Affordable Workforce Housing
Florida is becoming more expensive every year. Taxes, insurance and the cost of a home have all skyrocketed in the last few years. In fact, teachers, nurses, firefighters, police and other key workers have been priced right out of the communities they serve. Many in our community have been priced out of the American dream of a nice home near their work.
Grady Pridgen, Inc. believes that working families should be able to participate in the American dream and have quality homes located within employment centers. Grady Pridgen, Inc. is providing green workforce housing into all our mixed-use properties.
Affordable housing is defined as housing affordably priced for those families making up to 150 percent of the local median family income. Because it’s a sliding scale, the actual cost of a home will vary if it’s in Hillsborough, Pasco or Pinellas county, but the principal is the same—Grady Pridgen is providing beautiful, environmentally friendly homes for real families—for your family.
The New Model
When creating a model for affordable workforce housing, Grady Pridgen, Inc. considers the total living package. Sure, the cost of a home is important, but equally important is the ability to insure the home, to pay the utility costs each month and the real estate taxes when they are due and make the payments for the car loan, car insurance, maintenance repairs and gas. Families have to be able to pay for their homes and the associated costs.
Grady Pridgen begins by locating great places to live near great places to work, play and shop. Doing so satisfies a critical need in our urban work centers. These are called sustainable, multimodal or mass transit oriented mixed-use communities where work is close by so that you can walk or bike, or take a bus or trolley, or Segway.
When you eliminate the need for one car you reduce your transportation costs and you increase your ability to own a home. A study commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association calculates that it costs a household $14,276 annually to transport two workers to their jobs. If one partner sells a car and commutes by bus or train, the household?s total expenditure for commuting drops to $8,025 even after transit fares are added in. That is a savings of $6,251 or 43%. The lion?s share of the savings comes from the costs of owning, insuring, and fueling a second car. In comparison, the study found that the average U.S. household spent approximately $5,800 on food and $6,900 on mortgage interest in 2004, the data that was used in the January 2007 study. But that’s just the beginning.
Grady Pridgen, Inc. invests in sustainable high standards. This environmentally-friendly approach has two key benefits—it helps make a home energy efficient, which lowers the monthly energy bill and it exceeds state requirements for wind damage protection, which can help reduce the cost of insurance. Coupled with Energy Star® appliances and water conserving fixtures, a Grady Pridgen home is beautiful, affordable and good for the environment.
