Perrysburg Blog

Which I try to rarely do . . .

But this one is COOL.

Formerly remodeled by a prior owner.

Then lost, cruelly, to the bank.

Which has instructed me to find a new family for it.

HUGE.

New addition.

Perrysburg Schools.

Oh, did I mention that it is on East River Road?

In Perrysburg?

With a newer kitchen?  Period woodwork?  Lots of doors and hidden closets and other cool features?

$450,000?

$350,000?

$250,000?

No – that is the old market.

Now, in the new market, we only want $169,900.

Go to www.GoToledoHomes.com and set up your own search.

And call me FAST if you want to see this one!

My friend Alex Charfin of the Certified Distress Property Institute (imho the leading source for underwater homeowners in dealing with the bank . . .) has just produced a slick new jargon-cutting video.

Enjoy!

Me?

Unlike many Realtors who are “foreclosure experts” because they have been foreclosed themselves, I did go and get the training from the CDPI and have earned the right from Alex to actually train others in the short sale process.

In all their gory glory . . .

In their totality . . .

Median price change in Northwest Ohio over 36 months is -$30k.

Median price change in Northwest Ohio of closed single family homes is -$31.5k over 36 months.

EVERY house on average lost 20% to 30% in value.

My observations -

1. Ranches in the suburbs have resisted this trend more than anything else.

2. 80% of the “active” real estate agents have an idea this has happened, but are in “pricing denial”.   They eventually seem to be running out of money after 3 years of not selling any houses they have listed.

3. We really did not destroy 30% of the housing stock in either Afghanistan or Iraq.   But we managed to do it here.   Thanks!

4.  Toledo now has some of the cheapest housing prices in America, for what that is worth.

5.  This has caused some of the strongest and most well capitalized builder/developers to throw in the towel.   I have developed land, sold land, marketed new subdivisions, and done market research for new projects . . . . and I no longer can tell you who is going to do future non-condo/villa development in the suburban market.

Foreclosed?

Short-sale complete?

As I wrote earlier, Ohio has a 2 year time frame for mortgage holders jilted by borrowers to come and try and collect.

My supposition after attending a couple of national REO meetings is that the banks are planning on using this power to get more money from former homeowners.

Unless, of course, you are sick with cancer.

And suing your former borrower generates a lot of bad press.

Remember – if you are in a short sale situation make ABSOLUTELY SURE you are not responsible for any money owed.  In writing.  With your attorney approving.

If you are in a foreclosure situation . . . know your rights and your obligations.  Try to short sell it and use the negotiations in that process as a lever to get the bank to release your contingent liability.

Or else you have to develop cancer to get the bank to be nice.

Which is a complete redesign of www.GoToledoHomes.com.

It’s now the best buyer search tool in town.

Enjoy!

Details?

Can’t give them to you.

But in a recent meeting with a Perrysburg homeowner, I realized that they were in denial.

Which can be a serious emotional state that is impervious to reason, evidence, and logic.

These potential clients want their 2005 price.

They “NEED” it as an old mentor, Howard Brinton, used to say.

But it is 2010.

Chrysler is BK.   Toledo, City of, is BK.   Ohio, State of, is broke.   GM has filed for BK.  The entire giant mortgage brokerage that loaned them their money . . . BK and gone.

2005 is long gone.   What you or I paid is immaterial.  What you or I “NEED” is not important.

We should be moving beyond denial to truth.

In fact, we actually have more practice and experience at distressed markets than anyone else in America.

Seriously.

We (Northwest Ohio) went into this market first – along with Cleveland and Detroit.    (“Why?”, o student of history, you ask.  I will tell you:  we shipped our manufacturing jobs over to China first.  Before we shipped our tech jobs and info jobs and pharma jobs.  We – first!, but I digress.)

So – no excuses.   We are experienced in these matters.   Or we should be.

Nationally, 30% of the ENTIRE U.S. market is distressed.

Perhaps 50% of the total market activity in Toledo is now “distressed”.   That means short sales, REO, foreclosures, deed in lieu, and upside down, underwater sellers who have to bring cash to the table just to close.

Half.

One out of two.

We have to move beyond denial now.

There are some very good Realtors that I know that have not closed a single deal yet this year.

They are in denial.

There are some very good homes that will not sell for their owners.

Denial.

“But . . . the tax credit!”

“But . . . ”

Denial.

It hurts.

But you have to move on.

If you want closure.

Not because anyone wants them to.

Not because it is good for us.

Not because they should.

But they will.

Because, as I have been warning and predicting, interest rates are moving up.

Fast.

Read about it here.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The era of record-low mortgage rates is over.The average rate on a 30-year loan has jumped from about 5 percent to more than 5.3 percent in just the past week. As mortgages get more expensive, more would-be homeowners are priced out of the market—a threat to the fragile recovery in the housing market.

AP says it is because the “economy is improving”.  Right.

It’s because the market for mortgages is busted, broken, and destroyed.

Get ready for much higher rates.

Soon.

Here, there, and everywhere there is an inverse correlation with mortgage interest rates and property values.

Is this one from Forbes . . . about the WORST real estate markets in America right now.

Toledo is on this trajectory:  lost jobs, out of control State government, public school meltdown, and out of control local government.

You can just look north . . . to DTW . . . to see what the potential future holds if some serious changes are not made in Northwest Ohio.

With interest rates rising,  taxes increasing, and a steady grab of diminishing income from private citizens being answered with decreasing city services, things are not on a good path right now.

Toledo does not need this kind of publicity.

This blog is about PERRYSBURG real estate.

And . . . I sometimes have made tongue in cheek comments about Perrysburg gaining at Toledo’s expense . . .

But I do not want to see Toledo drained dry.

I don’t know anyone who does.

It’s the Greater Toledo Metro Area . . . and we are all interdependent economically.

Let’s hope they make some wise decisions up there!

Here are the comments and the list from Forbes:

1. Milwaukee, WI: Some cities’ housing crisis stemmed from rampant overbuilding. Others can blame the decline of the manufacturing industry. Milwaukee has felt both. The worst-selling housing market saw a 47% increase in unsold homes between 2008 and 2009, thanks both to underlying economic problems and overzealous development during the housing bubble.
2. Denver, CO: Denver doesn’t come to mind as a housing-crisis hot spot, but the city that once looked like it would escape the housing bust unscathed now shows signs of strain. More than 42,000 homes are on the market in the metro, 27% more than last year.
3. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles has yet to recover from the blows it took when the housing bubble burst. Home sales fell by 5% in the metro between 2008 and 2009, while they rose, if only modestly, in most other large metros. Home sale prices peaked in late 2006, and it looks like the remnants of overbuilding will continue to clog the housing supply.
4. St. Louis, MO: The city has shed jobs and seen housing prices plummet. Inventory in the metro is up 36%, in part as a result of its 11% unemployment rate. Manufacturing jobs no longer drive the city’s economy, and slow sales are just one symptom of its economic maladies.
5. San Francisco, CA: Unemployment has reached 11% here, and home prices fell by 6% between 2008 and 2009. The area’s poor-home-sale performance shows that California’s housing woes spared no city.
6. New York, NY: New York likely made the list in part because the condominium market, which drives much of Manhattan real estate, wasn’t included in the analysis. Still, not everything’s rosy in the Big Apple: Sale prices were down 13% between 2008 and 2009, and inventory has seen a 13% rise.
7. Cincinnati, OH: Like Cleveland and other Rust Belt cities, Cincinnati suffers from a lack of jobs–the city is 11% unemployed–which has cut sales dramatically and left a glut of unsold houses behind. Inventory in the city rose 48% between 2008 and 2009.
8. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland was suffering before the housing crisis hit, but the bursting of the bubble surely didn’t help. Unemployment is at 10% in the metro, which has hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs. That means families don’t have the means to buy, and homes remain unsold.
9. Atlanta, GA: Inventory was up 6% in 2009 from the previous year. That may not sound like much, but together with flat quarter-over-quarter single-family home sale prices and sluggish sales rates, the overbuilt city shows significant signs of strain.
10. San Diego, CA: Scores of new condominiums were constructed before the market peaked in the first quarter of 2006, driving up prices and spurring overbuilding. Many units were built for speculative buyers, but today the brand-new luxury buildings sit empty.

My lovely, Dear Wife asked me . . . “WHY?!”

I already have an Apple laptop . . . an iPhone . . . a desktop computer . . . an Dell MLS/Windows only machine . . . and a Kindle.

“You don’t need one”, she further opined.

I disagree.

So I bought one. Even though . . .

I have never held an iPad.

I have not yet seen one.

But I have a few thoughts:

1.  I have an implicit trust in Apple.   They build it right.  They support it right.  They add value and quality.  (One great lament about Northwest Ohio?  No Apple Store here.  This must be rectified.  But the Mac Cafe is growing on me . . . )

2. I am constantly trying to be a better “virtual” Realtor.  Virtual?  Able to provide help and answers and information in the field . . . where my clients are located.   Many, many years ago I outfitted a Ford Econoline van to be my “Mobile Office Vehicle”.  Why?  There were no portable tiny hand held computers.  No wi-fi.  I needed a big power supply to power the big CD disk that held the comparable sales data in the big computer in the back of the van . . . so that I could price houses in the field.  Now?  I have that data on my Mac book Air and my iPhone.

3.  I am trying to embrace the paperless real estate deal.  We now digitize EVERYTHING at RE/MAX Masters and the Jon Modene Team.   I have used an HP Tablet before – to write contracts and sign them in the field.  Cumbersome.  Clunky.  Now with my new iPad . . . !

4. Apps.  It is all about the applications.  My technogeek son does not yet understand this -  it’s not about gigahertz and flops and GB of RAM.  It’s about the mobile applications that you can buy and use to do work – to generate accurate, reliable, valuable “work product”.  My need is for apps that simply help me generate work product.  Apple is the absolute leader in this.  Just ask anyone with an iPhone.

5. I truly believe that the iPad is going to revolutionize residential real estate sales.  At least for those agents who embrace change and embrace new tools.   I was the first in this area to use a lot of different and unconventional marketing tools and tactics.  The iPad is, I believe, not revolutionary.  Not incendiary.  But it will be great for productivity, professionalism, and the ability to offer more help and counsel to my clients in the field.