OLEAN, N.Y. \u2014 David Bauer is a fire captain and code enforcement officer for the city of Olean. He’s also a Home Dad, part of the city’s partnership with national relocation firm Make My Move.<\/p>\n
“I want to make sure your home is safe,” said Bauer.<\/p>\n
To do that, Bauer will conduct a personal property walkthrough inside and out with a potential home buyer, then refer them to a licensed contractor to make any necessary repairs.<\/p>\n
“We can point out potential things that need to be done. Preventative maintenance issues, like, ‘hey, your foundation looks like it’s not in good shape, you might have water drainage problems around it, you might have roof problems, window issues,'” said Bauer.<\/p>\n
Evan Hock launched Make My Move in 2020.<\/p>\n
“So this is an economic development activity that is available to communities of all shapes and sizes,” said Hock.<\/p>\n
In addition to providing access to a Home Dad, the company is offering new residents an incentive package worth $8,000, including $4,000 and other community-related perks.<\/p>\n
“They’re looking for affordability, they’re looking for community connection and outdoor life. By recruiting new households, you’re bringing jobs, you’re bringing skills, you’re bringing taxes and economic spending to the region,” said Hock.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a win-win, really. It’s been a very exciting prospect of what we’re going to maybe see and hopefully build on,” said Olean Mayor Amy Sherburne.<\/p>\n
City leaders say the program will help grow the tax base, boost the economy and help potential out-of-state home buyers be fully invested in the landscape of an upstate community.<\/p>\n
“You have a city here in New York state, we’re ready to put forth a huge effort to bring people in rather than see people exit. Of course, we want to increase our population, that helps you know every facet of our city, when we have people that are only staying but more people coming here,” said Sherburne.<\/p>\n
It’s why Bauer encourages people looking to relocate to log on for help.<\/p>\n
“Because it’s available. And some of the other perks you get through the program help a lot,” said Bauer.<\/p>\n
The city already has more than 200 applicants interested in possible relocation.<\/p>\n
While there are no current active programs anywhere else in the state, the Make My Move website also features write-ups about Rochester, Ithaca and Rockland County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OLEAN, N.Y. \u2014 David Bauer is a fire captain and code enforcement officer for the city of Olean.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113,2025,2907,16799,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,200],"class_list":["post-378696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-buffalo","tag-community-news","tag-housing","tag-mark-goshgarian","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}