(RECAP: State representatives announced Tuesday that the city of Newport News will be receiving $500,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods Plotting Grant program. U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine alongside Representative Bobby Scott made the announcement. The funding will support revitalization efforts in local communities. Choice Neighborhood Plotting Grants support the development of comprehensive neighborhood revitalization plans which focused on directing resources to address three core goals: housing, people and neighborhoods.)

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(RECAP: Despite the fact that the lake has become a haven for retirees, there aren’t many options for seniors looking to take the next step in life: downsizing or moving closer to amenities like hospitals or shopping. Currently, only one large-scale senior living community operates at the lake: Runk & Pratt’s Smith Mountain Lake Retirement Village. It offers helped living and independent living cottages that individuals buy to own. An expansion project is expected to break ground in the next few months. There wasn’t always such a need for senior living options, Gills Creek District Supervisor Bob
Camicia said. But now, he said, “pressure” is growing, and he said he knows developers who are looking in that direction as the market grows.)

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(RECAP: Will the homeownership rate fall below 50 percent? Not a question most housing industry stakeholders want to reckon about, but some analysts are speculating that it could happen. Freddie Mac, in its June edition of Outlook, takes a look at some of those predictions. The economists start out reiterating their conviction that 2016 will be the best year for housing in a decade. Despite a generally weak economy they expect housing to “be an engine of growth,” with residential investment providing a direct boost and higher home equity contributing to consumer confidence and leading to higher consumer expenditures. But they concede that the outlook for homeownership is mixed. The rate of homeownership has declined precipitously since hitting a peak of 69 percent during the housing bubble. It fell to a 40-year low a few quarters ago and has remained below 64 percent. Many analysts expect to see the rate fall even further. While most do not expect it to fall under 50 percent, Freddie says a number of recent articles have set out a range of plausible scenarios where a drop of 20 percentage points in the rate could happen by 2050.)

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