Emerald City USA gets caught in the last gasps of a American real estate speculation bubble
by Dan Schroeder
Last Saturday evening I came home to find one of Mayor Godfrey's campaign signs in my next-door neighbor's yard. I'm pretty sure Bob Geiger put it there: a friend of mine reported seeing him leaving the scene in his pickup a few hours earlier. The sign was placed only a few feet back from my property line, directly facing the forest of smaller signs in my own yard. I'm pleased to report that my Amy Wicks sign is still intact--as are the others.
Though I was a bit startled to suddenly find a large Godfrey sign so close to my property, I wasn't at all surprised. Like so many of the other houses currently displaying Godfrey campaign signs, this house is a rental. The most recent tenants, who stayed less than a year, had just moved out. They came back for the last of their belongings on Sunday, and confirmed that they had nothing to do with the sign going up.
It seems that the Godfrey campaign has received permission from a number of local realtors and property managers to place signs on their rental properties. Because many rental properties are located on high-traffic roads, this arrangement puts lots of Godfrey signs where people see them. It also amplifies Godfrey's perceived popularity, since a single property manager, who votes only once (at most), can proclaim his support of Godfrey from many locations. As the primary election has just demonstrated, Godfrey's overall support among voters falls far short of his support among property managers.
The interesting question, of course, is why Ogden's realtors and property managers are supporting Mayor Godfrey. Besides the placement of lawn signs, the local realtors association has supported Godfrey with a $5000 campaign contribution. Godfrey's level of support among realtors is far too high to attribute entirely to personal connections, or to a belief that he will reward those who support him, or to their just generally thinking he's a good mayor. It must be because they believe his policies are good for the real estate and rental business.
Unfortunately, what's good for the real estate and rental business isn't very good for the community as a whole. Realtors profit from high turnover rates--not from stable neighborhoods. They also profit from speculation, which drives prices artificially high (at least temporarily). Real estate speculators purchase owner-occupied houses and turn them into rentals while they hope for the market to rise. As the number of rental houses increases, the character of a neighborhood changes.
When I purchased my home in 1998 there was only one rental house on the whole block (Binford Street between Polk and Taylor). Since then the houses on both sides of mine have been converted to rentals, as has the next house to the east. The owners of all three of these houses live outside Utah. Although the renters have all been nice people (at least to me), their behavior doesn't always fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. Some keep odd hours and wake me in the middle of the night. Some can be heard screaming at each other on a regular basis. One backed into another neighbor's parked car the other day (and has no insurance). Another has a bumper sticker that you wouldn't want your kids to see as they walk to the elementary school, half a block away.
The yard with the Godfrey sign used to be the best-kept on the block. Now it's the worst. The perennial gardens have been mowed down, and weeds grow in their place. The house has fallen into disrepair and much of it needs a new paint job.
Although I don't have the statistics to prove it, it sure seems like the number of rental houses in my neighborhood has been increasing lately. "For rent" signs are sprouting up all along the east bench, where they used to be quite rare. Last spring I started photographing these signs, to document the transformation of my neighborhood. All of the photos shown here were taken above Harrison, between 21st Street and WSU.
It's tempting to blame Mayor Godfrey for the proliferation of "for rent" signs and the general increase in real estate speculation in my neighborhood--but that would be too simplistic. There are much larger forces at work here: the West's booming population and real estate market; the international focus on northern Utah during the 2002 Olympics; and the imminent arrival of the FrontRunner commuter train (which Godfrey supported, though it almost certainly would have happened without him). Given these conditions, an increase in real estate speculation was inevitable. But Godfrey has fanned the flames by touting Ogden as the "high adventure capital" of the West (or is it the world?), and by promising tremendous wealth to be gained by all when his mythical gondola is built. Last March, Bill Spain of Provident Partners (Scottsdale, AZ) told the City Council that the potential gondola was a key element in attracting real estate speculators to Ogden.
Meanwhile, most of us Ogden citizens would like to get on with our lives. We buy houses to live in them--not to get rich quick on a wave of real estate speculation. We want neighbors who stay more than a year, take care of their homes, and carry auto insurance. We want streets where children can play safely. And although we might not agree with the messages on all of our neighbors' yard signs, we'd prefer that they represent the views of the neighbors themselves.