Perrysburg Blog

Nope.

Not now.

Not when this: Local Plant Closes Due to Ohio EPA Rules is happening.

214 GREAT manufacturing jobs.

214 bread winners.

214 actual or potential homeowners.

214 new foreclosures?  214 destroyed families.

Why?  Because some Columbus-focused bureaucrats decided to close this plant.

Note this well:  There will be NO HOUSING RECOVERY while such decisions are being made.

The lifeblood of Northwest Ohio is being shipped off – factory by factory and line by line – to Indiana, Tennessee, Mexico, and China.

Your house just went down in value.

Your prorata share of taxes is going up.

Because 200+ jobs are leaving Wood County.

The people doing this need to be hounded from office.

The destruction of jobs is destroying real estate.

Indiana is CROWING about their new corporate addition.

We keep driving jobs out and raising taxes.

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

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

Enjoy!

To drive down West River Road and look at the wonderful Fall colors.

Technically, the chemical composition of chlorophyll in each leaf is changing as they die and drop off.   But the result is a vivid explosion of reds, yellows, burnt umber, orange and more as the leaf dies after 8 months of growing.

You can extend your trip down State Route 65 all the way to Grand Rapids.  It’s not far.   (Note: the Grand Rapids downtown shopping/dining/etc. experience is not what it once was!)

There is one particular point where the trees over River Road become a tunnel of color.   With our Northwest Ohio topography and the lingering effects of the clear-cutting farmers from 100 years ago, it’s rare in this part of the country.  So you just have to drive to Willowbend and Carrington Woods to see the effect.

It’s worth a drive.

My one plus week hiatus occurred as I was attending a series of real estate mastermind meetings in Denver Colorado.

Now, being from table-flat Northwest Ohio, ANY trip to Denver is fun.  And I get to go there at least once a year since RE/MAX International has their HQ there in the “DTC” – the Denver Tech Center.

I took the Dear Wife with me.   We had a day or two to go to Pikes Peak, Ft. Collins, Boulder, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Broadmoor, and some other tourist things.  (Tip: Do the 13 mile, one-way, dirt road trail in RMNP – lots of fun in a rental car!)

But – and in all seriousness – I do not know where they get their oxygen from.   At 10,000 or 11,000 feet . . . that is thin, rare air.

So there are pros and cons of living at the bottom of the Black Swamp in Wood County.

Cons:  No vistas.  No mountains.  No way to see far away.

Pros:  Oxygen to breathe.  Humidity to lubricate your lungs, etc.

One of the most memorable exchanges was on the last day of the big mastermind meeting that I was attending.

Four panelists:  CEO of Prudential.  CEO of Coldwell Banker.  CEO of Keller Williams. (All large national franchises – think billions of dollars of solds).

Fourth panelist:  A producing Realtor from Philly – Allan Domb. (Sells A LOT of condos every year – think $100millions plus).

CEO’s all wanted more government help.  More tax credits.  Ban the banks from competing with us.  More stimulus.

One CEO told a funny story mocking Congressman Barney Frank.

I might want to “recalibrate” that strategy if I was him  . . .

The lone Realtor?  Told them off.  Market it not coming back.  Adapt of die.  Change or get gone.

Sellers are hurt.

Buyers are hunting.

The idea that a government program will “fix” things is foolish.

I found myself agreeing with my fellow Realtor.

One more thing . . . spent some time on Larimer Square.  In downtown Denver.  Great restaurants.  Great shops.  People strolling.  People enjoying the town.

Reminded me of downtown Perrysburg . . . but note the lights:

Now Perrysburg is not downtown Denver and we will never have pedicabs, and horse-drawn carriages, and Dianna Krall playing a gig.

But – note the lights!  What a great, simple idea.  The whole street was lit that way on Larimer Square.

Perrysburg ought to copy that.

There are 74.8 million dogs and
88.3 million cats in the US. 

Many people who have lost their homes have taken
their animals to shelters, or the less responsible ones let them lose, locked
them up in the backyard when they move away. 

People are to blame, not the
animals.

I know – the economy is in the tank.

I know – people are cutting back and cutting costs.

And some are even walking away from houses.  In the City and in the Township.

But don’t hurt your animals!

Sometimes THEY, the little innocent dogs and cats, get foreclosed too.

Some resources:

Toledo Humane Society.
http://www.toledohumanesociety.com/tahs/

Maumee Valley Save a Pet.
http://www.maumeevalleysaveapet.org/

Paws and Whiskers Cat Shelter
http://pawsandwhiskers.org/

Toledo Animal Shelter
http://toledoanimalshelter.com/

Wood County Animal Shelter
http://www.woodcountyhumanesociety.org/

These shelters are immune from the economy with more than enough space, money, and food.

RIGHT.

They are hurting too – and the pets they help are in more danger than ever.

You can help by adopting a stray (and by spaying and neutering your own pets).

One of RE/MAX Master’s REO/foreclosure listings recently generated this benefit:  a cute, nice, starving cat.  Renamed Hobbs by my daughter Hannah (I think Reo is a better name).  He was alone.  Starving.  And desperate for someone to love.

Shots and neutering were extra.  But we now have a great barn/outside cat.   

Somehow, and most amazingly, he has even won over Mr. Buster, our Maltepoo and the Jon Modene Team Mascot (he even has his own business cards!).   They are now friends.

Maybe some good will come out of the REO crisis . . .

Down 40% . . .

Thanks for asking!

But I am having a great month . . .

Ouch.

Good homes?  They are still slowing.

Overpriced, underwhelming homes?  You can only imagine!

-44% drop in NUMBER of closed sales means that you need an agent who knows the market, knows how to market, and knows how to sell your home to a buyer, a bank, and an inspector.

Why?

The casino is coming . . . details here.

Why is that bad news?

Inevitably, after a 2 year latency period, the incidence of crime against people and crime against property increases.

Every time.

Everywhere a casino is built.

You can count on it.

Build one in Wood County?  Along the Maumee.  Or in the “Golden Triangle”.  And there will be negative, deleterious effects on the values of Perrysburg homes.

You can “BET” on it.

The scholarly  paper on this is interesting reading.  And sobering reading.

Here is the paper by Earl Grinols and David Mustard.

The casino lobby will never stop.  They will try and try and try – stopping only when they have fooled enough people.

Things will be great.  For a couple of years.

Then the neighborhoods closest to the “Crossroads Casino” will start to be negatively effected.

That negative trend will then metastisize and spread.   From Starbright to Belmont to Three Meadows and beyond.

Theory?  Supposition?  Hardly.  Read the literature.  (page 14 shows how MILLIONS in lost property values is the result of the “jobs creating casino”.

Bring on a casino I say.

But build it RIGHT NEXT to the Toledo Correctional Institution on East Central.

Crimes against people.

Crimes against property.

Visitor crimes.

Criminal gambling.

Costs of addiction to gambling.

Increased rapes.

Increased police costs.

We neither need nor want these things in Wood County.

The day they get their way is the day we start to pay.

Sadly there is no Case-Shiller study for Perrysburg.

Our market is too small.

And too nice.

And too friendly.

But I digress.

The Case-Shiller study of residential home prices, which I have written about before, is a matched pair study.

Only the exact same houses are included, when they have sold and resold.

So it is pretty accurate as least as far as the lack of “adjustments” that applied by appraisers when trying to make different houses look and act and price the same.

But I digress.

Which I am doing a lot of this month when thinking about the Case-Shiller numbers.

Why?

Because I operate on a couple of standard assumptions.

1. You reap what you sow.

2. Practice and hard work make you succesful, not MLM’s.

3. Detroit = Toledo.  At least as far as real estate values go.  Generally.  Mostly.

And the 12/2008 Case-Shiller numbers say that Detroit real estate lost, on average, 21.7% in value during the previous 12 months.

The latest Case-Shiller chart?  Reminds me of Deer Valley in Utah.  And that’s a beginner hill there!

Which kind of takes your breath away.

And makes you want to digress and diverge and divest and maybe even weep.

But – I have to remember and remind my clients that Detroit is not Perrysburg.  And that if you waited to buy, congratulations, you just made more money.  And that you and your 401k probably would be ECSTATIC over a 21.7% decrease.

But still – that’s a huge, unprecedented decline.

Is it over?

Are values firming up?

Time will tell.

I don’t think that there is another -21% left to give.

But then almost no one thought this COULD happen 4 years ago.

Houses that priced right.

Houses that are in the right condition.

Houses that are therefore IN DEMAND.

These houses – SELL.

Immediately.

This one, sold for just about full price, to the first buyers through.

And it’s not a cheap house.

Not at all.

Why?  What with all the bad news out there . . .

It was priced right.  It was in perfect condition.  It had a great floor plan.  And the seller worked with me to get it right.

Boom.

One showing.   One offer.  Gone.

That was quite a windstorm last week in Perrysburg.  Wow!  Out at my house it gusted to almost 55 mph.

The power went out a number of times.

And each time – our generator kicked in.

Silently.

Automatically.

And without any intervention from me.

If you have a finished basement . . . . this can save you $15,000.

If you have an extended power outage – it can keep your home from freezing.

In my mind, the home generator is not a luxury, but out to be part of a standard fit out for many houses.

I am noticing more and more of them as I look at newer homes.

(You can’t help but hear the advertisements on the radio, too)

They look like a central air system compressor box – sitting outside next to the house or condo.

A close look will show that they have a fuel hookup coming in – either natural gas or propane.  That’s how they run.  The Guardian models start up automatically once a week to keep themselves ready to run or lubricated or just because it’s fun, I guess.

This is the one at my parents condo.   They were so impressed with my generator . . . that they had to copy me.

It runs the whole house when the power goes out – as long as you are not welding and vacuuming and using the electric range for broiling all at the same time I imagine.

Get one and you will not believe how you ever lived without it.   No noise.  No fuss.  No muss.  No hassle.   It simply powers your house.

Resale value?  I have never done a resale with one of these new models.  But I imagine that it will be a great resale feature.

It sure beats a flooded basement!