I usually have a slew of real estate meetings that all fall in January.  This year was no exception.   Cyberstars – an industry mastermind group that I am part of was in Fort Worth, Inman Connect a brokerage/industry conference was in Manhattan earlier last month.  Add in a REO conference and a CRS conference (which I could not make this year . . . but usually go to) and it’s a lot of travel compressed in a brief time.

My take-aways and how they will impact the real estate industry and Perrysburg market:

1. Mobile – whether it’s mobile advertising, mobile video taking, mobile presentation of offers/contracts is accelerating.  I now assume buyers and sellers have internet enabled mobile devices.  How mobile are things going?  I am now taking earnest money and rent payments on my iPhone.  This tool is how . . .  

2. Perrysburg is a great place to call home and to travel from – DTW is so close and yet we don’t have to deal with Detroit congestion.  We have it good.

3. We have multiple offers on great listings.   Many markets have multiple offers on EVERY listing.

4. Video.  Google’s full integration of social media into search is intersecting with the multiplicity of video cameras extant (they are on just about every phone now) and driving video/YouTube stats into the upper atmosphere.

5. No one at any of my meetings/conferences/confabs talked about interest rates, overcoming buyer interest rate problems, finding creative financing solutions.  I guess that when interest rates are about 3% no one has any interest rate ideas.

6. Unoccupied homes are the poison in the market . . . in any market.  1.5% empty is supposed equilibrium.  We “should” hit that in 2 years nationally.  Perrysburg?  Less than 1% by my guess.

7. Facebook is getting more and more business savvy – and they will need to leverage a lot of advertising dollars to support their IPO valuation.   Look for more FB products, ads, services, and tie-ins.  Especially in my industry – real estate as Farmville gets old after a while.

8. Did I mention that it’s great to live in Perrysburg?  It is.  Travel is nice – for a while.  But what a blessing to have a great home town in the great state of Ohio in the greatest country in the world.

Why? What?

“REO” is of course banked owned foreclosed property.

And it’s strange how things sometimes run in streaks.

Today – I wrote an offer on very sharp 43551 REO listing.

Showed one.

Listed one.

That’s all normal . . . here is what is interesting:

1. A new RIVER ROAD REO property (30571 East River Rd.)  On the water.  That does not happen every day – in fact it’s incredibly rare.  $175k.  2500 sq. feet.  Township with Rossford Schools.  Last sold for $100k more . . .

2. A “builder’s own home” type REO listing.  We are putting new carpeting in it as I write this – with a 3 car garage, finished basement, and all the bling/bling you would expect.  $180s’ with close to 3000 sq. feet – and I think it’s worth LOTS more . . .it’s open this Sunday from 1 to 3.  507 Harrison Dr. in Shawnee Trace.  It just might be underpriced by $30k . . . at least!

“Clean it up”

“Pick up your mess”

Well . . . if you have children you know the lingo.  But you have to keep your house neat in order to do a great job and keep every visitor happy.

So . . . while I am at a real estate technology mastermind group it seems like a good time to tell you that the blog you are reading is now fully enabled and cleaned up for your use on your mobile device.

Real estate web stats are growing almost exponentially for mobile devices vs. old fashioned desktop devices.

And the odds are that you are/will be viewing my site on a mobile device – so it now looks different and works better on your iPad or iPhone or Android device.

13.

That’s how many new build houses are on the MLS as I write this.

13.

In a city/township of almost 50,ooo people.

That’s. Not. Many.

13.

The new construction market has imploded.  Died.  The builders are gone.  Busted.  The developers are gone.  Broke.   The few homes on the market are by very specialized and savvy niche builders.

And they tend more towards building for contract rather than speculation.

Want a new home?  You are going to have to sign a contract and have your financing in place.  That’s how it works in 2012.

(By way of the old memory bank . . . it worked this way in 2005 – we would get in a car and show you 25 houses in various stages of completion in Perrysburg and if you didn’t like any of them we would have one build just for you . . . )

How bad was it nationwide?  National TOTAL new construction sales fell 2.2% from last month to a rate of 307,000 annualized.  The total in 2010 was 323,000, the lowest amount since record keeping began in 1963.

That’s the dead cat thud.

There is now nowhere to go but up . . . right?

Builders have to be very careful . . . but there is no competition if you have a spec or can build on a contract.

Buyers?  Better be ready to rent while you build!

I wrote an offer or two this week.  On Perrysburg properties.  Being sought after by investors.

It’s common.

And it’s getting to be more common.

Think about where you can invest your money:

1. Stocks.   Maybe smart.  Maybe painful.  Check out the history of FSLR, my favorite stock, and hold on.

2. Bonds.  The returns are not much though.  In fact, this week, large investors were willing to PAY money to invest in German government securities.  Imagine that strategy taken out enough years  – you will have NO money with a long enough investment.

3. Cash.

4. Gold.

5. Other investments.

6. Real estate.

I had to list a house in Toledo today – $12,000 or so.  My firm last sold it for $70,000.   Now there are some terrible facts and realities associated with such a market crash.

Ignore all of them.

Instead imagine you bought the house for $12,000.

What could you do with it?  What kind of rental income could you get? What is the upside?  What tools and skills would you need to make it into a great rental property?

Again – people are seeking out real property in this collapsed, depressed market.  To invest in.

Inventory is down by over 20%

Interest rates are at all time lows.

Rents are up and rising.

And multiple offers are hitting on good houses.

And I think fortunes may be made right now . . . in Perrysburg rental property.

The walkaway.

The “strategic default”.

The “jingle mail”.

You can look up the term on line.

But it happens when your personal life and your financial life have collided with your real estate life and the value of your real estate is smaller than the amount owed the bank.

The process is painful.  Traumatic. And fraught with risk.

Earlier today I went to a house, which shall remain hidden from identity for now (see description above . . . ), which was very nice.

Whose professional, educated owner had walked away from.

Gone.

Vanished.

Spurned our offer of “cash for keys”.

Turned off the water and the gas and the power – and vanished in the night.

Some thoughts:

1. Talk to your lawyer before you do this.  Seriously.  Just get a lawyer and get their opinion on what to do next.

2. Get help from ANYONE.  Family.  Friends. Charity.  Even the Federal Government has lots of programs.  And as worthless as HAMP or HEH! or HUH!? have been in the past 2 years – at least they often slow down the foreclosure train a little bit and give you time to recover.

3. Do not stop paying your food/gas/electricity/heat in order to make one more interest payment to the bank.  Sit down and think about what you have to have to live and survive.  Get some counsel.  Get some special help – but don’t lose everything in order to save an upside down, underwater house.

4. Get another legal opinion – lawyers are just like every other profession.  There are good ones, bad ones, and ones that do not know what they are talking about.   Get 2 opinions when you need brain surgery.  And 2 legal opinions when you are thinking about walking away.

5. At least call the broker/agent who was trying to talk to you.   This vanished owner lost $3000 simply by not calling me.  I bet he might have needed that money . . .

6. Put your families finances first – see #3 above.  I cannot stress this enough!

Many homeowners are being forced into this hard, cold calculus.  Banks might want to consider some very aggressive modifications to principal and not just kick the can down the road.   When upscale neighborhoods in Wood County are being hit and ravaged by strategic defaulters – it’s time to change the game plan.

Which, as I remember, used to be about 10 developments/projects/unit types that I could memorize/almost perfectly know, has transmogrified into a huge amount of property and property types.

Which is a good thing.

If you want a condo/zero lot line/downsized property.

But . . .

If you are a buyer you have to deal with a SUBSTANTIALLY reduced inventory.   There are 10 to 20 to 30% fewer condos on the market for sale than in the recent past, depending on how/when you measure it.

If you are a buyer you have to deal with SUBSTANTIALLY tougher loan regs and rules.   You cannot just waltz in with your FHA loan approval to pick any condo project.  It has to be “approved”.  And certified.  And the number of tenants known/capped.

If you are a buyer you are going to perhaps pay more too.  Because of the small sample size and the disparate values of condos in the 43551 a quick and dirty $/sq. foot analysis or median price analysis is not a good way to find value.  You really have to go unit vs. unit for comparable properties.   And it “seems” to me that some values have been seriously hit hard . . . in the lower end price range.  And some values have firmed up . . . paradoxically in the higher price range.

If you want a new condo you have a problem.  Only one or two projects are building – and you will most likely need to ink a contract for a custom property.  One of my clients who just did such a building contract “set a new record” in the Perrysburg condo project they are buying in . . . imagine that!

So . . . fewer properties on the market.

More properties selling (I think I sold 2 this week in Perrysburg. . . )

And weird, wonky prices.

The Perrysburg Condo Market.

Caveat Emptor?  It’s the Latin rendering of “let the buyer beware”.

Because buyers need to beware.   At least in Ohio they do!  A quick Google.com scan shows thousands of entries for “caveat emptor” in Ohio real estate.   It shields the real estate seller.  It protects the real estate agent.  It immunizes the real estate broker.  A good example, from a Realtor trade rag is here.

I had to put a house on the market that made this very painfully real.

The “buyers”, who shall remain nameless, simply relied on what the “seller” told them.   They trusted.  But did not verify.

Big mistake.

The “seller”?  He did not have real title to the property.  It was not his to sell.   There was a bank somewhere – not getting paid.   The “buyers” gave their rather sizable down payment to this Perrysburg-based con artist.   Their “down payment”?   Gone.  Scammed.   Stolen.

They were buyers – and they were not careful.

The damage to them – emotionally, financially, and more was and is terrible.

The seller/agent was neither a real seller or a real real estate agent.

Nothing was as it seemed.

I would trust . . . but then verify:

1. Who are you?

2. Why are we not using a title agency?

3. You allright with my lawyer looking at this?

4. Why isn’t your deed recorded?

5. Why don’t you have an office?

Just a few things to consider and learn to ask so that you can avoid some of the scams that are being done right now on innocent, trusting, unaware buyers!

Disclaimer:  no snarky comments or inferences in this post should be construed as anything but an endorsement for my Dentist – Dr. Christopher Clark.  I like him.  He is incredibly talented.  He knows the ins/outs and tools/tactics to do any dental procedure with elan and skill and care.

But . . . sometimes selling a house in Perrysburg today IS like going to your dentist and getting root canal.  Which I just did with Dr. Clark.

It takes time.

It takes multiple appointments.

It takes effort.

It takes reasonable skill and training.

The dentist has to have the right tools and facilities.

The dentist has to have the right support staff.

You want your dentist to be . . . actually working full time in and on dentistry.  

All of these things are similar in my pursuit of helping clients sell their real estate and my dentists skill and care at removing dental problems.

(But . . . I sadly note . . . that I cannot give you laughing gas or an anesthetic shot to make your pain fade for a couple of hours).

As with the average root canal . . . in selling a home today there is perhaps going to be some pain involved.

Some emotional conflict.

Some stress and or trepidation.

But . . . if it has to be done and needs to be done and the situation and circumstances tell you to get it done . . .  what else can you do?

You get it done.

The numbers are firming up . . .

The casino is hiring . . .

The sun is shining nice and warm in October . . .

And my team and I are selling lots of property . . .

So what do the numbers say?

Fewer Perrysburg houses on the market.

More houses in Perrysburg pending sale.

More houses in Perrysburg closed.

And fewer houses in Perrysburg failing to sell.

What’s not to like about these numbers as seen on this chart?  (you can click on it for a full size view . . . )

A recovery?  I think not.   Not until more and better things happen on the employment front.   We are seeing natural market forces balancing out a bloated inventory.   I am seeing cash investors moving in to buy good deals (I personally wrote 4 cash offers today, and negotiated a cash offer on a Perrysburg listing . . .).   I am seeing sellers who can’t afford to sell call the bank, or lease the house out and move to Florida or S. Carolina anyway.

No.   Not a recovery.   But something better than what we had last third quarter in 2010.