Meet Uncle Sam, Housing Contractor

A federal program tries to spur people to invest in vacant houses

Kip Kuntz’s block in Baltimore’s Old Goucher neighborhood is getting a face-lift, courtesy of the federal government. The 47-year-old Johns Hopkins University research scientist paid $249,900 in September for a 19th century row house that was rehabbed as part of a $7 billion federal program that provides states and local governments with funds to buy, fix up, and resell abandoned and foreclosed properties. Kuntz, who has lived in the area for about 20 years, praises the care the contractor took in restoring the home’s windows, slate roof, and masonry. “For years I’ve been living in this neighborhood, and it will get a little worse here and a little better there, but there was no progress one way or another,” he says. “Suddenly, things are looking up.” He adds that the half- dozen federally funded rehabs on his block may be attracting attention: A private investor recently began renovating a boarded-up house on the street.

Baltimore is a test case of whether government money can help resuscitate an ailing residential market. The Obama Administration’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program is spending $26 million on restorations designed to drive up prices and spark investor-backed redevelopment in pockets of this city of 621,000, where prices have fallen about 40 percent from the 2007 peak, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. Nationwide, 11,545 single-family homes have been renovated and sold since NSP money first started flowing in 2009, with another 24,000 sales projected.

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