By Sheldon Smith,
Communications Committee
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Washington Post published a letter to the editor from Steve titled, Fairwood residents have bounced back from the housing crisis.
This week, we've seen two segments of a Washington Post
series titled “
Broken
by the bubble: In the Fairwood subdivision, dreams of black wealth were
dashed by the housing crisis.” Many of our residents share the opinion that
this three-part series does not reflect the present state of Fairwood –
recovering and thriving. One such resident, Steve Brigham, wrote a response to
the Post reporting, which I want to provide below in its entirety.
Kimbriell, John, and Steven,
I want to commend you on your article, “Broken by the
Bubble,” one that is honestly long overdue in getting reported by The
Washington Post. It highlights effectively a core inequity in the housing
bubble – in which African-Americans, Africans, and citizens and residents of
Caribbean descent, were coaxed at a much higher percentage into signing
predatory sub-prime loans.
However, I write both to express a concern and to question
some of the data and assertions used in the article.
As a 10-year Fairwood resident, it concerns me that we have
become front page/above the fold news twice in the same week over a story that
had its epicenter between 2006 and 2010. Why is that a concern? As I reread the
article, it makes it sound like this is a major problem still facing the
community today. And although you clearly found residents who are underwater
with their mortgages, and I’m sure there are more, I don’t believe at all that
this comes close to representing the vast majority of our community’s current
residents. Our community is not currently in crisis. I wish you had made that
much clearer in what was written.
Trust me, my Fairwood neighbors and I saw the national
crisis at its worst right on our own streets. I actually live in the Promise
neighborhood featured in this article, and on our block alone between 2007 and
2010, half of the 16 houses on our block had either short sales, foreclosures,
and/or evictions. It was wrenching to see neighbors we had grown close to, have
their lives turned upside down by deceitful and destructive bank practices that
were clearly epidemic in scope. In the fall of 2007, we took a family in for
five weeks that had nowhere else to go.
But 5+ years later, this is not the story of the Promise nor
of Fairwood. Our block is fully occupied and the vast majority of vacant houses
from a half-decade ago are filled up across the community. We survived and now
we are watching the community bounce back at many levels. This is the untold
story in your series that needs to be told.
I also don’t believe your article was fully accurate in
saying several things:
- “On some blocks,
nearly every house went under.” This sounds like a stretch. Which streets
are you referring to? The only example you give is Burke’s Promise where 20 out
of 34 succumbed; this is clearly way too many but it is also not “nearly every
house.” Do you have data that indicate blocks having a percentage of 80 or 90%
that went under? If so, I’d love to see it
- “Of the 1441 loans
made in Fairwood between 2006 and 2007, 416 were subprime.” The number 1441
appears to be a mis-print. By 2006 and 2007, there were probably only 600 or
700 homes that had been built; many of those built between 2002 and 2005. In
fact in early 2015, I believe we only have about 1400 or so households in the
community with about 350 to go. So I’m not clear how 1441 loans could have been
made in that two year period. And, frankly, by publishing a number so large it
inaccurately magnifies the scale of what actually occurred.
- “In Fairwood, houses
once valued at $700,000 are going for $350,000.” I am quite sure you can
find houses still selling for $350,000 in Fairwood and I’m sure if they are,
they are through short sales. However, if you look at sales throughout the
community over the past 3 years, which I do regularly, there are many houses
selling for over $400,000 and not an insignificant amount selling or over
$500,000. New houses now selling in the new section start in the $500s. Yes,
all of our homes have lost significant value; but in the past few years there
has also been a significant bounce-back in the value of our homes that is not
at all depicted in this article. In 2010, we had our house, which we bought for
$550,000 in 2005, appraised at $325,000. A year ago, when we were taking out an
SBA loan for a new business, we had to get it reappraised, it was at just below
$400,000. A year later, as prices continue to climb, I am quite sure that the
value is north of $400,000. The point here is that your article makes it sound
like everyone’s house is selling for 50% (another part of your article
indicates that houses are selling “for a fraction of their original price”) of
what it was bought at, which is patently untrue.
Why does this all matter? Because as grateful as my
neighbors and I (this is the main topic of conversation on our Fairwood social
media site) are that you have exposed the crookedness of what occurred during
the housing crisis and the severe impact it has had on good people, it paints a
sorry picture of the current state of our community. And the fact is, several
thousand of us lived through it, stayed, helped those we could, and now that
we’re on the other side of the crisis, we have proven our resiliency and remain
one of the best communities, I believe, not just in the county but in the
Washington region.
Through your fine series, Fairwood has become the focus of
unfortunate regional publicity in a way that doesn’t come close to telling the
full and inspiring story of the Fairwood of 2015. I do hope that sometime in
the near future, you can revisit Fairwood and tell the other side of this
important story.
Thanks for listening to my perspective.
Best regards,
Steve Brigham
The Promise, Fairwood
