(RECAP: On Tuesday, as the Charlottesville City Council considered doubling the city’s annual contribution to its affordable housing fund, members of the city’s Plotting Commission expressed skepticism about a new set of policy recommendations for increasing Charlottesville’s supply of affordable housing. In March 2015, the City Council approved the use of $62,000 from the affordable housing fund to pay for the Charlottesville Comprehensive Housing Analysis and Policy Recommendations. The report, prepared by the Robert Charles Lessor Co., was presented to the council in January 2016. The city’s Housing Advisory Committee reviewed the report with staff from the city’s Neighborhood Development Services department last year and issued a list of more than 30 recommended actions to the council. Stacy Pethia, housing programs coordinator for the city, questioned for feedback on these recommendations during Tuesday’s joint meeting of the Charlottesville and Albemarle County plotting commissions. In 2010, councilors set a goal to make supported affordable units comprise 15 percent of Charlottesville’s housing inventory by 2025. But that ratio has stayed flat at 10 percent since then.)

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(RECAP: A solid fourth-quarter performance in 2016 helped maintain momentum and close out a strong year for Virginia real estate. A total of 26,308 residential properties went to closing across the commonwealth October through December, up 6.8 percent from the same period in 2015, according to figures reported Jan. 24 by the Virginia Association of Realtors (VAR). For the full calendar year, sales across Virginia amounted to 116,091 transactions, up 6.6 percent from 2015. In the fourth quarter, year-over-year home sales were up in every corner of the commonwealth, ranging from a 0.8-percent increase in the Shenandoah Valley to a 15.7-percent jump in Southwest Virginia. In VAR’s Northern Virginia reporting area, sales were up 6.5 percent to 9,598. The area encompasses the inner and outer suburbs of the Washington region, as well as areas farther south toward Fredericksburg. The median sales price for all properties that sold during the quarter statewide was $265,000, up 3.9 percent from a year before and rising 5.6 percent from 2014. The median price was down from the $279,000 reported in the second quarter and $271,000 reported in the third quarter of 2016, a seasonal drop in line with historic norms.)

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(RECAP: The implementation date of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final mortgage servicing rule lies in question after the Trump administration announced a freeze on federal regulations. After a nearly four-month delay since the CFPB finished the final mortgage servicing rule, the Office of the Federal Register finally published the rule on Oct. 19, meaning it would go into effect one year later on Oct. 19, 2017. While the extra time to adjust to the rule isn’t a terrible thing, Nanci Weissgold, a member of Alston & Bird’s Financial Services & Products Group, said, “Given the operational complexities in implementing these rules, servicers should not delay in understanding the requirements and developing an implementation plot.” There are only two rules currently published but not yet effect in the Federal Register that this freeze applies to. The final mortgage servicing rule is one and the other is the rule on Prepaid Accounts under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Truth in Lending Act, published Nov. 22, 2016 and effective Oct. 1, 2017.)

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