Community development corporations (CDCs) have become important vehicles for revitalizing urban neighborhoods. These small, multi-disciplinary groups must adapt quickly to changing conditions in the industry. The author interviewed CDC directors and other industry experts from Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia to identify and compare contemporary challenges, opportunities and adaptations among community developers. The cost and availability of land, inadequate funding and organizational capacity were significant barriers in both cities. In Richmond, increasing competition, NIMBY and staff retention were other barriers. In Atlanta, securing community buy-in, the permitting process, and the growing need for affordable housing were other barriers. Increasing public interest in affordable housing, the need for new housing types and increased housing demand present new opportunities. Atlanta also has new public policies supporting housing. In response, CDCs in both cities are expanding their geographic areas, developing partnerships, and adding new development products. Atlanta CDCs also reported expanding non-development activities.

The purpose of this research study was to identify, from the perception of realtors, how prepared first-time homebuyers (FTHBs) are when purchasing a home and to discover what kind of issues and problems arose during the home-buying process. This study also identified common factors used by realtors to identify: how FTHBs are prepared, usefulness of FTHB workshops, FTHBs' mortgage knowledge, and recommendations to better prepare FTHBs. The goal was twofold: identify areas in the home-buying process where FTHBs are less prepared and provide information to financial educators and real estate agents to help fill the gap in FTHB preparedness. This study covered three main areas of buying a home: pre-purchase preparedness, mortgage finance, and the closing process. Data for this study were collected using an online survey emailed to realtors in the Cache Rich Association of Realtors (CRAR) in Northern Utah. A total of 66 realtors responded to the survey. Descriptive statistics, matched pair t tests, correlations, and simple regression analyses were used. Overall, realtors find their FTHB clients to be less than somewhat prepared. This is evident when the mean percentage of FTHBs that realtors stated were well-prepared for homeownership was only 44.4%. According to realtors' perceptions, many FTHBs did not have their personal finances in order and poorly understood the cost of obtaining a mortgage and its process. The analysis of the data collected from realtors' responses also identified the most frequent problem or issue that arose during the home-buying process was obtaining a mortgage. When asked if FTHB workshops are useful, 60% of realtors perceived them to be more than somewhat useful. Reasons for their usefulness included being educational, beneficial, and preparing FTHBs for buying a home. Results also indicated that the level of mortgage knowledge and knowledge about housing sustainability directly related to the level of pre-purchase preparedness of FTHBs as perceived by realtors. When pre-purchase preparedness levels were low, mortgage knowledge and knowledge about housing sustainability levels were also perceived to be low. In the end, realtors offered their suggestions on how to better prepare FTHBs for homeownership and their answer to this question was to have FTHBs work with a qualified realtor and network of professionals. The second most frequent response was to educate FTHBs on affordability and housing sustainability.

The real estate market is constantly fluctuating and when the market slows down, it becomes more difficult to sell real estate. Because of this, it is of importance to construction companies to increase their understanding of homebuyer preferences in order for them to build condominiums that there is a demand for in a declining market, and thereby create a more liquid real estate market.  The aim of this thesis is to examine what the differences in preferences are between homebuyers who are positive and negative to the market development. To achieve this objective, three hypotheses were formulated regarding preferences of homebuyers with a negative outlook on the real estate market concerning location, size and functionality. Using a survey and questionnaire, data from potential homebuyers was collected at real estate viewings and via the internet. Once the respondents’ answers were collected, a principal component analysis was performed in order to find out how the different statements correlated with each other. After removing the statements that did not load correctly, three dimensions clearly corresponded to each of the three hypotheses. Testing the internal reliability for the three dimensions resulted in low values for dimensions 2 and 3, referring to size and functionality. However, internal reliability was good for dimension 1 referring to location. Performing an independent t-test on homebuyers with a positive and respective negative outlook on the market development showed no significant results for our hypotheses. The null-hypothesis is thus not rejected, meaning that for this sample, there are no significant differences in preferences of homebuyers with a positive and negative market outlook regarding location, size or functionality of their housing. / Fastighetsmarknaden befinner sig i konstant rörelse och när marknaden övergår i en negativ trend blir det svårare att sälja fastigheter. På grund av detta är det viktigt för byggföretag att öka sin förståelse av bostadsköpares preferenser så att de kan bygga efterfrågade bostäder på en nedåtgående marknad, och därigenom skapa en mer likvid fastighetsmarknad. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vad skillnaderna i preferenser är mellan bostadsköpare som är positiva och negativa till marknadsutvecklingen. För att uppnå detta mål formulerades tre hypoteser avseende preferenser hos bostadsköpare med negativ syn på marknadsutvecklingen gällande område, storlek och funktionalitet. Med hjälp av en enkät och frågeformulär samlades data från potentiella bostadsköpare vid bostadsvisningar och via internet. När respondenternas svar samlats in genomfördes en principalkomponentanalys för att ta reda på hur de olika påståendena korrelerade med varandra. Efter att ha tagit bort de påståenden som inte laddades korrekt var det tydligt att tre dimensioner korresponderade mot var och en av de tre hypoteserna. Test av den interna konsistensen för de tre dimensionerna resulterade i låga värden för dimensionerna 2 och 3, med hänvisning till storlek och funktionalitet. Den interna konsistensen var dock bra för dimension 1 med hänvisning till område. Ett oberoende t-test avseende bostadsköpare med positiv respektive negativ inställning till marknadsutvecklingen genomfördes men visade inte på några signifikanta resultat för våra hypoteser. Nollhypotesen kan således inte förkastas, vilket innebär att det för vårt indata inte finns några signifikanta skillnader i preferenser hos bostadsköpare med positiv respektive negativ syn på marknaden avseende område, storlek eller funktionalitet gällande deras bostäder.