Perrysburg Blog

Never before have little things made such a difference if you are selling in Perrysburg.

Don’t think that price is the only dimension in the market today.  It’s the most important dimension, but not the only one.

Several clients that I have just started working with on the sell side really impressed me recently.

They did EVERYTHING to get their home ready.  No stone was left unturned.  No blemish was left unpainted.  Everything that could be fixed, cleaned, regrouted, painted, and spiffed up was.

Houses in this condition do impress the buyer that looks at them.   They sell faster.  They sell for more money.  They raise the bar in the neighborhood to a new, higher level.

If you are going to sell you want to be the house that the buyers remember favorably.

If you show enough homes you can remember the ones that were really, really bad.   “Wear a mask” bad.   You don’t want to be remembered for something bad, but for being exceptional.

Some ideas:

1. Professional carpet cleaning.

2. Grout and tile and showers and baths – make them perfect.

3. Paint.  No blemishes.  No wild colors.

4. Screw everything back in place that the wind/snow/rain has changed.

5. Put all the extra stuff away.  In the garage or basement or storage locker.

6. Lighten and brighten all the rooms.   It works.

7. I am not a big landscape fan – buyers know how easy landscape can be change/fixed.  But some mulch and some flowers from Andersons or Mosers or Black Diamond?  Easy to add.  Cheap to buy.

Just don’t let the kids help without supervision . . .

Has finally arrived.

Here is what it means to me, from a real estate perspective:

1. More houses on the market.  Happens every year.

2. Parades.  You bought a house in the Historic District?  Now you can walk to the parade with a stroller and not worry about parking.

3. Independence Day.  You bought a house by Ft. Meigs.  Now you can have a great party and not fight traffic.  Or you can hope your brother has a party and you can watch from his house.

4. The Farmer’s Market.  Fast becoming a great Perrysburg event every week.  You no longer need a lot big enough to garden.  You can buy someone’s organic produce and not mess with it your self! 

5. Tornado Time.  Remember last year?  Watch the news about Joplin?  You buy a house WITHOUT a basement you might want to have a plan . . . .

6. Heat and Humidity.  We always get some really hot stretches.  Got central air?  Screens for all windows?

7. Water.  Pouring into your basement as the walls collapse.   This does not happen in Spring/Summer.  But now is the time to reattach and check your downspouts.  Don’t do it?  Don’t care?  $25,000 to fix a bad basement in the Perrysburg Clay.

8. And a sad change – want to bike ride?  There are ZERO good trails in Perrysburg.  You have to drive to the Slippery Elm or Wabash Cannonball.  Bummer!

Enjoy the upcoming great weather!

Which I try not to do too often.

But . . . . since this is in all actuality the absolute nicest, best, most amazing house on the market in Perrysburg right now, it gets it’s own blog entry.

If you want to see what $795k will buy you should call me.

Here is the garage!  (Also known as the “Man Cave” or as my normal patter/joke goes the “Mother In Law Suite” . . . but in this case it REALLY IS!  With a full apartment upstairs.)

Want more details?  Pond? Check.  Fully finished lower level?  Check.  Fireplace in the den?  Check.  High/vaulted ceilings? Check.  Granite, tile, marble? Check.

To see it is to fall in love.

Call or email me for your tour.  24290 Sun Air in Perrysburg Township – $795,000.

Out and about in Perrysburg today.   Foreclosing and securing new bank owned properties in the city and township.

Then out to Toledo and Rossford – to snap some photos on a rare sun-shiney day of some new listings.

Then back to work on offers and new listings.

And everywhere I go . . . . “is the market getting better?” is the question.

Not based on what I am seeing.

Then I read this from Marketwatch.com

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — If you thought the housing crisis was bad, think again.

It’s worse.

New data just out from Zillow, the real-estate information company, show house prices are falling at their fastest rate since the Lehman collapse.

Average home prices are down 8% from a year ago, 3% over the quarter, and are falling at about 1% every month, according to Zillow.

And the percentage of homeowners in negative-equity positions — with a home worth less than its mortgage — has rocketed to 28%, a new crisis high.

Zillow now predicts prices will fall about 8% this year and says it no longer expects the market to bottom before 2012.

“There’s no way we can get to flat, from these depreciation levels, in the last nine months of the year,” says Zillow economist Stan Humphries. “Demand is a lot more anemic than we had previously thought.”

Just lovely.

Normally I write about the “big picture” in Perrysburg real estate.   And about the little picture of the lessons and corrections and information that I gain/acquire/pick up/and am corrected by in my daily life of listing and selling houses in Perrysburg.

Today – I am writing up 2 new listings in Perrysburg.

They are polar opposites.

A happy story of great, satisfied, loyal, smart clients.   I sold them the house – now transferring out of the area.

One is a modern, contemporary floor plan, staged to perfection (hat tip to my Stager – Gina Graf!), in perfect condition.   1st floor master. 4000+ sq. feet.  Finished basement.  Modern high ceilings.  Whole house sound system, vacuum, video, Cat-5, etc.

The second?  A terrible tale of injury, financial distress, legal trouble, and sadness mixed with grief and sickness and divorce.

It’s on a challenged lot.  With a new owner – Fannie Mae – who really is not interested in owning houses in Perrysburg but in helping new home owners acquire them for a fair price.  I had to help this owner foreclose on the prior owner.   Long story – but the end result is a brick ranch with a bargain price.

2 houses.

2 different conditions/locations/stories/journies.

So – if you are interested in 3628 River Ridge . . . or in 11001 Avenue Road (the official street name for SR 795) you can let me know.

I will show them both and see which one meets your needs . . .

I just got a message from my REO asset managers at Fannie Mae:

They are having another “Spring/Summer” REO sale.

Wow!

I do get MANY calls each day – 3 or 4 so far today – “can you give me a list of REO” in XXXXXX?

Yes.

And no.

Many of the “lists” you can get online are for homes you cannot buy, cannot see, and cannot legally even enter.

The value of that kind of list?

Zero in my opinion.

I run a website – www.ToledoBankOwned.com with a feed of live MLS listings that are currently for sale.

But that site is not totally inclusive.

I also run an email database list – which I hit with upcoming news about new REO that I am listing.

How many?  Where?  When?

It varies by the day/week.

Today is a busy day.  15 new REO assignments.

One of which is in Perrysburg.

So – you want to get the news first, simply drop me an email and I will put you on the proverbial list!

jon@modene.com

Could be!

This chart shows that there is a move toward a more balanced supply of houses:

In the cold, cold months of Winter the 43551 had about 10 to 13 months of inventory on the market and moving off the market.

That was too much obviously.

Now?

May MSI (Months Supply of Inventory) was 4.7 months.  It was 6.5 last month.

It always drops in the Spring and Summer (mine is a seasonal business – like picking strawberries).

But the current numbers are indicative of strong demand from buyers, the continuing popularity of Perrysburg real estate, realistic sellers, and sellers moving houses off of the market.

How about prices?

Behold the numbers:

Ignore the bank numbers – and median prices for closed Perrysburg homes are right – almost exactly – where they were last year in May.

In fact, they have declined from this past Winter, which speaks of sample size issues.  The trend is steady – perhaps we have reached the end of the pricing cliff in Perrysburg?

“Unexpectedly”

People are always surprised.

Chagrined.

Shocked!

To discover that paying buyers to buy backfires.

We really didn’t pay the buyers.   WE PAID THE SELLERS.

We inflated values by $8000.   With money we don’t have.  That the Germans and Chinese have kindly loaned us.  That our kids and grandchildren will pay back.

And, “unexpectedly”, sales of existing homes declined.

CNBC has details here.

“Sales of previously owned homes fell unexpectedly in May as delays in processing mortgage applications hampered the closing of contracts benefiting from a popular homebuyer tax credit, an industry group said on Tuesday.

AP

The National Association of Realtors said sales fell 2.2 percent month over month to an annual rate of 5.66 million units from an upwardly revised 5.79 million-unit pace in April.

Analysts polled by Reuters expected May sales to rise 5.5 percent to a 6.12 million-unit pace from the previously reported 5.77 million units in April. Sales were up 19.2 percent compared to May last year.

Sales were expected to rise as transactions for existing homes are measured at contract closing.

Although the tax credit for home buyers expired in April, qualified home owners have until June 30 to close contracts.

“There hasn’t been much of a rebound in housing. We are growing from the extremely low levels of last year. On average, we are looking for a moderate advancing trend,” said Stephen Stanley, chief Economist at Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Connecticut.”

Shocking!

But not unexpected.

A contrarian view here:

“Things are looking worse on the housing front, with a severe drop-off in existing home sales following the expiration of the home-buyer tax credit. It’s hard to overstate how stupid this policy was. The government marketed it as a measure to boost residential real-estate prices by providing new home-buyers with a tax credit in the neighborhood of $8,000. Did you see the ubiquitous ads featuring the couple that gets an envelope full of cash from Uncle Sam? The idea was to convince potential home-buyers that they were the ones who would benefit from the subsidy, when in fact the opposite was true. The tax credit was a subsidy for sellers, not buyers, allowing them to increase their asking price (or avoid decreasing it) by $8,000.

The government’s “gift” to new home-buyers? A house immediately worth $8,000 less than they paid for it, and falling fast thanks to the sharp drop-off in demand that accompanied the expiration of the tax credit. Gee, thanks, Uncle Sam! I’m not sure the “predatory lenders” Obama likes to talk about ever did anything that sketchy.”

They need the work.

They are hungry.

They can be there 24/7 for you . . .

There are so many reasons to hire the financially destitute Realtor.  It’s just that none of them accrue to your benefit.

And, seriously, there is just a little bit of downside risk.

From my observations this week, talking to dissatisfied former clients of broke Realtors, and Realtors who are unable to sell real estate today:

A. The Financially Challenged Realtor is not going to be there.  They are not going to return your call.  Or have staff and support to do so.   You are going to be on your own.

B.  The Financially Challenged Realtor is not going to invest much money in marketing your house.  They don’t have any money to invest.  And if they did they need it for themselves and their survival.

C.  The Financially Challenged Realtor is going to be distracted.   Seriously distracted.  With a new job.  With court problems.   With other career issues.   Think that won’t hurt the sale and marketing of your listing?  Sure.

D.  The Financially Challenged Realtor is not going to have the best and most up to date technology and software.   No office to take an interested potential buyer to.   No color printer to make brochures for you with.  No scanner to digitize paperwork with.   No wide angle lens for the camera that makes your home more attractive on line.  No . . . you get the picture.

E. The Financially Challenged Realtor is not going to do the right thing when they should.  They may be desperate.  And the blood of desperation in the pool with your equity is not a good mixture.

F.  The Financially Challenged Realtor is not going to have the judgment needed to effectively protect you from scams and scammers.  They will instead try to sell you on uplines, travel deals, pills and potions, and magic software that will help you pay off your mortgage early (for an investment of $3000 up front for the magic program).

Help yourself . . . if you feel sorry for a broken real estate agent, give them a donation.  Don’t donate your home’s value.