Perrysburg Blog

Practice.

Preparation.

Organization.

Research.

All equal to success in lots of endeavors.   Like in baseball.   And in real estate.

Do it . . . and your ducks are in a row.

Fail?  You will whiff.  You will miss.  You will not win.

If you strike out in baseball . . . you get another at bat . . . usually.

In real estate?  You may lose the home you HAD to have.  The “perfect house”.

And, not surprisingly, real estate agent batting averages, proficiency, and skill set strength might seem to matter.

Especially in light of the new NAR report on recent sales.

If you peel away the data . . . you will find that the percentage of pending sales that blew up – busted out – failed to close . . . has DOUBLED.

That’s a HUGE increase.

I believe there are a couple of reasons:

1. More and more appraisal problems with pending sales.

2. More REO transactions which are very hard to get closed.

3. More part time / old timey real estate agents who don’t sell anymore and don’t swim in these treacherous waters anymore.

4. Short sales – the modern bane of buyers, sellers, and agents.

Add them all up . . . . and it’s a miracle MORE deals than the 18% reported are not blowing up!

(by the way – it was 9% of all pending deals blowing up just a year ago . . . )

What to do?

Get accurate market data.

Thinking about buying a short sale?  Open your eyes, get the facts, and get some help.

Only hire an experienced, competent, skilled agent.

You have a good year.

You sell a lot of houses.

You build your team.

You get to meet and work with a lot of great families and buyers and sellers.

But you did not get there by yourself.   And you certainly do not get to take credit.  And you should not trumpet “I am number 1!”

No.

But I do want to thank my dad – Dave Modene.  He was and is my example for salesmanship, service, and integrity.   I hope that “the apple did not fall” too far from his tree.    He was the top salesman for his company – setting and breaking national sales records.   Then they changed the rules to make it tougher for him . . . he won again anyway.   Then they promoted him.  And promoted him.  And finally he said “NO” . . . “I am staying in Perrysburg”.   He likes it here.   He even turned down a new “mega agency” they put together for him in Minneapolis – which if you are selling products to Lutherans is the second best place in America to be!

So – when I found this old ad . . . It caused me to realize the you should not forget to be thankful for the help and training and examples your father provided.  If I ever sell you a home or help you sell yours – I had a great teacher.

N.B. – My brother Dave – he has carried on the tradition too!

As soon as the preliminary work is done this great 2 story with 5 beds and a finished basement will be going on the market.

We have a saying that you have to have heard before . . . something about location . . . perhaps this is familiar to you?

How about adjacent to Woodland Elementary?    Adjacent to Woodlands Park and Ft. Imagination?

Hard to beat this location!

You want more information – hit me with an email at jon@modene.com

And I don’t mean the weather outside.

I mean the part of the local real estate market that is out of balance in a “good” way.

It’s the apartment/rental part.

Fewer vacancies.  If you do a quick craigslist scan you will find only about 60 ads for “Perrysburg” in the content in rentals.

There are normally a lot more.    And some of those listed are “wanted” postings.

Signs on the streets?  Fewer than normal, according to my Mark 1 Eyeball.

I am, as usual, getting LOTS of calls but all of my managed properties are full.   My own condos/apartments?  Fully rented.

And if you drive around you will see a couple of new apartment complexes being built.  They represent millions of dollars of new construction that has replaced the single family construction contraction.

Which mirrors what the WSJ says here.

Implications? Perrysburg is hot – if you are a landlord. You can be picky.  You can finally raise your rental amounts.   SFR houses are a good play if you want to diversify into real estate and hold (and rent) in Perrysburg.   Duplexes and apartment building in the 43551?  VERY hard to find for sale right now.

Buyer/Renter?   Look hard.  Look often.  Signs/The Blade/Sentinel Trib/Craigslist and Google search for available properties.   Be prepared to pay more for a nice house to lease.   They are scarce right now (at least compared to a year ago!).

Why buy?

Why buy in Perrysburg?

Realtors were taught to say that houses were/are/will be “investments”.

There was the “Perrysburg Premium” you paid to live here.

And the guaranteed 2 to 3% annual house appreciation in the 43551.

The guaranteed appreciation is gone.  The near “risk free” nature of Perrysburg property is gone.

You want real estate that is an investment?  We need to examine/measure the actual cash flow.

You want real estate that is guaranteed to go up every year?  I can’t help you.

This just ran in the WSJ:

At the risk of heaping more misery on the struggling residential property market, an analysis of home-price and ownership data for the last 30 years in California—the Golden State with notoriously golden property prices—indicates that the average single family house has never been a particularly stellar investment.

In a society increasingly concerned with providing for retirement security and housing affordability, this finding has large implications. It means that we have put excessive emphasis on owner-occupied housing for social objectives, mistakenly relied on homebuilding for economic stimulus, and fostered misconceptions about homeownership and financial independence. We’ve diverted capital from more productive investments and misallocated scarce public resources.

Between 1980 and 2010, the value of a median-price, single-family house in California rose by an average of 3.6% per year—to $296,820 from $99,550, according to data from the California Association of Realtors, Freddie Mac and the U.S. Census. Even if that house was sold at the most recent market peak in 2007, the average annual price growth was just 6.61%.

So a dollar used to purchase a median-price, single-family California home in 1980 would have grown to $5.63 in 2007, and to $2.98 in 2010. The same dollar invested in the Dow Jones Industrial Index would have been worth $14.41 in 2007, and $11.49 in 2010.

A good question – and one that really matters to sellers/owners in Perrysburg.

Lot’s of people (for example the National Association of REALTORS . . . who charges a lot for the info).

But my observations for June/July 2011 in Perrysburg are as follows:

1. People who are moving here.   Transferees.   Lots of them.

2. People who live around here and want to be closer to jobs and get the excellent Perrysburg Schools.

3. People who live here and have sold their house but want lower taxes than where they were (Ottawa Hills and Sylvania).

4. People who live here and are buying houses for their kids.  Seriously.   Doing a lot of this right now.

5. People who were renting here and want to buy into our market.

I am certain there are lots of buyers and buyer stories.

Many people buying in Perrysburg are first time buyers.  They are going to use FHA financing.  They are going to want the seller to help.  So you mentally have to be ready to “help”.    Investors?  Many are prowling in Perrysburg right now.  They often pay cash.  And they don’t care what it “was worth” or what it “sold for before”.  They are buying strictly for cash flow.

These are the predominate ones that my team and I are helping right now.

You want to sell?   You need to think about who is buying and make sure your home/real estate fits the bill.

Which I do from time to time.

Like today.   I just listed 3 homes in Toledo.   1 in Elmore.  1 in Oak Harbour.  And 2 in Perrysburg.

One in Perrysburg is on Eckel Junction – just down the road from where I used to own a house.  So . . . I know the neighborhood quite well.

You can walk over to Rivercrest Park – with or without the kids.  With or without the dog – but he ALWAYS wanted to go because there are always a lot of little and big dogs to sniff and or wag your tail at.    There are ball games going on.   The Y is right down the street.   And, of course, your kids can walk or ride to Ft. Meigs Elementary.

So it’s a pretty nice area to live in.

This house?  One owner.  Center-hall floor plan.  3 car garage.  And these are all very good features.   It feels “big” and has 2 laundry rooms – one up and one down.  The basement is finished too.

$280′s.   With a, did I mention it already . . . 3 car garage.

It is in true mint condition.

I admit it has been hard — for there are 2 markets in my world right now.

There is the Toledo Residential Market.   You know the one.  Lot’s of downward price pressure.   Some serious real estate problems that a lot of serious people are doing their best to fix.   That’s one market.

Then there is, at least in the scope of this blog, the Perrysburg market.   Fewer houses than normal on the market.   Less price pressure.   But still the buyers who are buying are not dumb.   They look over the Maumee River or back to whatever market they are moving here from . . . and they want a deal.   Even in little old Perrysburg.

They want the house to be in perfect condition.

With everything working perfectly.

And they want to move in right now.

Both markets are functioning but they are functioning differently.

Perrysburg buyers need to be very careful with the pricing strategy they are using and very sure of not only their financing options but also the ceiling they want to be at in any competitive bid situation (especially for REO houses in Pburg . . . ).

More and more loans are getting rejected.   Appraisals are a problem even in Perrysburg.   The old “throw ‘em an offer and see if it sticks / hood of the car pricing approach” does not work out very well in these times.

So – how do I read the market?

It’s really the same as it ever was!

The best homes in the best condition sell for the best price at the best timing possible.

If your house is on the market and no one is looking – it’s probably a pricing problem and not a marketing problem.

My guess is that the buyers are already aware of your house – they have just rejected it before getting inside of it.

I recently sent an email out about a new listing.  I used the hook “everybody asks me when are going to hit the bottom of the market”?

I don’t know.

2012?  2011?  2021?

No one does.

We are in need of a new model now.

A new model of buyer behavior.  Lender response to buyer default.  And seller behavior.   The old models are no longer working.  The chart has flaws.  Case-Shiller numbers are the best we have, but still flawed.  The new model of tactical defaults, bank “unforeclosures” to get TARP rebates, buyers who are REO’d or BK’d and have huge monthly incomes – they are all helping to rewrite the rule book.

It is that wonderful time of year.

The biennual collection of real estate taxes.   You live in Perrysburg, you pay in Bowling Green.

It’s part of the deal of “owning” real estate (and I use the quotes to point out that there is a school of thought extant that says you really can never “own” real property if you have to always pay money to own it . . . but I digress!).

Now, unless I am mistaken, the State of Ohio budget under our new governor John Kasich is actually LARGER than the 2 year budget that preceeded it.  And unless I am mistaken Wood County and Perrysburg City and Perrysburg Township are not cutting their budgets. 

One may wonder . . . where is all this money coming from?

Not from all of the new jobs in Northwest Ohio . . . .

No – one of the primary sources of tax revenue is real estate taxes.

And while the local market has experienced the greatest decline in real property values since the Great Depression, you would think that your tax bill would go down.

But . . . that is not happening.

So, if you want to “fight truth with power” on your Wood County tax bill, here are some ideas and links:

1. Get your property’s current tax value.  You can do this by looking up the parcel on the Wood County Auditor site.   Go to the “Valuation” tab.  It is the sum of the land value and the improvements value.  They quite helpfully do the math for you.  That’s the basis of what you are being taxed on.

2. Know that you cannot fight the millage – the rate – the tax formula.   You and I only get to fight that at the voting booth.  (HINT:  stop voting “YES” to save the zoos, the rivers, the sky, the farms, etc).

3. Get some “special help”.  In my experience if you want to have your property value reduced you will need an attorney and a full professional appraisal.  This is absolutely necessary if you are trying to get commercial or income property revalued down.

4. Get some education.  I suggest you read and review the following:

A. 7 Ways to Lower Your Property Taxes.

B. Go to the National Tax Payers Union.  They sell a little $9 book on fighting your tax valuation.

C. Read this – ALL of it.

D. Plan your plan.  You will need help (see above).  You will need to personally attend the Board of Revision hearing.  You will need to gather data and numbers before you get there.  You will need a cogent argument (see help, above – i.e. bring your attorney).   You will need to be nice and calm.

Sadly . . . you may lose.

You may also win.  And even though it may feel like a pyrrhic victory you still will save yourself from even HIGHER tax bills.

In my opinion the local constabulary should be using today’s sale prices, including distress values and valuations.   Because that’s what property is worth.  It might mean that local budgets will fall.  It might mean that revenues would fall.  That would be only fair, because if we don’t change what is happening soon, the monthly tax escrow may someday be as large as the mortgage payment.