- We're in the pine view neighborhood in West Dayton where there's many flowers in the front yard.

Like with this home.

Paul Bradley, executive director of the Montgomery County Land Bank shows us some of the work they've done to stabilize the housing market by removing abandoned homes and rehabbing others.

- One of the conversations we had with residents, this, this population is aging.

A lot of homeowners who, who've been there for a very long time, and, and they have seen their, their home values kind of slowly drop to a point where, you know, you might have needed a new roof or you might have, as your aging need to build a ramp on your home, but you weren't able to, to pull out a line of credit or have any equity, equity in your house to, to, to accomplish that.

- How did you choose those specific locations?

Did you work with the neighborhood association or was, how did, how did the decision for properties come - About?

We did a market analysis when we were looking at, at what properties to target in, in, in pine view, and, and so that's everything from walking the streets, taking a look, you know, visually inspecting properties, to looking at tax information.

Again, in these tipping point neighborhoods, there's plenty of properties that are strong and well maintained.

You know, that's what you want a good mix of, of, of that already happening and then actionable properties that, that we can, we can have a, some sort of positive benefit on.

- Yeah.

I drove by and I just love the charm.

There's just, I love - This.

Yeah.

It's, it's a nice neighborhood.

There aren't huge properties, so it was, it was definitely ones that we were able to have a little bit more of a impact on.

Gray House is, is, is wow.

Is one of, one of the, the best houses I, I would say is success stories here.

Prior to us, the last sale price on that house was $17,000, which can tell you the type of condition it was in.

Wow.

We ended up selling it for 90,000.

The current Zillow estimate on that house is about 127.

It, it shows you that there's a, a stable growth in this neighborhood.

That value and equity in that house has been maintained.

It isn't something that, you know, we sold it for 90 now, the housing value has dropped back down to 50, but it's actually stabled or, or been stabilized or, or grown, which is kind of what we hope to see and, and, and kind of that lasting impact we talk about for, for these thriving neighborhoods.

We ended up renovating this one, selling it in 2020 for about $65,000, so we again bumped that from 27, 28 to about $70 per square foot.

We still took a loss on it, but to us, again, the impact was, was there, it was, it was clear that we were starting to create some, some upward momentum in, in comps in the neighborhood.

- I, I just find it interesting that, that how we measure success so much is based on numbers and finances.

Oh yeah.

I mean, I know for you, success is measured very differently and, and it's not about numbers and sales, but it's really impact, - Right.

E Exactly.

We are working in neighborhoods where the private market is not, is not already working, so we are, we are our, our mission, our our task, our r ois on that impact that we have on a neighborhood, so we can go in and we can, we can fix up a property that, that the numbers don't make sense for, for a private investor to do it, but we do that because we know that impact, it's gonna have that ripple effect.

It's gonna have, if we do three houses in this neighborhood, plus some small and another 12, we know that's gonna have a lasting impact on growing this market and strengthening this neighborhood and improving the quality of life for these residents.

Again, that, that's our mission, that's our focus.

It's obviously a little bit different than the private market and that's, that's kind of why I don't really look at, at us as, as competition, but kind of working in unison, trying to hopefully set the table for, for future development.

- Land Banks can be a helpful tool to solve neighborhood blight and increase property values so the private market comes back into play.

We'll keep an eye on this solution as we move forward for Brick by Brick and Dayton.

I'm Amy Comore.