The year 2018 was a profitable one for the city of Newburgh with 49 properties sold by the City of Newburgh and 6 sold by River Realty bringing in more than $1.3 million. City Planner Ali Church presented a review of properties sold to the City Council at a work session last Thursday.

“While the City hopes to continue its strong property sales through 2019, we have seen a declining trend in the number of properties that we take for tax foreclosure every year,” said Church. “This, coupled with the excellent work of the Newburgh Community Landbank and their development partners, namely Habitat for Humanity and RUPCO, has resulted in one of the smallest property inventories in recent record.”

This year the city took a different approach to selling properties by contracting River Realty to sell properties for higher values. The average selling price for properties sold by River Realty was $64,483 with six properties sold. The city sold 49 properties with an average price of $31,564.

“The city experimented with many different approaches to sales, we learned there are things that are important to the city other than purchase price,” said Michelle Kelson, Corporate Counsel. “The city has had no goals to encourage owner occupants, we are now looking at property sales and the FRP committee starting in February.”

The city sold to 45 individuals, with 20 owner occupants, and 19 sold to Newburgh residents. Church is hopeful foreclosure rates will continue to lower in 2019 leading to fewer properties acquired by the city.

“Even though a lower inventory in 2019 means fewer properties to sell, it is extremely good news overall, as the reduction in tax foreclosures is a sign of a strengthening and stabilizing real estate market in the City,” said Church.

The number of foreclosed properties taken over by the city is not reflective of the number of foreclosures in the City of Newburgh as a whole. According to Kelson there are around 600 to 700 vacant properties in Newburgh that are not owned by the city.

“The red ‘X’ has nothing to do with the ownership of buildings,” said Kelson. “The list of delinquent buildings may have several hundred and the city may only acquire under 40. We are expecting to be in the same ballpark next year.”