PLAINFIELD ? Carl Reed looks back on his three decades in real estate with much satisfaction. After eight years as a salesman with Century 21 J.J. Schwartz, he started his own company, ERA Reed Realty, 22 years ago.
Today, his company has nearly 50 agents, with a staff as racially diverse as this city itself. In addition to helping hundreds of customers buy and sell homes each year, his company manages properties for landlords, screening prospective tenants and maintaining homes throughout the Plainfields.
Some of the most rewarding chapters in Reed?s life have been his involvement with urban renewal to create new affordable housing in Plainfield and North Plainfield. The first project, Renaissance Courts, began in 1998. Built in partnership with Reed?s church, Rose of Sharon Community Church here, the two-phase development built three-bedroom, 1?-bath townhouses with one-car garages for 40 families. Initial prices in the first phase were about $110,000. In the second phase, which started in 2000, prices began at just under $120,000.
In those days, Reed said, there was funding that doesn?t exist today. The church contributed money that was matched by the state because these units were classified as affordable housing. In that program, each new homeowner family received a grant of $25,000 toward the purchase of a home, but if the family did not stay in the home for 10 years or more, it had to pay back a prorated portion of the money. Reed said that most of the families have remained in those homes and have created a stable, thriving neighborhood.
Another development that Reed worked on in the late 1990s was Arlington Heights, a community of 10 townhouses at the intersection of Arlington Avenue and Randolph Road in the city. Here, there are five three-bedroom units and five two-bedroom units, each with a one-car garage. These units began at $99,000.
Reed said that before this project began, there was a liquor store at this site, and the city had deemed it a corrosive influence in this otherwise residential neighborhood. The store was attracting vagrants and crime. Not wanting to put the store owner out of business, the city was able to find a better location for it in a more commercial area on Front Street. Today, that business is doing well at its new location, and the neighborhood is much quieter and safer, Reed said. And 10 families who hadn?t had homes before have homes for 10 years or more.
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Today, when foreclosed homes are creating problems in neighborhoods, some community groups are exploring ways to find new tenants and rehabilitate those homes, when appropriate. Sometimes those homes fall into such disrepair that they need to be torn down and replaced. In North Plainfield, Reed worked on a pioneering project in the early 2000s that could be a model for such redevelopment today.
Called Grove Commons, the site originally was occupied by some foreclosed homes that were attracting squatters and vandals in a residential neighborhood at the intersection of Prospect Place and Washington Avenue. The vacant buildings were torn down, and 40 new townhouses were built in their place, each with three bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths. These homes sold at the market rate for that time, which was just under $110,000. Today, that neighborhood is stable and thriving.
One of the largest players in the real estate boom years of the early 2000s was Countrywide Mortgage, which had an office here. That company often publicized its commitment to lending money in urban neighborhoods, but now it is believed that many of those loans apparently were predatory. Reed said that his one partnership with Countrywide ended almost immediately because he and his business associates did not see eye-to-eye with Countrywide on corporate values. This came to light with the New Century Homes project, which began in 2003. In this effort, abandoned homes owned by the city were redeveloped as one- or two-family homes and sold to city residents who qualified under the Coalition on Affordable Housing guidelines. The new residents were given grants and below-market funding with low down payments. Again, if the families remained in the homes for 10 years, the grants were forgiven. If the family moved within 10 years, it had to repay a prorated portion of the grant. It became clear after just five of these transactions that Countrywide was not a good fit for this project, and other funding was found, Reed said.
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Today, in the wake of the mortgage collapse, some naysayers look back at programs for affordable housing and think that these were expensive schemes that gave away taxpayers? money. Some reports say that the first mortgages that collapsed were the ones made to people who couldn?t afford them. But Reed challenged that. He said he and the developers he worked with took great care to sell these homes to people who were committed to staying in the homes and creating good neighborhoods. And the record shows they largely succeeded. Most of the people who bought these homes are still in them. And Reed?s company is the property management company for some of these communities, so he still has a hand in maintaining them and seeing to it that they thrive.
?It gives me a strong sense of accomplishment to ride around Plainfield and see all of the new developments we were part of. Not to mention, Goodland Estate and Crystal Court, which were the last two new construction projects, built in 2002 and 2003. God willing, ERA Reed will be involved in more affordable home projects in the future,? Reed said.
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