RECENT COMMENTS

City’s move to offload tax delinquent houses good for business and neighborhoods

Carol Hazard at richmond.com uses the recent renovation at 2203 Q Street to dig deeper into the uptick in sales of tax delinquent property by the city:

Over the past five or six years, Augustine has bought about 10 houses and empty lots at auctions of city-foreclosed properties with at least two years of unpaid property taxes.

“I’m not rich, but I am making a living off it,” Augustine said.

He also is reducing the city’s long list of neglected properties, repurposing dilapidated houses — in some cases, building new — and putting them back on the tax rolls.

[…]

The catalyst for private investments sprung from nonprofits like the Better Housing Coalition, generally the first one into neglected areas in Church Hill and other neighborhoods — where it took on not one house at a time, but whole city blocks to develop quality, affordable housing.