuisance crime, and (like Allentown and the Elmwood Village) we occasionally get our share of pass through crime - it really is a safe place to live.

Harvey

BTD - I have my share of people telling me that I shouldn't live in the City (I should live in Kenmore, Amherst, etc.. etc...). I have become more street smart since living in the City. Also I have left stuff in my car in North Buffalo 4 years back, long and behold, my car was broken into and stuff stolen. It's just about using your head and not being stupid and naive - it's not the comfortable 'burbs - but that's ok. For some reason, I enjoy being in the thick of the action. I guess I am a nutcase, a hardhead or the like - I take full responsibilty for that.

What does Grand Island or the 'burbs have that makes it so great compared to Buffalo? I think about this all the time. Buffalo has so much character in the houses and architecture that it is sad that it has deteriorated as much as it has.

BTD - we've moved most of the scarier stuff out of the neighborhood. (at least in the areas we've covered so far) It's far from perfect but it's also pretty far from what you are describing as well. 16th street used to be know as Crack Ally - now it's the hottest spot on Garden Walk and pretty close to 100% home ownership on the block between Connecticut and York.

It's not the suburbs - I spent most of my life in the suburbs and I know the difference. It's naive to think everything is safe in an urban environment - it's also naive to think that city living is just inherently dangerous. I was trained not to go "down town" when I grew up in a suburb of Grand Rapids Michigan. I bought my first house in the suburbs because everyone told me that the "City" was dangerous. When I moved to Buffalo I was told by all the corporate recruiters, the realtors, and my coworkers that I should buy something out in the suburbs because the "City" wasn't safe. These are self fulling prophecies.

It's not perfect yet - but it is improving rapidly. And it's improving because we are taking ownership of it. We will have safe, vibrant neighborhoods from Main Street all the way to the water - and it will happen because we weren't naive enough to think that we couldn't do it or that it was someone else's job.

Harvey

Wizard,

It's a combination:

Some of it is people moving back into the City from the Suburbs - we are seeing a lot of this.

We are also seeing people, like myself, moving here from out of state. On Essex I have a family that moved here from Austin Texas, someone from Tennessee (I think it was Tennessee), someone from Brooklyn, and another neighbor who moved here from some other state I can't remember where. All 4 are homeowners now on Essex (and Essex is only one block long). I also have a family on Massachusetts near Essex that moved here from Seattle Washington. Sometimes it's like I meet a new person every week in Buffalo that moved here from somewhere else. Our secret is out.

We are also helping convince area renters to become homeowners. You don't need to bring people in from the outside to revitalize a neighborhood. Sometimes you just need to show them that it's worth investing further in a neighborhood they are already living. We need to fix the renter vs. homeowner balance - too many renters on a block results in no one caring for the block.

We are also helping to convince existing neighbors to stay. It doesn't help if we gain 5 new neighbors and lose 6. On Essex everyone was trying to move out. One couple who owned three properties (lived in one and rented the other two) couldn't keep good tenants because of the Dominican drug gang and prostitution ring across the street. They were just about to sell when we worked with Housing Court to push the bad owner to sell - and then we cleaned up the properties. Not only did they not move out - they have since resided and painted all three properties, put new roofs on all three properties, put all new windows in all three properties, and put in a very expensive new driveway. We effectively broke the disinvestment cycle on Essex. Same with Chenango - and other streets.

The primary reason all this is working is because we have a block by block strategy that starts at Richmond and works Westward. At first no one would look past Richmond, then Essex was OK but Chenango was still too rough, now Chenango is OK and everyone is starting to look all the way up to the Garden Center - but it still looks a little questionable after that (which is where we are working now).

We just keep pushing that "don't buy back there" line further and further West. We only have a few more seriously blighted blocks to go and then we start hitting the really nice Prospect Hill / Columbus Parkway neighborhoods, D'Youville College's new Campus efforts, and the Waterfront. We need to stop the current Peace Bridge Expansion project because it will destroy one of the best neighborhoods on the West Side and replace it with a 45 acre truck plaza. We need solid streets al the way from Main to the river - after all this work we need to end up on a waterfront - not a truck plaza.

There is actually still a lot more to it than this. It's easier to take a tour of the neighborhood and see everything that is going on. It's very inspiring. Let me know if there is anything else I can answer. We have been far better at getting stuff done than getting the word out and our methods, as straightforward as they seam to me, don't appear to have been how the City has worked in the past.

Harvey

With more people like HarveyAGarrett all along the city would not be in the current hole it is in. If people were to stand up and fight for their neighborhoods in the first place the city would not be in the current hole it is in.

I've always wondered why everyone has always waited for someone else, usually politicians, to pull a magic wand out of their asses to "fix" everything. It's like asking a war general to win a war while his troops are climbing over each other to perpetually run to safety.

The only "mistake" of this article was putting in the "asking price". It was instant feed for the trolls to find something to crap on with. I knew it the second I read it and was not disappointed.

As for demolitions, I still feel the east side needs it. If Buffalo had a master plan for rehabilitaion of the west side with selective new builds plus new build of the near east side with selective rehabilitation we would all have something to believe in and focus on. A contracted Buffalo with an urban solid core and better utilization of services. With investment focused and gaining confidence from the other investmant around it. Let the wave of disinvestment continue to roll outward as those who scurried, continue to, leaving a nice buffer inbetween it and the rejuvinating city.

Thanks for showing us what can be done when people are willing to band togther and take the risk to perserve/create something they desire.

The efforts to revive the upper two blocks of Chenango demonstrate the destructive impact of flippers on distressed streets.

Notorious flipper Ray Osland (uncovered as he flipped on eBay with his partner, corrupt local realtor Colleen Sardella) purchased 89, 91 & 101 Chenago very cheaply. He then did extensive remodelling, never using any permits.

For example, he paid $10K for black mold-infested, 7 unit, 3 building 101 Chenango, later selling it for $60K to a downstate investor who owns nothing else in Bflo. It is not established that the mold was safely removed.

Osland also allegedly renovated the small rustic #89 & #91 cottages, similar to #83 two doors away that Ingersall is bravely restoring and attempting to sell for $194,500.

However, when Osland disappeared from Bflo, he "sold" the cottages for merely $8K & $10.5K to notorious "flipper / dumping agent for Investors" Adam White of Hamburg, who operates out of Mailboxes-R-Us in the Stuyvesant Shopping Plaza.

Ironically, White's PO box "office" is right next to the "office" of notorious downstate flipper Jesse Isaacs, now a wanted man, who has reportedly fled his more than $100K in fines & looming prison term, having moved to St Louis.

White promptly flipped 89 & 91 for $24K each on 11/8/06 to a regular customer, Dawn Walter of Leesburg Virginia.

Both cottages are vacant and boarded, apparently because they both require costly waterlines. Worse still they are both now in tax-foreclosure, up for auction in October. They owe $1200 & 1010, plus foreclosure fees of $442 each. That places them in boarded-up limbo for another year. Also, long derelict & open 99 Chenango needs demolition.

Osland had been portrayed as "hero of Chenango", as I was unable to learn why he would not sell the cheap cottages to WSNHS for $10K each. That would have enabled two first time buyers to live there with mortgage payments of well under $100 monthly.

Meanwhile, Adam White (DBA: White Holdings) purchased 364 14th, next door to new councilman Rivera, from HUD on 6/13/06 for $9588. He immediately flipped it to Walter's husband Stephen for $25000. Incredibly, the city has still not recorded that deed, as 2007 taxes of $628 are overdue.

Clearly, taking back neighborhoods requires tighter controls over housing flippers, scammers & criminals.

The efforts to revive the upper two blocks of Chenango demonstrate the destructive impact of flippers on distressed streets.

Notorious flipper Ray Osland (uncovered as he flipped on eBay with his partner, corrupt local realtor Colleen Sardella) purchased 89, 91 & 101 Chenago very cheaply. He then did extensive remodelling, never using any permits.

For example, he paid $10K for black mold-infested, 7 unit, 3 building 101 Chenango, later selling it for $60K to a downstate investor who owns nothing else in Bflo. It is not established that the mold was safely removed.

Osland also allegedly renovated the small rustic #89 & #91 cottages, similar to #83 two doors away that Ingersall is bravely restoring and attempting to sell for $194,500.

However, when Osland disappeared from Bflo, he "sold" the cottages for merely $8K & $10.5K to notorious "flipper / dumping agent for Investors" Adam White of Hamburg, who operates out of Mailboxes-R-Us in the Stuyvesant Shopping Plaza.

Ironically, White's PO box "office" is right next to the "office" of notorious downstate flipper Jesse Isaacs, now a wanted man, who has reportedly fled his more than $100K in fines & looming prison term, having moved to St Louis.

White promptly flipped 89 & 91 for $24K each on 11/8/06 to a regular customer, Dawn Walter of Leesburg Virginia.

Both cottages are vacant and boarded, apparently because they both require costly waterlines. Worse still they are both now in tax-foreclosure, up for auction in October. They owe $1200 & 1010, plus foreclosure fees of $442 each. That places them in boarded-up limbo for another year. Also, long derelict & open 99 Chenango needs demolition.

Osland had been portrayed as "hero of Chenango", as I was unable to learn why he would not sell the cheap cottages to WSNHS for $10K each. That would have enabled two first time buyers to live there with mortgage payments of well under $100 monthly.

Meanwhile, Adam White (DBA: White Holdings) purchased 364 14th, next door to new councilman Rivera, from HUD on 6/13/06 for $9588. He immediately flipped it to Walter's husband Stephen for $25000. Incredibly, the city has still not recorded that deed, as 2007 taxes of $628 are overdue.

Clearly, taking back neighborhoods requires tighter controls over housing flippers, scammers & criminals.

Mr Kern is way off on his assessment of Ray Osland's impact on Chenago. He was the first to invest in the 12 vacant properties on the street. He completely rehabbed three and then purchased two others that he started some pretty good rehab on. He lived in each of the first three before renting them out and he sold them at a loss when he left. He didn't flip a single property on Chenago and he started the investment that followed. He certainly wasn't the perfect investor because he wasn't local and didn't have ties to the area - but he deserves credit for picking up properties, investing money, and doing impressive work on vacant properties no one else wanted.

We prefer homeowners and local investors who will sell to homeowners - but it's unfair to beat Ray up for taking a risk on vacant properties. Dick doesn't like Ray because Ray threatened to file a restraining order against him for harassing his girl friend.

Harvey

Ray rehabbed a vacant property then lived there while he rehabbed the next. He did good work and had good tenants while he was there. He was part of the neighborhood, helped clean up vacant lots and maintain the other properties. This is personal between Dick and Ray. No need to believe me or Dick - the neighbors can confirm what happened on their own street. Dick lives in Minneapolis.

Harvey

I think I'm gonna buy the $195,000 cottage, repaint the front door a different color and flip the house on eBay for $350,000. This chain of events will then cause Dick Kern's head to explode.

PS. great overall discussion guys and gals