Perrysburg Blog

The farmer of 1850 got about 5 bushels of corn per acre.

Today – an Ohio farmer can get 200 bushels an acre.

The revolution in agronomics and farming science and genetics and farming technology has changed the lives of every Ohioan.   A majority of Buckeye residents used to work . . . “on the farm”.  Not any more.

When I consider the same changes that have taken place in real estate – the impact of computers, the Internet, automobiles, cell phones, etc. I have to wonder why there has been no corresponding change in employment in the real estate sector.

One reason is the dominance of the Real Estate Hobbyist.

The average agent?   Today?   In Perrysburg?  Not returning calls.  Not answering their phone.  Not in the field working.  Not on top of their game.

Why?

Because they are at their “other job”.   Their “real job”.  And when you are working that job – your crop of real estate sales tends to suffer!

Because when you only sell 2 or 3 or 4 houses a year, you need another job.

Consumers want and demand great results and great service today.  But they often do not know how to tell the difference between a hobby farmer and a full time farmer.  Not until it’s too late.  Not until their crop comes in.

Should the State of Ohio shut down the hobby farmer?

No.

Should the rules change to put them out of business?

No.

This is America.   Everyone has the right to work anyway they want.

I just love to provide the best results for my clients – they seem to appreciate what I have to sell.  After 19 years, I know what it takes to deliver results.  And this market is the toughest market I have ever seen.   I know that my clients need careful attention and special protection in this market.

Everyone knows that Realtors need coffee and other caffeine laden beverages to function.   My profession has what my wife and I call, in a normal year, my “Summer Hours”.  That is when I go into the office later and come home at 9 or 10 at night because I have been out showing and selling that late every night.  Summer Hours start, usually, in the Spring and end in the Fall.

The invention of the modern coffee shop, and the lamented closing of Broske’s has allowed Realtors in Perrysburg to get their coffee or, in my case, tea fix.   Modern coffee parlors are excellent neutral places to meet to write an offer, meet a client, or meet another agent.

Therefore it is my pleasure to review the major Perrysburg Coffee Hangouts – I spend enough time at them, you might as well profit from my experience.  I will rate all of these Coffee Stores with “REALTOR PENS”.

#1 in a Series:  Biggby’s at the Shops at RiverPlace  (www.Biggby.com)

Location:  3 Pens.  In the Shops at RiverPlace.  Which I think is great – and close to my office.  The drive thru is a huge competitive advantage – their BEST feature.

Music: 1 Pen.  Canned.  Eecch.

Furniture:  3 Pens.  Nothing fancy but plenty of flat surfaces for writing contracts.

Drinks: 2.5 Pens.  Serious coffee drinks.

Staff:  3 Pens.  Apparently friendly and focused.  I am not that into the Biggby’s colors.  I don’t think they are either.

Most Annoying Feature:  The double edged sword of the drive thru.  Yes, it is their greatest feature, but with each and every order, each and every patron INSIDE Biggby’s can hear YOUR order and any comments or discussion you are having in your car.  Reminds me of being at Luton Airport one horrible day . . . “must bring noise canceling headphones . . .”

Best Feature:  2.5 Pens  The drinks and the prices.  This is the working man’s coffee joint.   No self-absorbed types here.

Weird Real Estate/Design Thing That I Noticed: The lights above the main counter.  They seem to be halogen fixtures.  But they are stuffed with what look like 100 watt regular bulbs.  Strange.  Spend all that money on the fancy fixture and then skimp on the cheap and ugly bulbs . . . And  I wonder how many fender benders they have had  out in front with people hurrying to get their Java fix.  Just wondering!

# of Laptop Outlets: 4  -  3 Pens.

Free WiFi:  No.  You have to register.  Why don’t you have your own AirCard?  (Every Realtor has one, right!?)

Overall – a great place to meet a client, an appointment, or to write a contract.  3.5 Pens  The drive thru alone gives them a huge advantage.

Next up . . . Starbucks.

It might have gone in your spam folder.   I found it on BoingBoing.  It was on TheNation.com too.

So good it hurts.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

Here is a new listing I have just taken in Perrysburg.

But who is the owner???

Great house.

Great property.

Great location.

Actually a really great price – $279,900 in Belmont Farms. With a den and a great yard, and a finished basement, and a sideload garage. In PERFECT condition.

The picture? What does it say? What does it mean?

You have to admit that it LOOKS good. Look at the yard. Look at the landscaping!

YOU now own this house.

Congratulations!!!!!

It is an “REO” – “real estate owned”. Foreclosed. Bank owned. Someone could not or did not pay the mortgage. And it was sold at auction at the Sheriff’s Sale. The bank took it back. Now it is for sale.

And in the Great Mortgage Crisis of last week our feckless leaders decided that the 95% of us that actually pay our mortgages on time should pony up $1,000,000,000,000 in new taxpayer money to cover the banks that loaned money to the 5% that did not pay their house payments.

This house and many, many more are now part of the problem. And our money is the solution. You feel free to call me if you want to tour your new property.

When nice, clean, great houses like this are being lost to foreclosure, and then sold at a massive discount . .

(FYI: Here it is on Realtor.com)

…and we, the 95% have to pick up the tab, then something is seriously wrong with this nation.

More common in Toledo, this is a sign of the times.

But beware this type of bottom feeder.

They don’t really buy your house.

They attempt to steal it.

I have seen them try to all sorts of shady and nefarious things from subordinate your loan to put a buyer in the home and (hopefully!) make the payments for the owner.

Toledo, being the mother of all frauds (Bell and Beckwith ring a bell?,  Martin Frankel?,  and First Federal?) and  home to a little enterprise called  Westhaven Group that is even now  going to trial, most people should have a rather healthy level of skepticism when someone offers to help you out and “buy your home for cash” with no strings attached.

Right?

Just a LITTLE BIT OF SUSPICION?

In my experience the people behind these signs and ads are not going to pay fair market price.  You should NOT trust them with the title to your house.  You should not negotiate directly with them.  You should not deal with them without an agent or attorney representing you, you are not going to get top dollar or anywhere near it for your home, and the very fact that someone wants to help you and everyone else in town who needs to sell their house with a cash offer – sight unseen – should tell you that they are going to, at best, pay about 65% or less off of market.

At worse?   They will get you to sign something.   You won’t get a copy or won’t remember what it was.

And then after the foreclosure . . . and the lawsuit when the bank comes to collect for what someone who you never knew did to your house that you thought was no longer your problem . . . well, then you will have to regret calling the nice men who “buy houses” for cash.

Usually 1 time a month the Sheriff of Wood County has a duty to do.

(Unashamed plug: Vote for Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn’s Reelection in November. Honest and brave and incorruptible. All true. But he also is a BUDGET HAWK who cuts and cuts and cuts waste and fraud. A graduate of free-market loving Hillsdale College (www.hillsdale.edu) The Sheriff HAS to do the Sheriff sales – it’s part of his job. Most fob it off on others. But not Waylyshyn. He PERSONALLY handles it. So – he needs to be reelected, in my opinion. A great leader and a great sheriff.)

Anyway. I digress.

Sheriff sales.

Horrible data to study and rely on.

Inaccurate.

“Laggy”.

Not a full picture.

Subject to “take aways” – it was a foreclosure but we pulled the auction and did a short sale – it was a foreclose but they filed for BK and tied us up for 90 days, etc.

The “laggy” part happens because the banks are getting around to the sheriff sale part 90 to 180 to 270 days after the late payments and slow payments and defaults and work outs and other various and sundry means and methods have been tried to get their money from the mortgagee.

The sheriff sale is it. No more talking. We are done. (Not really. They will still talk – but that’s another story, for another time!).

So the Sheriff of Wood County has been busy lately.

How busy?

Note the trend.

Up and up and up.

But keep in mind the lag effect.

And the unseen pull backs and delays and push backs. So this unscientific and admittedly crude chart is not totally accurate.

But it shows the tempo of the market. And the pace of Wood County Sheriff Sales.

And the people who have been paid millions of dollars of salary and bonuses to run their companies into the ground?

In my opinion they should be forced to disgorge those ill-gotten gains. They should see the carnage their financial alchemy has created here on the ground in Wood County Ohio. People have suffered. People have been misled into buying and borrowing. Oh, they signed and were disclosed. But the destruction we are all witnessing HAS to have consequences.

Beyond just the Sheriff saying “SOLD to the high bidder.”

Yes.

The reason was I took my family to Glacier National Park in Montana for a week of real estate inspection in Montana.

The Big Sky state offers real ghost towns, real mountains, and some of the most expensive real estate in America.

We love traveling off of the beaten path.

To Indian reservations. Dinosaur museums. Old, private history museums. And real abandoned ghost towns.

Here is one place that you cannot visit. Just drive by.

You cannot stop and knock on the door.

You cannot wander in and ask “how are you doing?”.

It is a Minuteman Missile control base. Underneath it there is a couple of USAF officers with their hands on the triggers to 10 ICBMS.

Watching.

Guarding.

Serving as a constant deterrent to help keep us safe.

Beauty all around. Masking incredible and terrible destructive power.

Montana.

An incredible state