(Atlantic) The housing shortage and the need for development a high priority in the Atlantic area in 2021.
Melissa Ihnen of Meyer and Gross Real Estate in Atlantic is on that committee chaired by Bob Camblin. She says over the past two years, and the housing inventory declined gradually. For example, from September 2019 to September 2020, houses on the market declined 30.6 percent. In Cass County, from February 2020 to February 2021, new listings dropped 50-percent, while the average price rose 91-percent at the high. The medium price rose 46-percent. “We still have buyers,” said Ihnen. “We still have people looking and people wanting to come here. Where we run into trouble, is not having enough houses, and more people wanting to buy driving the prices higher.”
Ihnen many years ago, she remembers having an 8×11 sheet of paper plus another half-full of listings. As of last week, Meyer and Gross Real estate had only ten houses on the market without an offer. She says the lack of a housing development project is one factor causing the low inventory. This issue keeps the door locked on the so-called “circle” of selling and buying. “You have to have move up housing and once that starts people began moving up from a lower price range, and the circle begins. We haven’t seen that happen. Homes aren’t for sale for people wishing to move up the price range, so they stay in their current home, and it snowballs from there.”
Ihnen says Bob Camblin’s housing group is making progress. This month, the Atlantic City Council voted to participate in a rural housing assessment study program with matching funds. Iowa State University will conduct the assessment. “It’s going to take baby steps to lay a good foundation so we can develop a good plan, and hopefully find a landowner willing to sell, so we can get some things done,” said Ihnen.
The program provides funding for housing assessment data collection and allows the City to assess the current development environment and enact changes resulting in creating policies and procedures.
