mr olsen good afternoon what is it we live here what a welcome everybody to schenectady city hall in our first of what we hope will be a monthly open house program in schenectady thankful to our partners in keybank and their key to the city mortgage initiative which in this market is a unique product which i believe makes the city of schenectady more competitive and creates greater opportunity for home ownership in our community and i do thank our partners at keybank this is the largest open house undertaking that i believe has ever happened in the city of schenectady and i thank prudential realty for focusing on this and being initiative and all our partners that are joining as we look to build on today's success and again make it a monthly event that markets schenectady and attracts owneroccupied individuals to our great housing stock want to recognize some of my colleagues here council member peggy king lisa perazzo carl erickson our colleagues in the schenectady city school district school board president cathy lewis school board member bryan lindsey if anybody else oh cheryl sorry welcome also and we'll hear briefly from our school superintendent in a few minutes but we need responsible homeowners in the city of schenectady and i want to do everything in my power in utilizing city staff and resources to attract people to this community it is an opportunity here that is i believe unparalleled where we talk about high taxes we talk about some of the urban problems and why people tend to discount the city of schenectady in other communities and if you do the analysis and some of this is available in the packets and we have realtors and some of the individuals from key who can talk to you the market has overly compensated for some of those perceived conditions that exist in the market i mean that our housing prices are far lower than they should be and as a result of that some of the taxes and fees represent a greater proportion than in some of our suburban locations or other communities and people look at that and they say oh it's too high we don't want to live here but when you break it down if you buy a house and you look at your costs of home ownership the mortgage taxes insurance and other related fees in fact home ownership in the city of schenectady is far more competitive than any of the other communities in the region some of the questions come up about the school district and we acknowledged there've been problems in the past but there's a team in place that is committed to changing that we're fortunate to have jan regulski as the interim superintendent working with cathy lewis and the other members of the school board they are changing that dealing with the past problems and reinforcing what is really an unparalleled offering of courses in this school district it is i believe second to none in the capital district and if people want to move here want to take advantage of the school district you're going to find that there's opportunities and educational excitement that again is unequaled and unparalleled in the region and that if people sort through kind of the rhetoric some of the disinformation schenectady is the opportunity the place people should be they should look at schenectady and i want people to live here move here and participate in this community and it's with that i'd like to introduce one of our partners jay christiana president of prudential manor homes who has been a key driver in putting this together he is kind of a good term to use today welcome thank you good afternoon good afternoon i'd like to thank mayor mccarthy and keybank for making us a part of today's event we look forward to continuing this type of promotion with the city of schenectady for many years to come our company prudential manor homes realtors started ninety years ago right up the street i'm sorry can i there we go a little bit better started about ninety years ago right up the street where pinhead susan's now stands schenectady is a very important community to us and we appreciate everything the mayor continues to do to promote this terrific city we will have associates at all of the homes that are open on today's tour to answer any of the questions that you may have associate broker mary della sandra will be here to answer questions and donna rick and talla will be on the the bus this afternoon i invite you to download the prudential manor mobile app today this will help you with with the tour today it's available in the app stores on any any smartphone and it'll show you where all the properties in the area are are listed and give you more information i just thank you again and we look forward to a great event today thank you thank you next speaker is a good friend a great leader and as we go through a transition phase in the school district that we are truly have been blessed to have the expertise and knowledge of jan regulski he really has opened up the city school district to what we all know it can be should be and will continue to grow and jan thank you for being here today and participating in this thanks for those kind words when i think about keys to the city this city or any other city among the keys are the school systems i came here just about two years ago when a lot of the attention was on adults and adult related problems i'm happy to tell you we're focusing now on students on learning and on teaching we have a wonderful school system that gets lost in some of the noise as a longtime educator i see up close what's really positive about this school district we have more offerings for our students than any of the other school districts in this area it's a wonderful place if you want evidence of that we just recently the board just recently completed a process of looking for a new superintendent we were able to attract accomplished educators to apply for the city because they see what's here already and the potential to take it even further matter of fact the gentleman who was selected specifically responded to questions around why he came he wanted to come to this city so that he could have his own young children join in the school system and experience what an urban school system of this diversity and outstanding programs could offer no one can speak louder about this school district than someone who would make that kind of commitment so we really got a great school system and it is one of the keys to the city and it should attract more and more people to come and live here thank you and now one of our key partners joseph riedhammer from keybank and it is a unique product that key has put together in this market and i am truly thankful appreciative of the efforts of keybank and look forward to working with you in the future so we continue to make this city a great place to live and work thank you thank you everyone for coming today today is the day that key to the city comes home today home buyers can see for themselves the exceptional quality of homes this program makes affordable here in the city of schenectady we've been very pleased with the response this program has had among home buyers in schenectady at the start home buyers here had to take our word for it they knew about the program because we announced it publicly however today they can take a tour of a remarkable selection of high quality affordable homes that are available and the welcoming neighborhoods of schenectady key to the city is a true partnership that works as partnerships should with everyone bringing something unique to the table the city of schenectady brings leadership and attracting new residents to astound the city also brings to bear the expertise of many city departments demonstrating a commitment to providing a higher quality of life for the city residents prudential manor home has been a great partner from the start they bring many years of experience and professionalism as well as an outstanding selection of homes here within schenectady and keybank is proud to provide affordable financing that enables home buyers including firsttime home buyers to join those who already know what a great community the city of schenectady is to raise a family in the numbers of the programs speak for themselves we've had seventeen closing since inception of this program started at the end of september that's six more since our meeting here this past january we've had over ninety eight new inquiries since january 3rd in reference to this program bringing the total interest of prospective home buyers over two hundred and seventy since november we have seven loans currently in progress that we expect to be wrapping up here shortly in february so you can see the program is working and it's taken effect here in schenectady we're all glad you could all be here today and we're glad to all the homeowners that are in a position to take advantage of this unique financing we welcome you to see the fine values of the homes here in schenectady thank you the original concept when we started this was to kind of start out small this month and let it build over the course of the next few months by the individuals here we clearly see that it's been far more successful than i thought i appreciate everybody's interest their participation i had made the commitment to make city staff available at homes commissioner olsen is here chief della rocco chief cheers assistant chief kale collin unfortunately we don't have quite as many public employees to send out to every house today but we will have different people at different places and if people have questions we'll follow up as best we can today and get back to people on tuesday and wednesday so that we will convince people if this is the best community we want people to be here and one or two take pride in schenectady and with that i would open it up for any questions that individuals may have before we start the formal tour what specifically are the incentives to attract home buyers to the city the simple summary of keybank at this time they will write a note at a one hundred to value really with five hundred down they will loan up to fifty thousand above that so a homeowner can go in make repairs modifications to a home update the heating system put a new kitchen in bathroom it's a again unique product in this market where other banks are looking for twenty down higher participation by the owner so it's just it's creative financing in terms of quality of life in a sense you got practice you've got a great school district we're seeing investment by general electric we have a great park system and we have just a number of opportunities here that where schenectady continues to get better every day it seems like a kind of an almost desperate marketing attempt in a city that you must admit doesn't have a great reputation i will tell you i believe that reputation is propagated primarily by the media so it's all my fault then so that no it's not all your fault but if it the old saying if it bleeds it leads the good things the incremental things that are happening every day are not necessarily those things that are newsworthy the program delivering the school district is not something that you read about those kids there that are taking advantage of it they're really going to be great leaders for the future and it's part of this effort today is to get that message out that there are a lot of good things that are happening here that aren't necessarily newsworthy every day but it is a good community and we want people to participate in it could you expand on the programme delivering the school district probably the superintendent might be better to actually deal with that or the president of the school board what we have as an example in our high school a number of wonderful offerings that are not available in other places as an example international baccalaureate programme we have an outstanding fine arts programme we have an outstanding cisco programme that's recognized by cisco and sends many people to us we have just a wide range of offerings our course offering booklet for our high school i would stack up against any in the state the breadth of offerings is impressive the number of outstanding students who graduate and go on to the finest universities and colleges doesn't just land and do it successfully is evidence to how well they're prepared i don't have any feedback on programme incentive is there any other incentive in place because when i go i've done this thing with some of these properties the price for a two bedroom i mean extra for gas is hot so if there's any break a tax break or anything because i already have a two property in the city of seattle so owneroccupied would i've not qualified for that but is there any this program is for owneroccupied housing and that's the push that we're trying to do is attract owneroccupied individuals here to this community yes sir my name if keith rouse i was a member of schenectady we know the involvement of banks in the disaster in wisconsin today and it was due to these one hundred you know loans and it hit people and selling their mortgages out and so on how do we know that this bank is not involved in this i'd say this is somewhat of a much more conservative package i know that the acronyms that used to exist in the market were ninja loans no income no asset no job but you could qualify for a two hundred and fifty thousand mortgage not once but twice but three times those are the things that are were wrong that's why you have the collapse keybank is for credit qualified owneroccupied one and two family houses it's in fact a fairly conservative mortgage package with the down payment some of the other things it is far more competitive than other instruments that are available in the market today so why one hundred if you qualify just go to a a custom loan why do you ask to get a one hundred or the original i'll let key and address these the thing that they believe that's again a conservative package hi i'm joel bizure i'm the district sales manager for keybank here in albany there's often a negative connotation with a one hundred financing however we're responsibly lending we're offering pre and postpurchase counseling to our clients so we're not only educating them on how to pay their bills we're also educating them on how to maintain the home pay the bills after they closed in the mortgage and stay in the home the question is the question is if they already qualify you don't need to teach them anything if you're already qualified why a one hundred because they're just a customer you don't need to give them that you know what i'm saying this is just a sales marketing pitch or something you know this is about one bank and one real estate agent trying to get a lot of people here and the bank is going to rip you off again you know it's just the same thing over and over we've heard these stories so much in the but again we're fortunate to have key and prudential be the point persons on this it is not exclusive to any bank or any real estate firm the city stands ready willing able to work with other realty agencies and other banks and we have ongoing discussions with banks realtors to expand and build on this programme and that you're trying to cast negative aspersions on what is a good programme it's an incentive that makes schenectady more competitive in this market and i'm proud to stand here and have key as a partner today yes ma'am yes i think i just want to say you know i'm not sure i'm not sure what the question is over here however i just feel that the situation has to be a twopart thing and as the bank takes you through these steps as the consumer you have to advocate yourself and ask the questions and find out where you're going to be with this before you sign which means if you don't understand something you have to ask i think we're so complacent and we sit back and want the bank to figure everything off for us then you know what we need to be proactive and going back to what you're saying i think it's a twofold thing if you come in here trying to get home and it doesn't add up and you feel you can't do it then you have to say look i can't do it that's exactly correct we don't want people to be in homes that they cannot afford but it's it's an opp one of the key things to this financing programme again is the ongoing education programme so that people learn to manage money better learn to look at other opportunities for retirement investments and other things and it becomes the total financial package and so again i'm proud to have keybank as a partner in this undertaking other questions or should we yes sir is there any incentive for first time home buyers i mean any literature on that there are some in some of the package and mr mike yousefi who's right here can also talk to individuals on specific questions that they might have want to thank everybody for coming today and appreciate your time consideration and if you have questions comments you have a staff here and we'll be available throughout the day thank you