KENDALLVILLE — Could Noble County support absorb more than 1,100 new homes? Could those homes go for $350,000 or higher? Could Noble County reverse its declining population?
Yes, yes and yes, said Heather Presley-Cohen, president and CEO of the Housing Resource Hub in her opening presentation to the Noble County Housing Symposium on Friday.
Is there potential to grow and grow a lot? Absolutely, but getting there is going to take more than just kicking back and waiting for builders to build, Presley-Cohen stressed. To capture that growth, community leaders need to be forming a plan and working collaboratively with developers, builders and lenders to see it through.
Friday’s meeting at the Community Learning Center auditorium was to lay down the foundation and start revving up those conversations in the communities that are serious about spurring new residential development.
“This is not about studying housing. It’s about developing a strategy for moving forward,” she said.
“When you have public officials involved and engaged in a housing strategy, I call that swagger,” Presley-Cohen said. “We have the right people in the room and we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do next.”
But, to get where communities want to be, they first have to understand where they are now, so the Housing Resource Hub commissioned the study through Zimmerman/Volk Associates, a nationally recognized firm that has done that type of work in numerous major metros as well rural communities across the country.
Baseline — an estimated 20,890 households are looking for housing per year in the 10-county northeast Indiana region, not including Allen County. For Noble County specifically, the share is about 2,295 people looking to buy or rent.
So, who are those people? An estimated 44.4% of those potential buyers are already living in Noble County. Another 26.8% is coming from regional buyers in neighboring counties, 11.1% looking to relocate from Allen County and 17.7% from anywhere else in the state or U.S.
Demographically, those buyers break down about 43% being families, 33% being younger singles or couples and 24% who are empty-nesters or retirees. That means about three-quarters of potential buyers are Millennials, people who already have kids or could start families in the future.
Just over half are looking for a single-family home, 53%, while rental demand makes up about 36% and the remainder would like a condo or townhouse.
Noble County’s median household income is just a shade shy of $60,000. To create “affordable housing,” for people who are earning 60% of that income would mean having rentals in the $800-$1,500 per month range and homes in the $175,000 to $230,000 price point.
For the homes, that’s not realistic in the current market, unfortunately.
“Building a house for $175,000 hasn’t been around for a few years,” she said.
For market-rate homes, however, for people who are earning above the low-income standard of 60% of the median, the study shows the county could support single-family homes prices $325,000 to $425,000.
Is that affordable for people in Noble County earning $60,000 per year, though? Can the average household get into a house at that higher price point?
No, Pressley-Cohen said, but also, yes.
A first-time buyer earning a median income doesn’t haven’t the financial firepower to buy a $325,000 house. But Presley-Cohen pointed back to the stat that 44.4% of buyers are already living in Noble County and a share of those are already homeowners.
So while developers can’t feasibly build new construction that would be “affordable,” affordable housing is created when more established households move into the higher price point and free up their older home, she said.
Across Noble County, the average value of existing home stock is around $150,000 to $160,000 depending on community and that falls right in the range of what even people on the low-end of the median incomes can potentially afford.
“About 44.4% are going to be leaving a house that’s very affordable,” Presley-Cohen said, whether that’s a family using the equity from their first home to move up to something newer, bigger or better or from those empty-nesters/retirees downsizing to something that’s less maintenance. “All of the sudden we start freeing up extremely affordable housing opportunities.”
So what’s the true pent up potential? If you build it, how many will come?
A lot, Presley-Cohen said, citing the study that showed Noble County could probably absorb 1,130 to 1,526 new homes over the next five years and not outpace demand.
In 2022, the entire county had just 96 new single-family residential permits pulled, suggesting the county could take on much more housing if it was built.
How to get there? The next steps involve the communities working actively to identify a spot they’d like to develop, working with developers to “de-risk” the area and complete due diligence to ensure the area is feasible and potentially profitable, and then line up capital whether that’s all private or some mix of private and public investment.
The presentation gave examples of how a new large residential development coming to Topeka came to fruition and how agencies lined up to plan for a new apartment complex and townhouse row in LaGrange at the corner of S.R. 9 and U.S. 20.
Presley-Cohen stressed that communities have to be active and the Housing Resource Hub was there to help start bringing all of the groups together to make it happen.
“We’ve got a lot of work today and that’s why this is just the beginning,” she said.
Friday’s housing symposium also included a panel discussion with community leaders, a discussion and debrief of issues and opportunities, and an informational session on how to take action.
“Housing is widely recognized as the biggest barrier to growing our population and workforce,” Be Noble Inc. Executive Director Melanie Kellogg said in a release following Friday’s event. “Unlike our neighbors, Noble is experience a clear population decline. This symposium is a critical step in identifying what the market wants and what barriers we face in attracting developers to build it."