Buyers, renters could benefit
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 02:20 p.m., January 28, 2008
Updated 02:20 p.m., January 28, 2008
A local realtor is already feeling the rumblings of a shift in the local housing market after Tyson Foods’ decision to end its Emporia slaughter operation and lay off 1,500 employees.
But, he said, it’s not the first time Emporia has dealt with the issue.
Larry Ek of Ek Real Estate said Sunday that his office had already received about half a dozen calls from laid-off Tyson employees looking to sell their homes. It’s the beginning of an effect that Ek said will shift Emporia from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, with property values heading down as supply begins to catch up with demand.
Ek said Emporia has experienced an appreciation rate of 4 percent to 5 percent in real estate values every year for the past decade. He said he hesitated to make any predictions right now about the exact impact of the layoffs.
“If you ask me in 60 days to 90 days, we’ll pretty well be able to tell what this is going to do to the values,” he said. “But it’ll all rest on supply and demand, and it may push some people who were renting a place for $600 a month to where they can now buy something and spend $600 a month and get the benefits of home ownership, rather than renting.”
Ek said the Tyson layoffs would have a negative effect on almost everyone in the area.
“(The) Emporia area has worked its way through plant closings, the exit of the Wolf Creek power plant construction employees, and the Santa Fe railroad move,” Ek said. “One of the positive effects of the layoffs may include a golden opportunity for the Regional Development Association (of East Central Kansas) to recruit new manufacturing companies, as we have a workforce that is ready and in place to fill new jobs.”
Ek, who has spent 30 years in Emporia real estate, said the number of layoffs at the Tyson plant is unprecedented here, dwarfing the numbers from past layoffs by Santa Fe and Modine Manufacturing. The construction workers leaving town after working on the Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Burlington in the early ’80s was the closest thing Ek could remember; he estimated that it resulted in “close to 800” families moving out of Emporia.
“And those, again, were high-wage jobs, and some of the middle to upper tier of home prices,” he said. “Tyson, there’ll be some management people that have some nice homes that they’ll need to sell.”
On the non-homeowner occupancy side of things, Ek said one impact of Tyson’s decision may be that it solves the ongoing city debate over rental housing codes and standards for landlords.
“The non-homeowner occupied single-family homes and apartments will probably see a larger vacancy rate than we have experienced in the last 15 years,” he said. “But it may also solve the housing code debate, as these owners will have to keep their properties in good shape to attract tenants. Tenants will have more choices and probably lower rental rates than in the past.”
Ek estimated the average value of an Emporia home was currently between $90,000 and $100,000.
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