Let’s just compare this year vs. 2009.

Simple.

Elegant.

Same seasonality.  Only 12 months of time to account for.  You can ignore the median price due to sample size.

28% fewer homes pending.

38% fewer homes sold.

50% drop from May/June numbers.

Raw Data with Median Prices:

Want to sell?

1. Be motivated.  Have a good reason.

2. Be prepared.  Have a good plan.

3. Be buyer focused.  Have a good price and good terms/condition.

The sales numbers:  GRIM.

I am sure that they will be all over the news.

“Existing-home sales plunged to their lowest level in 15 years in July as inventories soared, painting a grim picture for the housing market absent government support.

“Home resales dropped a record 27.2%—nearly twice as much as analysts had expected—to an annual rate of 3.83 million in July, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Meanwhile, inventories rose to 12.5 months from 8.9 months in June, pressuring already depressed home prices. Inventories are at their highest level in more than a decade.”

This is not a surprise.

Residential real estate is a game of positioning.  Of immediacy.  Of marketing impact.

Give financial incentives to lots of buyers to hurry up and buy . . .  they will and then prices and sales will crater.

Pull demand forward  . . . and there is a snap back the next quarter.

None of this was unpredicted.

Sellers in Perrysburg today have to have their home in PERFECT condition.  Priced PERFECTLY to the market.   They have to be on the top of their game.

The numbers are grim – but houses that are presented and priced well are selling.

Even in this market.

Next post: Perrysburg sales numbers . . .

It’s secret.

It’s above top secret.

But if you are doing a short sale you need to change where your checking and savings accounts are.  Banks are now using language in their checking and savings policies that you have agreed to when you opened your account to PULL MONEY OUT of accounts that are not linked to your mortgage.

Now, in polite society, this is called STEALING.

Or THEFT.

In bank terms it is called the “Right of Offset”.  You can go here and do a search for that term if you want to get real mad.

But the average consumer does not have a copy of what they signed, can’t remember, and probably can’t hire a lawyer to look at all their agreements.

So – the simple solution that I am telling ALL my short selling clients is this:  MOVE YOUR MONEY TO A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BANK.

Simple.

Sweet.

Ends the drama.

I won’t name any banks – I am assuming some are not doing this.  But some are.  And the solution to protect you is as simple as the pain of the unauthorized monetary removal is great if it happens to you!

I was talking this week with a fellow Realtor.

About the dearth of new REO orders.

In the face of hundreds of empty houses.

“What is going on in your business?” I asked . . .

He is seeing the same thing that I am.

The REO pipeline has been shut down.

It started 3 or 4 weeks ago.

Someone “of a higher paygrade” decided to slow down the marketing of new foreclosed homes.  The news is grim – at least in the headlines.  Then you read the reassuring copy – “nothing to worry about”, “move on . . . nothing to see here”.  Let’s say I agree.  There is no wave of new REO coming.    Then the tactic of the lenders to hold off inventory now is a premeditated attempt to firm up prices and values for today’s buyers and to protect their asset values.

The houses that are foreclosed and not available?

Oh – they are still there.  They are just sitting empty.  Waiting.  Marinating.

Does this make sense?  Does this make money?  Does this “help” the housing market?  Does this increase prices?

Like “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane . . . NO MAN KNOWS.

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 I rarely do.

Because you can look at the left side of my blog any day to see what new homes are on the market in Perrysburg.

But this one is mine.

This one is special.

This one is very, very hot.

1942 Tecumseh Court is in Crandenbrook.

And Crandenbrook is a FANTASTIC neighborhood.

You can walk to the park.  Your kids can walk to Ft. Meigs Elementary.

Excellent resale.

Excellent lot sizes.

I LOVE Crandenbrook (I have owned 2 houses there in the past . . . and raised my kids there).

But this house – on a quiet cul de sac, with a first floor master suite, and a three car garage is a SUPERLATIVE example of the best of Crandenbrook.  The lot, the layout, the condition – it’s all top shelf.   Priced right – what would you expect from me anyway! – at $280′s.  You can call me if you want a private showing.

Advice I am giving to potential sellers:  don’t sell unless you really need to.

Advice I am giving to sellers that really need to:  make sure you really need to sell.

Advice I am giving to sellers that are sure that they really need to sell: there are too many houses for sale given the buyer activity we have right now – let’s find out how we can work together to sell your house in this environment.

The WSJ has an interesting missive out today - about the glut of houses on the market.

Interesting reading:

“Pending sales, signed contracts on the purchase of new homes tracked by the National Association of Realtors, were down 3% in June compared to May. That month saw a 30% drop in the index, after the April 30 expiration of the home buyer’s tax credit.

The pending sales numbers point to more alarming home sales figures, wrote Credit Suisse analyst Dan Oppenheim in a note Tuesday. Mr. Oppenheim said that given the sales pace, we’re on track to sell 3.7 million homes total this year–-the lowest seasonally adjusted level of single-family existing home sales since the fall of 1996.”

I read elsewhere that a major US builder does not want anymore tax credits or Federal home buyer stimulus.  “Just let the market work” was their plea.

The housing market is tough right now – investors from out of state are buying 100 to 400 houses in a single auction.  You want to compete against that?  In Toledo? “Gird your loins” as they say.

In Perrysburg we are not at that point (and never will be . . . !) but the dynamic pressures just to the north of us still impact this market.   When housing values plummet close by it hurts us.

Great listings are still in demand.

Great buyers are still coming to PBurg.

Enjoy the Glut if you can!

I do get phone calls.

“I have a couple of questions about . . . ”

And I try my best to answer them.

I also have a couple of questions about Perrysburg Real Estate:

1. What is the future of home values in Perrysburg?  Will we ever see an “automatic 3%” increase every year like we did for many years?

2. What is the impact on the continued meltdown in Toledo home values going to do to our prices/values in Perrysburg residential real estate?

3. How much/many new taxes and property tax levies can the citizens of Perrysburg keep passing and paying until the stigma of “too many taxes” hits the top of mind thinking of buyers and they discriminate AGAINST Perrysburg listings/houses?  Will the City ever STOP spending more each year?

4. Who is going to rent/lease in Levis Commons?

5. What is the “BEST” subdivision in Perrysburg?  The one that people, irrespective of price point, love the most?

6. What can Perrysburg do to better leverage one of the greatest downtown districts in Ohio?  More car shows?  More parades?  Getting more people to a bigger/better Thursday Farmers’ Market?

7. How many homeowners are “underwater” in Perrysburg today?  Right now?  And how does that realization change their spending?  Change their planning?  Change their involvement with the community?  Change their desire to stay/work here?

I do not have the answers . . . . not on these.  I’m just asking . . .

Did you know you may have to pay a tax on your home?  When you sell it?

Because of the 2010 Obama Care Health Plan?

Yes.

It’s true.

But it’s also not likely.  At least not right away.

You will have to an income of more than $200,o00.

You will have to have a gain of more than $500,000.

Then you will owe a 3/8% “Medicare Tax” on your capital gain.

Some have called it the “Lawyers and Accountants Employment Tax”.

You can read the excellent article in the Washington Post for all the gory details.

So, unless you have a big bomber on River Road or the Sanctuary . . . and you inherited it . . . you are not going to pay the new tax.

(In fairness I must point out that the new tax is also on tanning, investment income, and many other things – which you WILL have to pay.)

But here’s the problem.

Honestly ask yourself this:  Are the big spenders in Washington D.C. going to ratchet the thresholds up or down in the future?

You and I both know the answer -  $500,000 will be $250,000 then it will be $25,000 (in the name of fairness) and then everyone selling in Perrysburg is going to have to fork over another 3.8% of their homes’ value at the closing table.

Count on it.

There really was one a couple of weeks ago . . . although I did not feel it.

But there has been an ongoing one . . . for the past 3 or 4 or 5 years.

The “mortgage implosion”.  Which is really the “people who have lost their jobs can’t pay their mortgages implosion”.

Excerpting from today’s Toledo Blade:

Metro area 52nd highest in ’10 foreclosure filings

Metro Toledo ranks 52nd highest in foreclosure-related filings in the first half of the year among the nation’s top 200 metro areas, a new study shows. The ranking, the worst among the metro areas in Ohio, is based on the number of filings of default and auction notices and repossessions per households. RealtyTrac Inc., a national real-estate data tracking firm, says in a report released today the Toledo area has one such filing for every 65 houses.

#52.  Of the top 200 foreclosure towns.

Not.  Good.  At.  All.

You can argue about school funding, TARTA leaving, and the constant I-75/475 construction projects all you want to.

But when 1 out of 65 houses in T Town has JUST GONE UNDER THE GAVEL in 2010 . . . . the other problems are not that important.

My advice?  No need for a Foreclosure Czar.  No need for a conference.  No need for a telethon.

People in Toledo need J.O.B.S.

That is the only thing that is going to bring housing back, equity back, and end the misery and physical destruction of real estate in Northwest Ohio.