A lot of folks are going to be happy that $1400 is going to appear in their bank accounts from Ol’ Uncle Sam in a minute. That is if your adjusted gross income is below $75,000 or if you’re married, under $150,000 to get $2800. The payments are based on your 2019 or 2020 income depending on when you filed your 2020 tax return. Good news is that IF you OWE taxes, they won’t be taken out of the stimulus check if you qualify for that $1400 windfall. The stimulus package that Biden just signed also extended unemployment benefits for those who qualify until Sept. 6th, 2021 to the tune of $300 a week from the Feds which will be added on top of any Utah state unemployment benefits. The best thing about this new relief package is that people who got benefits in 2020 will not be taxes on that income under $10,200. Believe it or not, unemployment benefits are generally taxing during non-pandemic years.

Locally, the Utah State Legislature just ended it’s 45 day session and tried to make a dent in our housing crisis within our state borders. First, there’s going to be a designated housing/homelessness ‘Tzar’ with HB347, which will fund the one person standing on the top of the mountain to oversee homeless and low income projects and programs. They will oversee a new ‘Office of Homeless Services within the Department of Workforce Services’ and sit on the newly formed Utah Homelessness Council with state officials, members of the legislature, mayors, members of the public, service providers and religious leaders. There is also a huge amount of state funds going to preserving what little affordable housing units we have here. Simply stated, when an apartment building gets old and ratty, the owner(s) might sell to a flipper and the property torn down and replaced with higher priced housing. This bill will help rehab older buildings to keep them for affordable housing units.  Another related bill (finally!) that pass is SB164 which required the State to conduct an inventory of surplus property owned by the state, throughout the state, to see if any of it can be used/converted to affordable housing. That one is a bid ‘DUH!’ I’ve been waiting to see for years!

The other bill I supported and even wrote in to support was HB82. We’re down almost 50,000 affordable housing units in this State and one of the answers to this crisis is allowing people to build ADU’s (accessory dwelling units) on their property. Basically, standardizing the myriad of city to city/county to county rules to allow for more of these to exist. Parents want to modify the ‘shack in the back’ to let Grandma live there or the kids while they are going to college. It’s hell for property owners in many cases to get these simple dwellings approved and hopefully this bill will make it easier to do so in the future to help make a dent in affordable housing options in Utah.

Since I was born in New York, I’m a native New Yorker! Although I’ve lived in Utah most of my life, I still love traveling back to the Big Apple to see friends and family, the latest show on Broadway or a museum and of course track down a dirty water dog or a chewy bagel dog. I’ll hope in a Yellow Cab to travel but I’m also a fan of the subway system. The subway experience is always a visual overload, from the characters riding along with me to the public art along the tracks and inside the cars.

When I was a Board member for UTA I asked why we didn’t have public art on our buses, trains and TRAX and my fellow Board members just looked back at me like deer in my headlights. The staff got it, and a few years after my term UTA has announced a friendly competition to get students from K-12 to make art to beautify our public transportation. UTA’s first My BeUTAHful Community Student Art Competition is now under way and UTA is asking kids to submit visual artwork based on the theme “Meet Your Neighbor”.  Participants will have the opportunity to self-express through public art that will be visible throughout the entire public transportation system along the Wasatch Front and it will give riders and the communities they serve to opportunity to see the rich talent we have in our tri-city area.

If you have a child or sibling who might be in the age range and interested in having their art work seen in this ‘moving museum’, the deadline is March 16^th. Entries are encouraged to highlight the beauty and diversity of Utah’s communities and people. Pieces will be judged in four age categories: kindergarten-second grade, third to sixth grade, seventh to ninth grade and tenth through twelfth grade. The winning artwork will be displayed on UTA buses and trains for a year starting this April. Winners get at $50 gift card and the overall ‘Best of Show’ winner will get a $100 gift card, as well as the opportunity for that artist’s friends, family and the community to see their creation displayed prominently where public transportation is happening. All participants will also be entered to win a drawing for a one-day UTA family pass, although I personally think ALL participants should get a one day pass just for entering! Seriously, this is not just fun for aspiring young artists it’s a way for us to appreciate the diverse talents we have in our community. UTA will accept 2-D artwork made with paint, pencils, colored pencils, markers, digital programs, pastel’s and ink. Each entry has to have the theme of “Meet Your Neighbor” creatively displayed in the piece but doesn’t have to include any rendering of public transportation on it. For entry info: www.rideutah.com/art or drop submissions off at UTA, c/o Megan Waters: 669 W. 200 So. SLC

You’d have to live on the dark side of the moon if you haven’t heard of Ivory Homes. The developer has been building homes in this state for 30+ consecutive years, with 20,000+ homes built and sold, 70+ communities established, 100+ different home designs and 45+ model homes to choose from. The CEO, Clark Ivory has been obsessed with trying to figure out how to get affordable housing into the mix of options for Utah’s homebuyers. He’s certainly not alone because politicians, bankers, business leaders, developers big and small statewide are trying to figure out this damnable housing problem.

As we know, this state is undergoing unpreceded growth with more people moving here than leaving, and all needing a place to live that they can afford. Sadly, Ivory and his minions have come head to head with local communities in trying to increase density where traditional zoning laws make it nearly impossible to building nothing more than single family homes on large lots. We aren’t building any more land, and the future is grim for homebuyers if we don’t start revamping how many dwellings can go on one lot. Ivory is attempting to bring more housing options into our future, with plans for homes with ADU’s (accessory dwelling units), and homes on smaller lots in some subdivisions where allowed.

Ivory Homes is offering “Workforce Housing” for owner occupied homes (not rentals) to first time homebuyers, first responders, teachers, veterans and military, nurses, construction workers, police officers and public employees. Rules to qualify for Ivory’s special affordable housing are simple: use their preferred lender and you can’t use your own REALTOR because they don’t offer any commission to your agent. You of course can pay for your own representation.

The Salt Lake Board of REALTORS is currently offering a limited number of $5000 grants to single parents who are first time homebuyers and the deadline for applications is April 23^rd. Applicants can contact gavin@slrealtors.com for more information. Other assistance can be found through the Utah Housing Corp. which offers mortgage loans around the state to qualified first time homebuyers

New year, new president, and vice president. I cannot imagine stepping into such leadership in such times as these that are so challenging for all of us. Sure, there’s a horrible pandemic and we need to cure it or get it under control, but there’s a HUGE economic problem facing us because of the effects of the virus. Hundreds of thousands of businesses have closed in the past year from coast to coast and it’s expected that numbers will be grim this year for people filing bankruptcy.

Let’s step back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the 44^th President of the United States. The country had almost collapsed under the bank fraud recession that had boiled up the previous year and he had to basically rescue us from going bankrupt as a country. Working both sides of the aisle he got the biggest economic stimulus package passed and signed (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) this country had ever seen a month after he took office. By the time he left office eight years later the U.S. economy had gained 11.6 million jobs and home prices rose 20% (but the home ownership rate hit the lowest point in half a century).

So many people lost their homes during the aftermath of the Great Recession and those of us full time REALTORS became experts in short sales. In real estate a short sale is when a homeowner who’s behind in payments and facing foreclosure sells their home for less than the amount they owe on their mortgage, with the bank’s permission.  It was a total nightmare for us professionals as well as homeowners in financial distress because there was no guarantee you’d ever be able to speak to someone at the bank holding the note on the home. And when you did track a representative down, they’d be gone a week later. It became almost a science for us to get a homeowner through the process before the sheriff came knocking at their door demanding they leave because the bank had taken back the home in the formal foreclosure process. REALTORS specializing in short sales were worth their weight in gold!

There was a bad after effect once a homeowner completed a successful short sale of their property. Simply, they would have a noticeably big stain on their credit rating for a long time, which would make it impossible to buy a home again.  Time passed and several years later we saw lenders changing credit requirements and rules to bring in new customers for home mortgage loans.  A bad economy and people’s bad credit records were why home ownership hit such a low rate during Obama’s tenure in the White House. According to chicagofed.org there were approximately 3.8 million foreclosures from 2007-2010 in this country. Biden and Harris are facing Covid-caused economic chaos as they sit in their newly sanitized offices and have plans to help us all see our way to national prosperity again. My prayers are with them.

We’ve now survived the season to try and be jolly. The one-dimensional Zoom cocktail parties are kinda a bore now, but if you mix in a drinking game with prizes you might have more fun! The holidays are this time of the year when we pay attention to when liquor stores are open and where stores are located because some of us heathens want to buy wine to give as gifts or load up on supplies for the cold winter’s night. The State of Utah is keeping all locations open during the COVID-19 winter of our discontent, so yeah for that fact. And the store hours at most locations are Monday through Saturday from 11 am to anywhere between 5 pm and 10 pm, depending on the location. UDABC operates over forty Liquor and Wine Stores operated by low paid, mostly part-time retail employees. Many bars have closed due to COVID19 and more are expected to fail if PPP funds don’t resurface from the government and hours of operation are allowed to expand.

Utah’s drinking laws aren’t that weird, since so many other states have excessive controls over liquor. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which most Utah residents belong, advises against the consumption of alcohol for its members in the Word of Wisdom given in the Doctrine and Covenants. Legislators have attempted for over a century to make this a dry state or a very difficult state to find a drink in when the urge manifests itself. Utah repealed the national alcohol prohibition in 1933 and let each to their own decide if they wanted to drink or not. When I moved to Utah in the 1970’s drinking was a hard process. To get a cocktail you had to a) belong to a private club and pay an annual fee to that club to get access to mixed drinks or b) go up to the hostess of a restaurant and buy a mini bottle-like on an airplane. You would take that back to your table and order a mixer to mix your drink yourself. More recently there was the ‘Zion Curtain’ that legislators imposed on bars and restaurants supposedly to ban people from seeing cocktails being made that turned into a national farce. The ‘solid translucent and permanent walls’ between customers and bartenders preparing drinks cost money and confused people to no end. Bars and restaurants also had to put up signs to say, “This premise is licensed as a restaurant, not a bar” or vice versa.” That law is now another piece of historic Utah embarrassment.

One mention to those booze seekers-the little State store in Lamplighter Square on Foothill Drive has closed and re-opened at the space formerly occupied across the street at Foothill Village by Red Butte Café. The Lamplighter Square is being demolished along with the old Skyline Inn and a few other buildings near it to make way for a new mixed use construction project. CHEERS and HAPPY FREAKIN’ NEW YEAR…PLEASE?!